Category: Education

What do we need to do to fix India’s education problem? Is it even a problem? India has 15 Lakhs schools both Govt and Private put together.

We have 24 crore students enrolled in these schools. That’s roughly 19% of our population! Which means a lot of future human resource in development.

Of this, 15.6 crore (that is 65%) is studying in government schools and remaining 35% in private schools.

Let’s focus on teachers now.

We have total 94 Lakhs teachers for these 24 crore students which makes our teacher to student ratio 1/25 which is NOT bad at all.

(We have more teachers than China if that comparison helps)

Then where is the problem?

The problem is not the number of teachers or for that matter school infrastructure. Indian government has done a fabulous job over last 20 years and created a school in every nook and corner of India with all basic facilities. The school will have all the required artifacts like flash cards, wooden educational toys etc.

How do I know all that? Well, because I taught in three government schools for 5 years from 2010-2015 (of course part time over weekends)

In my opinion our education problem is the quality of delivery. We need to make huge efforts in training our teachers. I am sure we have a lot of very good teachers even in government schools but that percentage may not be enough.

Teaching is one profession which requires special skills and more than skills a strong desire to impart that skill.

Based on my 5 years of interactions with teachers in some government schools, I feel we are missing that big time despite of them earning a decent salary.

Can we train our teachers overnight? We can but it will take another 20 years and still the gap in quality will be huge as private schools are becoming modern everyday.

So what’s the solution?

Digitization of content and remote delivery of teachers training is one solution so that our teachers are better prepared. We should start that on war footing. That’s one..

Two, The quality digital content should also make its way into our physical classrooms and the teacher in the classroom can become more of a coordinator or consultant. (someone who is available to clear doubts).

There are too many Edtech companies are trying exactly that but they are targeting a student population which is already spending 1 Lakh to 7 Lakhs per annum in their respective private schools.

Just think about this, the parents who are spending that much on school but still need to buy an Edtech tablet. What does it tell us? Even teachers in those private schools have gaps which Edtech is claiming to fill. Right?

Then just imagine the gaps in government schools and middle class private schools.

So digitization of education content and digital delivery is the only scalable solution for our education problem if we really want to solve this problem in the next decade.

-Nikesh Jain

Mobile devices have transformed our lives. Starting from messaging and calling now to ordering our food or booking a taxi, or elevating our
communication drastically. The usage of mobile devices is boosting enormously in the world of learning as well.

What is m-learning?

Mobile learning or m-learning allows users to browse and learn at their own pace on their devices as
convenient to them. It empowers their learning, adding value to them. A lot of
organizations are adopting mobile learning to increase knowledge and to engage their employees.

Organizations that were already using e-learning platforms to train their employees are now transitioning
to m-learning for the training and development of their employees. Whether it is professional training,
personal development, or everyday life, modern individuals receive their information through their mobile devices.
Due to the increased importance of mobile phones,
interest is aroused towards implementing m- learning, making it popular in the learning world.

But what is the reason that mobile learning has taken the learning and development industry by storm?
And why is it a great opportunity for every corporate organization?

Let’s dig in.

Learning is Accessible and Flexible

Mobile learning renders accessibility and flexibility to learners. Learners can access the courses anytime
and anywhere, making it possible to learn and train themselves even after or before
office hours at the own comfort level and even from their home. Even while commuting or even during breaks.

One of the major problems with adapting to e-learning was that it had to be taken during office hours,
making the learning a bit difficult because it is a time when employees have various tasks scheduled.
The perfect way to replace that problem lies in the adaption of

m-learning.

Just-In-Time Learning

Technology has made our lives rapid. It has increased our productivity, but it has also transformed our
lives progressively busy, making it possible to complete larger volumes of work and
meeting new tasks and responsibilities. A rapid work life requires a quick learning methodology.

Bing, m-learning!

M-learning is ideal for this speedy life as it provides employees with just-in-time training.
Short learning courses are learning modules that are no longer
than 4-5 minutes can be quickly accessed by the learners to learn or revise the skills while on the job.

Higher Completion Rates

It is high time to sit in front of a screen for long-duration courses. M-learning courses are bite-sized, enabling one to complete courses quickly
and move on to the next. It increases the completion rates as learners are not required to invest a lot of time.

Higher Engagement

Social media platforms engage with short visually appealing information, making us customary to receive knowledge or
information in a brief and more concentrated way. Mobile
learning contents are designed in a visually appealing manner, with engaging interactivities.

Personalized Learning

Personalized learning is another learner-centric approach. M-learning is popular because it has a
learner-centric approach to learning, offering learners freedom and accessibility. It is
suited for providing learning perfectly customized to the learner’s strengths, needs, skills, and interests.

Edurigo provides users with a microlearning and gamification-based learning experience, along with access to content authoring tools and a cloud-based system.

Has our education system failed us?

Indian families spend 25,000 crore every year on private tuitions!! And this does not include tuition money spent on coaching for entrance exams!

1 out of 4 students seeks help outside school. That means 71 million students are taking private tuitions.

Why so many students have to take help beyond their schools? The schools were supposed to teach our kids. Right?

The average school expenses for a child is INR 65,000 to INR 1.25 Lakhs.

In a survey 9 out of 10 parents said it’s very difficult for them to meet their wards school cost.

If we have to take help from private tutors anyways then what’s the point in sending kids to private schools? We can just un-school them and rely totally on private tuitions?

Honestly, I don’t think there is any one issue which led us to this point. There are many issues (most of them are pure social/status) which brought us here.

In this post I will point to only one thing – the quality of teachers in private schools (and in government schools) is one reason which is giving ways to private tuitions.

Teachers training on a massive scale is required to meet today’s demand.

Has our education system failed us?

Learning and education are two different things. One doesn’t need a degree or a certificate to learn. But education
meant a degree or a certificate to be called a legitimate education. Education
provides a degree but it doesn’t guarantee learning. No wonder people are losing

their confidence in engineering degree. The colleges which opened like mushrooms are going empty and closing down.

What happened here? The engineering degree was a well sought certificate till only few years ago. Well, it happened because
that degree didn’t guarantee “learning”. The colleges which got opened were just the business houses which used the money minting
opportunity and started churning out engineers which didn’t learn much in the college. The result – either they didn’t
get a job which would justify the fee paid or their knowledge was not up to the mark for them to fetch a decent job!

A recently published data shows that as of December 2020 (first three quarter of fiscal year) Rs. 8263 crore belonging to more than 3.5 lakhs students that have availed education loan have been classified as non performing asset. Stream wise loan data shows that of the outstanding
loan amount of Rs. 84,965 crore ~40% is contributed by engineering students!!

So is it worth taking huge loans to avail a degree which is not guaranteeing a job? That’s a million dollar question.

For how long industry will look for half baked engineering students? If they have to train people anyways then why not
just hire people with any background and take them through a relevant training?

There are many such examples where degree is losing its sheen. Google has started their own academy where they have got into a pact with some
companies that students who go through their academy will get employed by these companies.

There are other similar schools who are focusing on learning rather than a certificate or a degree.
If this trend continues then sooner than later your degree will become irrelevant!