India's big education revolution - a dream that might become an eventuality?

"Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence." Hope is something without which a human being cannot sustain. There has to be someone who starts walking along a path with hope - as sufficient people realise the importance of hope and envisage the benediction thereof, the road becomes an actuality. A radical change in the Indian education system - a hope in the hearts of thousands, if not millions of Indians, seems to be coming to fruition. It might be premature to say that things will dramatically change, but I do not think that it is naive to hope for such a transformation, anymore!

Kapil Sibal, the new HRD minister of India, seems to have taken a stand completely contrary to that taken by his predecessor, Mr. Arjun Singh - he seems to actually be interested in the development of the human resources in India... ;) I am impressed by the reforms Mr. Sibal seems to be proposing in this regard, as seen in one of his interviews. For starters, Mr. Sibal says that the tremendous pressure on the children as well as the parents due to the huge number of exams that the kids have to take up could be reduced - class 10 board exams can be scrapped when the students are moving to class 11 within the same institution. Overburdening the child with the pressure of board exams traumatises the entire family, which could be avoided by this proposal. The other drastic measure he seems to have introduced is the grading system, instead of marks, for classes 9 and 10, and he wants to extend this system to classes 11 and 12. This is an efficacious, utilitarian system where the child is evaluated not based on a single day of the exam, but over the year. The same system seems to work perfectly well in the US.

The minister also wants to bring about a uniformity of board standards - one exam for all students for class 12. A single exam of the SAT (standardized test for college admissions in the US) format for entry into university, for the entire country and then, the students get to choose the university based on "merit". Though this might be a long term goal, as he elucidated, it still shows the level of proficiency the minister has in this field. This might not just be as chimerical as one might construe, since the system already seems to have been already implemented for entry into all the law schools in India - extending the same to other universities might not be as quixotic or herculean, as one might imagine.

It is important to realise that central to the reform process is school education, so that enough people are thrown up to higher education and hence, move India forward. The government also had a proposal for providing school vouchers for the poor to attend "good" schools. Mr. Sibal feels that this might not be a practical option, since there are very few good quality schools. Unless we expand quality, the education system in India cannot move ahead. The minister also talked about introducing a bill for the right to education, whereby private schools need to "reserve" 25% to poorer students. I hope this refers to the "economically backward" students and not the caste based system. Since this is a very sensitive issue that affects every family in India, a change in the policy framework, with choice and quality as its twin pillars, seems to be the stipulation of the day. The way to move forward is through providing access through expansion, equity through inclusion and quality through excellence.

The other issue I have had with the Indian system of education - the rigidity of the curriculum - seems to have been addressed as well. There is a need to break down the classic division of art, commerce and science, a demand for inter-disciplinary options. A simple example would be of a student pursuing an advanced degree in chemistry wanting to take a few law courses and eventually become an intellectual property litigator for the government or a company. The flexibility of having minors from totally different fields like arts or law or journalism in medicine and engineering, in addition to the majoring field, might open up a plethora of opportunities to the students. Exposure to different fields would certainly help in the overall development of the personality.

With respect to higher education, Mr. Sibal's views were music, or I should say, symphony, to my ears. The minister plans to reduce, and eventually remove, government interference in higher education - the UGC will be a thing of the past. The overall posture of the minister is that there should not be reservation in higher education - "research institutions, centers of national importance, and institutions on niche areas of knowledge", as he put it, and that there is a need for autonomous body for higher education with no external interference. A completely different tune from that of Mr. Arjun Singh, huh? :)

As with any other domain, I believe that privatisation of education would provide the necessary competition and incentive to improve quality. The minister said that he plans to open up India to the world in the sphere of education, just like Dr. Manmohan Singh opened up the Indian economy in the early 1990's. An independent accredited agency of academic experts, away from the dominion of governmental influence, should be made responsible for the establishment of any university. This would allow renowned foreign universities to be able to come to India and provide their high quality education to the Indian students, at a much lower cost as compared to getting the same education in the foreign country. Of course, the logistics of affirmative action and conformance of laws need to be discussed and debated with the foreign institutions, but this measure just opens the field for such a dialogue. Competition among institutions of high repute within India, and top notch universities from all over the world is one of the best things that could happen to the student community in India. The "consumer" benefits!

We seem to have a progressive, pragmatic minister at the helm. I hope he gets to deliver at least 10% of what he wants to. We may not reach the paradise that we might envision, but we can always nurse our hope and support reformist people who could sculpt the future of our country. The idealism of equal opportunity might be an impossibility. But we can still hope... and dream!