An Analysis Education Standards In The Country

A (Programme for International Student Assessment), commonly abbreviated as PISA was conducted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to evaluate 15 year old school students in its member nations. 

The test was taken to evaluate their performances in varied modules of mathematics, science and reading in the year 2009. India stood at 73 position out of a total of 74 nations that were assessed during the test. The last position was bagged by Kyrgystan. 

Amidst the present scenario whereby India strives to compete with China, it is dismal to note that the China bagged the first position in the  2009 PISA rankings. The representative state was chosen as Shanghai and interestingly it set new standards of academic excellence for students worldwide. Contrary to this, India backed out of 2012 PISA test asserting that the testing modules are not compatible to what our students are being delivered in at schools. 

Alva Laments Education Standard In The State

The governor of Rajasthan, Margret Alva threw light on the education standards in the state at the state-level Teachers’ Day function held at Birla Auditorium. Alva commented that although progress has been underway in education sector yet the situation is worrisome and not up to the mark. 

She made the claims on the basis of the findings of an NGO called Pratham. She asserted that more than half percent of the schools in the state lack the RTE Act recommended student- teacher ratio. She added, “The state with over four lakh school teachers in about 1.20 lakh schools is reportedly short of 70,000 teachers. 

As many as 8,000 schools have no drinking water while about 15,000 schools do not have toilet facilities.” Carrying forward the point, she added that there are schools with single teacher heading the task while many lack basic infrastructure of building and play grounds.

An Analysis Of The State Of Education In The Country

The status of education report, 2012 was released by a NGO on the eve of teacher’s day on Thursday. The facts brought out by the report are however disheartening as it depicts a considerable 53% of class-5 students unable to read a class-2 text aptly. Furthermore, it shows that 47% of class 5 kids are not able to solve basic 2 digit algebraic subtractions. 

The irony of the situation, however is that the passing year of 2012 was heralded as the mathematics year in the country. It is contemptuous to note that India, despite having the largest public funded education system in the world, has a disappointing figure of 75% trained teaching staff. 

These numbers witnessed a drastic fall from 2008. The study also throws up that inefficient staff is responsible for the declining education standards. A planning commission report of the 12th five year plan said,” There are 8.1 lakh untrained teachers in the country, with four states -- Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and West Bengal -- accounting for 72% of them.”

American Varsities To Guide Students At Local Fair In India

Good news has lined up for higher education aspirants as representatives across 26 American varsities have collaborated with the Institute of International Education and United States-India Educational Foundation (USIEF) for hosting an education fair. 

The fair will be held at the Oberoi Grand Hotel on Sunday. The fair will commence from 2 pm and wrap up at around 6 in the eve. The detailed information may however be availed on its website as regard its program-mes for graduate, post graduate and doctoral levels. 

The fair will be of immense importance to the students as they can obtain fruitful information as regard their entrance tests and scholarship program-mes for underprivileged students. 

In addition, the fair will also host discussions whereby consular officer of the US consulate will gave clarifications and guidelines on the admission procedure and ways to apply for visa. The fair has got unpaid entry and interested students can register online through the link, http://bit.ly/usief-iie-Ed USA or at the spot at venue itself.

Academics suffer loss forthwith the overburdened teachers

Gone are those times when Indian education was applauded all over the world for its high quality teaching faculty and value based education. Acharya and gurus resided at secluded places to increase their productivity and instill morale values in their pupils to make them all round performers. That time was aptly heralded as the golden era of education in the country. 

However, changing times has brought phenomenal changes in the standard of education. Teachers, all over the world are being overloaded with household responsibilities and social commitments. Not only this, the school work structure is also largely non-academic and irrelevant, greatly affecting the quality of education. 

Among others, teachers are entitled to the work of census, election, aadhar card registration for a prolonged span. Thus, teachers feel burdened and less interested in the more relevant teaching process. It directly affects the quality of efficient and result oriented learning.

Skorton Calls Indian Institutes World Class in Quality Education

The president of Cornell University, David J Skorton has expressed his views over the dwindling Indian students in foreign US universities. He compared the dropout rates with brain circulation in lieu of an intense reverse brain drain. "I call it as a brain circulation and in the past it was going in one direction. We see discoveries are coming in the field of medicine, agriculture, technology from places that we did not think of in the past.

India has some of the finest and world class institutions such as IITs and Indian Institute of Science and there is no dearth of world-class quality education there," quoted David J Skorton, president of Cornell University, in dialogue with PTI held at Cornell Club in the magnificent Islands of Manhattan. During the meeting, Skorton attributed the change to the revolutionary research and technological advancements in the education sector of India. 

Skorton is the president of coveted Cornell University which is a private ivy cheque university located in Ithaca, New York, USA. The university was remarked to be the “first American university” by educational historian, Fredeick Rudolph. 

According to a survey conducted in 1970’s, as large as 100,000 students have been enrolled at American universities and three fourth ratio of elite Indian IITians migrated to US for higher education programmes. Unfortunately, the figures dipped to an all time low of 5% in the present scenario. 

If sources are to be believed, 1,03,895 applications were received for in the year 2010 and the number declined to 1,00,270 during 2011-12. Educationists cited visa restrictions, economic slowdown as the key determinants behind the havemanating attrition rates. 

Schools to Introduce Tablets to Improve Learning

In a latest trend, students across Delhi are being asked to purchase tablets at subsidized prices with aim to revolutionize education in schools. A concerned parent, Richard Mahapatra, told that during parent teacher interactions, authorities persuaded them to buy tablets of leading IT company viz, HCL for about 6000 rupees. 

The situation is awkward for the middle class families and those belonging to lower middle class as they see the initiative as extra burden on their preoccupied shoulders. Voicing their concerns, the journalist reported,” I don’t discount that we are living in a different age. 

But first I want to know how helpful is it as an educational tool.”  The initiative has been taken ahead of the advancements encompassing state-of the-art technology promoting education accessibility to all. The Indian govt is seeing the move as violation to the right of education due to the costs involved.