Even after more than seven decades of independence, the school education system of India is struggling with its universalization. There have been policy prescriptions mandated from time to time, and the most recent being NEP 2020, but access to good quality education from pre-primary to class 12 for all is still a dream. The factors like geography, socio-economic status, gender, language, etc. are still influencing the national commitment to equitable, inclusive, high-quality education. The evidences of inadequate foundational literacy, numeracy, life skills, employability and life-long learning call for revisiting the access, equity, quality and affordability of school education.
Undoubtedly, the schooling system has expanded significantly, and the Right to Education Act and Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (earlier Sarva Shiksha) are ushering the nation to near universal enrolment in elementary education. A look into the UDISE+ statistics of 2024-25 shows the enrolment of 24.69 crore students in 14.71 lakh schools managed by 1.01 crore teachers. The gross enrolment ratio at middle level is 90.3%, and at the secondary level it is 68.5%, with dropout rates of 2.3% in preparatory and 8.2% in secondary. Also, it is pertinent to observe that out of the total schools, there are 68.86% government schools, 23.08% private schools, and 7.99% are aided and other schools. While there are 49.24% students in government schools, 38.82% in private schools, and 11.94% in aided and other schools. The precarious situation is addressed in NEP 2020, which calls for bringing drop out children back to education at the earliest and stopping dropout in future. There is a target of 100 % gross enrolment ratio in preschool to secondary level by 2030 and a mandate for ensuring universal access and opportunity to all children to obtain quality holistic education, including vocational education from pre-school to class 12.
Without prejudice to anyone, the prevailing school education is unable to provide near similar competency levels to students from government schools, private schools, convent schools, boarding schools, etc. from rural, semi-urban, urban, metropolitan locations. A deep dive into realities shows distinct types of schools, like government schools and private schools, have stark differences in enablers like schooling processes, human resource, infrastructure, ambience, cost, geographical location, etc. produce un-equals from school level itself. As a result, barring exceptions, their students cannot be compared in terms of their holistic preparedness for the future; however, their mark sheets have comparable marks/grades.
Therefore, for ensuring good quality education for all, it is urgent to ask a basic question as to what every child should know and be able to do after every class/grade, for which there is no answer. Because, yet there is no common standard/benchmark across the school boards which defines the minimum competencies to be possessed by a child after each class/grade, irrespective of the school boards having diversity in terms of curricula, textbooks, assessment practices, etc. These learning gaps are strongly felt at the time of students’ transition from school to higher education, and the deficiencies do not allow for requisite competency attainment in higher education as well.
The answer to this problem does not lie in one nation-one school board, as this is neither practical nor does it protect the nation’s privileges of linguistic diversity, cultural variations, and constitutional federalism. Instead, there is a critical need to benchmark threshold universal learning for arriving at comparable schooling across the country. This can be achieved by setting up national learning standards and assessing each child in respect to them. This can be speedily done by expanding the existing role of the national assessment regulator – PARAKH (Performance Assessment, Review, and Analysis of Knowledge for Holistic Development), which prescribes the uniform standards for student evaluation centred around competency-based learning and 360-degree holistic progress cards.
Also, looking around shows that the nations with good school education have not only been continuously refining curriculum and assessment tools but also laid down norms like Singapore prescribes national learning expectations, Finland mandates schools to ensure that their students meet common national objectives, Estonia, with the highest performing education system of the world, offers flexibility with nationally benchmarked competencies, etc.
Without sacrificing educational diversity, the existing standards may be tweaked to,
- define class/grade wise competency standards from preschool to class 12 and assess learning level of each student class wise
- align teacher education, board examinations, admission tests with standards,
- benchmark all school boards while permitting variations in textbooks, curricula, etc.
- regularly conduct national assessment based on sampling to compare learning across the boards and states
- devise a mechanism to improve the system from core instead of ranking schools and children
- level the cost of education across schools and make public investment accountable
Alongside, the objective should be universal school education and universal education opportunity and not the universal schooling for realizing that,
- Every child attains nearly equal competencies in literacy, numeracy, STEM / subject domain of interest, moral and constitutional values, and digital literacy.
- Students in rural government schools are not disadvantaged compared with those in elite private schools
- Socio-economic factors should not predominate merit and intellectual abilities
- There is seamless mobility across states without biases towards any board / school
- School qualifications and board examination marks become credible and are accepted as such to determine inter-se merit and the multiple entrance tests are written off.
It goes without saying that any such initiative should not interfere in state’s role in education to strengthen federalism, while reiterating the role of Union to ensure constitutional promises made in Articles 21A – right to education, Article 45 – early childhood care and education, Article 46 – educational advancement of weaker sections of society, and UN Sustainable Development Goals for universal school education and every child receiving the education that meets nationally prescribed standards. In a way, the states should continue deciding languages, history and cultural content, pedagogical innovations, etc.
India often boasts of the demographic dividend in respect to the number of young people, but the actual advantage lies in young people with good knowledge, analytical thinking, digital abilities, communication skills, the ability of life-long learning, and adaptability to changes. The key lies in levelling up and strengthening the quality of school education irrespective of school, geographic location, and school board, so as to enable transition of students with having strong conceptual foundations and requisite learning levels into the higher education system. Let us hope schools across the nation roll out students with nearly equal competencies for realising the dream of becoming developed nation by 2047. The objective should be universal school education and universal education opportunity and not the universal schooling.
Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the author’s own.
