2010: More teachers, more literacy and fewer tests

Prof. Yashpal
Former chairman, UGC
These are hopeful times. There needs to be a system wherein a school is made available to every child, no matter what background s/he comes from. We should also make sure that the schools are in the vicinity of the child’s residence since too much travelling distance can reduce our chances of bringing these children to schools. Unless we are able to provide adequate educational facilities for all we will never be able to break the cycle of poverty in this country.
Prof. G.K. Chadha
Former vice-chancellor, JNU

The rate of enrolment in higher education should be increased from 12.4 per cent at present to around 30 per cent by 2020 in the country along with universalisation of secondary education. After making elementary education a fundamental right, our next aim should be to make secondary education a right of every child in the country within the next five years. If the target is achieved, there will be about 40 million additional students in the higher education sector. Only this will help India achieve the status of a knowledge economy.

P.V. Indiresan
Former director, IIT-Chennai
We need to make the higher education system more independent and free from political interference. The Central government has massively increased the number of IITs, IIMs and introduced “world class” universities, but I am afraid these are all political gimmicks and not well thought-out policies. The manner in which these institutions have been introduced is authoritative in the extreme, as most of these are still not operating out of their own campuses. The government needs to provide more autonomy to our universities.

J.S. Rajput
Former director, NCERT
The biggest change that is needed in the upcoming year is to improve the elementary system of education, which seems to have lost its credibility. The government needs to take immediate steps to expand government schools. Though it has introduced policies like the public-private partnership (PPP), to involve the private sector we need to rethink this. Unless we are able to expand the credibility of government schools, we will never be able to serve the masses of our country. We have the infrastructure; only the policies need to be implemented properly.

Prof. Amarjyoti Choudhury
Professor, Central University of Tezpur
Quality infrastructure must be ensured in at least one college in every constituent assembly, every six months and in one university per state every year. We should introduce courses in geography, history and culture of the region and environment in all schools. All vacancies of teachers from primary to university level should fill up.

Dr Achyuta Samanta Founder KIIT University, Odisha
One nation, one board: There should be one single national-level board for school-leaving examinations. This will bring much-needed uniformity in the system. More emphasis needs to be placed on vocational education. There is also a need for more stringent quality audit, especially for institutions imparting professional education. Institutions of higher learning need to establish fruitful industry interface. This will make the passing out graduates “job ready”. There are far more entrance tests than we need, we need to cut down on that.

Prof. Anil Sadgopal
Former professor, DU
We should stop selling education through the PPP model. Under the garb of PPP initiatives, we are selling the infrastructure that has been created with immense difficulty over several years. The aim here is to see if the private sector will be willing to help without enough profit motivation. The PPP model can’t work as has been proved by the inability of the government in implementing the mandatory seats for the economically weaker sections in schools. We should just try and make good quality education a fundamental right for all.

Prof. Nishi Pandey
Professor-Director,
UGC-Academic Staff College,
University of Lucknow
The concept of community colleges should be introduced in India. A student after Class 12 must go through community college to prepare for university. Universities should confine themselves to post-graduate teaching and research. There should be greater transparency in appointing vice-chancellors — maybe through a collegiums model.

Dr A.K.P. Yadav
Chairman, Bihar School
Examination Board
Schools in villages must be upgraded with basic infrastructure and an atmosphere conducive for effective learning. More funds must be used to prevent government schools from getting completely overshadowed by the mushrooming private schools. Greater interaction between the teaching community and education bureaucracy has to be encouraged in a more open fashion to discuss out-of-the-box methods to improve the standard of schools. English language learning must be promoted strongly in all government schools, especially in the rural areas. Examinations should be formulated to assess the students’ levels of comprehension and not merely their ability to reproduce their learning in writing.

Dr Amrik Singh
Former chairman, UGC
There should be attempts to make teachers more skilled and technically sound, keeping pace with modern teaching methods. There are shortcomings at all levels of educational — elementary, secondary, higher and technical education. As per estimates, India is short of nearly nine lakh teachers. There is an urgent need to improve the teacher-student ratio in schools, colleges and higher education. We need to make the teaching profession more lucrative to attract the youth. Unless we are able to train enough teachers, we won’t be a developed nation.

Prof. Suranjan Das
Vice-chancellor, Calcutta University
There should be more scope for interaction with the national and international universities to upgrade our higher education system. It is important to encourage advanced inter-disciplinary courses at higher education level so as to encourage students in various research activities. Low enrollment ratio among girls should be addressed by a special policy. New central universities must come up in educationally backward regions. Government should consider improving salaries of teachers.

— As told to Nitin Mahajan, Preeti Karmyogi,
Akshay Kumar Sahoo, Anand S.T. Das, Manoj Anand, Tanya Bagchi, Amita Verma