India is regarded as a humongous laboratory for sociological experiments by many researchers. This is fundamentally because of the large social stratification, contrasting societies and complicated blends within a society itself, which are enough to provide new insights to social enigmas frequently. The disparities in India are so high that it would be hard to believe that the country that hosts 100 billionaires in Forbes lists, also houses the largest fragment of poor and hungry in the global tally. This is the economic scenario, but it is one of the most influential factors affecting other disparities such as education. On the other hand, such complexities are often interrelated augmenting one other.
Educational inequality is the situation or the system in which there exist large disparities in the society on the opportunity and access to education. This is a result of a complicated social structure, which is shaped up by long standing social norms, believe and most importantly, by contrasting economic divisions.
As disparities in India are rooted in diverse fronts apart from economic conditionings, the attempts to unify the populace through education are directed to address various issues. The provision of reservation based on caste is a reflection of these very attempts. Such mechanisms are proved helpful to great extents, but some serious drawbacks are implicated time to time. Educational disparities are gradually changing towards the brighter side. Comparing the India before a couple of decades to that of the nation in 21st century, contrasting progress is observed.
Educational development of the country is a joint effort of government, private players and the Non-governmental entities. Earlier it is pointed out that private entities are fueling inequality in education while contributing to the progress. In contrast to this, Non-governmental organizations are playing a pivotal role. In current times, the contribution of this particular sector is substantial in eradicating educational disparities. A number of social enterprises have come up with excellent innovative measures to provide quality education to the deprived section. The greatest advantage in the methodology is that, these organizations tend to provide quality education comparable to private entities but they are devoid of any requirement of huge money as required in private sectors. These organizations target the deprived section of the society and most of the times, sections that are deprived of minimum privilege of schooling.
NGOs as well as CSR activities carried out by large corporations are huge stimulus in propagating quality education among deprived sections. However, as inequality is prevalent across the country, these initiatives are not adequately distributed. Most activities of NGO are concentrated around villages and areas closer to cities. To make this approach more effective and to spread them across nook and corner of the nation, more social- initiatives must be developed. In addition, the government should stress on NGOs their allied activities for educational equality.
As far as our education system is concerned, what I hate about it is that our education system measures the intelligence of a person by his/her marks. It’s sad to see that Indian education system is not conducive for learning. The moment a child enters a school , that little soul is burdened with the expectations of securing first rank in class. Be it parents or relatives or any close person, everyone is ready to bribe the kid for securing good position in class. Now, don’t get confuse with a rival of rank holders. But just think for a while.By doing so we have programmed the kid that he/she will be appreciated or his/her wishes will be fulfilled only when he/she’ll be at the top.
Congratulations ! you have now succeeded in inculcating the feelings of competition and jealousy in your child at this tender age.
He/she grows up and he/she finds that this is the reality since everyone from his/her neighbours to the guard of his/her colony is just concerned about his/her marks. Nobody focuses on learning the actual concepts behind the stuff. Now his/her only aim is to secure good marks by hook or by crook.
Now you might ask that what is wrong in securing good marks??
Well, there’s nothing wrong in securing good marks. What is actually wrong is losing your creativity, your skills, your individuality by being an active contestant of this never ending race of securing marks.
I have seen top rankers of class with very little or no knowledge of the subjects. They study for just marks and why won’t they do this ,our education system and our society promotes that by making marks as a criteria for securing good job or a place in any good institution.
Most of the good competitive exams now a days are based on just bubbling the correct answer. I’ve never been able to understand how bubbling the right answer puts one person above other.
So much obsession about marks yet Indians haven’t done any major discovery or innovation since ages. Most of the great Mathematicians , Scientists , Psychologists known are not Indians. And the biggest reason for this is that in other countries people are not so obsessed about marks , they promote learning and understanding. They focus on contribution instead of competition. They promote overall development rather than just academic development.
We are also well aware of the fact that we are in the pathetic state of ‘teaching’. Teachers just simply expect you to mug up everything and you are not allowed to question that teacher (even if you feel that he is completely wrong on his part).
We just need to wake up and understand how we are deteriorating the future of our country by not doing anything and thinking if we don’t do anything some one else will.
It is the education that mold us, our personality and who we become. So, at the end it all comes down to education.
Everything that is wrong right now with our country be it unemployment, inequality, corruption, violence, crimes, exploitation of women, outburst of population, need for a cleanliness drive, road accidents and everything you can think of is THE EPITOME OF FAILURE THAT OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM IS.
And if we do nothing this list is going to expand and ultimately be the downfall.