Essay

SHOULD EDUCATION BE NATIONALISED

The greatest knowledge and the greatest riches man can possess are by
inheritance.... But the full soul rich with the inheritance of the past, the widening
gains of the present, and the large potentiality of the future, can come only by a
system of National Education Sri Aurobindo

Education- a fundamental right of every childreads our constitution, reminding

us about our contemporary system of education- its polarised state and steps
that must follow, for a sustainable future of our country. Because more and more
people view education as a key factor in the development of economy and
society, the reform of education itself is becoming the focus for more and more
people. The importance of education can be derived from the role it has played,
starting from the ancient proto-languages to the modern Indian languages, in
shaping our nation. It has been proved that education is very closely related to
the public life of the nation. Education builds the man so it builds the nation.
Today we claim to be the biggest human resources supplier for the world, but are
we concerned; what quality of human capital we are building and for whose
needs?

It is true that the educational system in India has faced a basic dilemma ever
since its introduction by the British. The essence of this problem was summed up
by Mahatma Gandhi in his historic statement at Chatham House, London; in
1931- The British administrators, when they came to India, instead of taking
hold of things as they were, began to root them out.and the schools established
after the European pattern were too expensive to fulfil a programme of
compulsory primary education of these inside of a century. This very poor country
of mine is ill able to sustain such an expensive method of education.

If we peep into the progress in the post-Independence Era, the subject of

education was put in the state list keeping in view the diversity and cultural
diversity & ethnic differences in the different states of India. In fact, whatever
system of education existed before independence was simply distributed to the
Union, State and the local administrative units with some changes. It was thought
that the respective state government will be able to monitor process of education
at micro level and provide quality education and thus it was put in the State list.
In fact, the entire system of education was based on the mutual cooperation of
the 3 units, but practically it is absent. Now almost sixty year down the line the
question arises, whether we have achieved the goal we set for ourselves on the
subject of education?

One may say we had few. Yes, we had. M. S. Swaminathan who made India self-
reliant in food grains, Dhiru Bhai Ambani who proved a common man can become
a billionaire, Dr. Varghese Kurien who is the father of Amul milk movement, Dr. A.
P. J. Abdul Kalam who dared to build missiles for India. Such people though in
small numbers, were always there. But can we consider them as the products of
this education system? This system did not teach them how to become
innovators or entrepreneurs. Had it done so, there would have been millions in
numbers.

Contemporary Situation

Education System in India today went through a lot of changes before it emerged
in its present form. Today our education system is governed by number of policies
and schemes considering that Successful population policy is directly linked to
successful education policy. Today we are trying to correlate raising literacy
rates and school enrolment rates with the delayed onset of marriage and child
birth, improved mortality for both mothers and children, and reduction in family
size. Yes it is indeed true that successful education policy forms the bedrock of all
fields of national development- political, economic, technical, scientific, social,
and environmental. Recently India became one of 135 countries to make
education a fundamental right of every child when the act came into force on 1 st
April 2010, thus strengthening the above cause. But the quality of education
provided by the government system remains in question, as the Union
government is mainly concerned with financial help and specific education.

While in India, the number count of the implemented policies is rising, it suffers
from shortages of teachers and infrastructural. There are also frequent
allegations of government schools being riddled with absenteeism and
mismanagement and appointments are based on political convenience. Despite
the charm of free lunch-food in the government schools, many parents send their
children to private schools as children attending the private schools are seen to
be at an advantage. But a recent findings of a Quality Education Study' (QES) by
Wipro and Educational Initiatives (EI) shows that even the country's top schools
exhibit signs of rote learning. And in their formative years, children in primary
and upper primary classes show lower sensitivity and demonstrate lack of
progressive thought on issues related to gender equality, acceptance of
diversity and in civic responsibilities.

Should Education Be Nationalised

Though we empowered the state government to handle the issue of education

during the initial days of the post- Independence era, their lack of imagination
and innovative ideas has turned Indian Education system into an inferior quality
school education system (considering most of the cases); where there is
discrimination between childrens whose parents are rich and childrens whose
parents are poor, children who resides in the rural area and those who lives in
metros. And this gap is widening with every passing day. It is the right time to
nationalize the education system and make it uniform throughout the country.
The Right to Education Bill is one such step, although a small initiative, to provide
access as well as quality education to all children irrespective of caste and class.

The ideology of Nationalisation is given by Communist or Socialist philosophy.

According to it, Nationalisation of education of education is the most powerful
means of providing equality of educational opportunities. It removes bad
practices and mismanagement in the field of education. As our nation is a
Socialistic in nature, the above philosophy can be engraved in our system of
education. The advantages of following a nationalised system of education can
be as discussed below:

It will help in making performance comparable across classes and schools

throughout India. It makes it easier to tell whether a given students poor
performance is an exception within a class or whether the whole class is doing
poorly relative to the country as a whole. In other words, centralized exams
make it obvious whether it is the student or the teacher who is to blame.
It also makes the whole system transparent: parents can assess the
performance of children, teachers, and schools; heads of schools can assess
the performance of teachers; and the government and administration can
assess the performance of different schools.
Also, nationalisation of text books can help in achieving national integration
and in generating a sense of international goodwill. It will affect the uniformity
in the standard of textbooks which is lacking in the present system where we
come across lots of study materials that may not have the threshold standards
but are published for the sole aim of earning money. The government can also
provide textbooks, free of charge, to poor and deserving students if the
system is nationalised.
It will also reduce the regional disparity and thus will create a common
platform for the launch of ones career. For example, it will be easier for the
companies and higher educational institutions to choose the students based
on a common performance indicator.
Giving schools the power to set their own budgets, performance goals, and
standards of what to teach will have an adverse impact on student
achievement. Such powers are probably best left to central authorities when
the whole system is nationalised.

Some of the present day examples supporting the above views are:
The central universities administered by the Centre are better than others in
organisation and standard of education.
All India institutions and Research facilities by the centre like IITs, IISc, IIMs,
etc. are making important contributions in the field of education, environment,
etc.
The state governments and other local administrative councils depend more
and more on the suggestions and assistance by the centre.

Yes, it is true that Rome was not built in a day. Sudden changes may not be
acceptable to the people but, slowly injecting the changes with positive outcome
will gather more support. For example, showing inclination towards
nationalisation, the Kothari Commission (1964-66) has suggested opt for a
Common School System and to establish advisory committees and boards at the
central level. Governments need social programs to create equality and freedom.
Though Government has set certain standards of qualification of teachers and
implemented the Mid-Day Meal scheme, etc. for encouraging primary education,
this should only be a beginning in the direction of more nationalized policies and
not be an isolated act.

Thus, centralisation is necessary for better and satisfactory organisation, prompt

administration and coordination in the educational sphere. Even the father of
neoliberalism, Milton Friedman, said, Education is a simple case The public
purpose is to provide education If you subsidize the student you will have
competition. The student could choose the school he attends and that would
force schools to improve and to meet the demands of their students.

Name: Eswar Prasad Choudhury