Every year millions of students across the country pass the 10th and 12th exams. Their next priority is to enroll in a good college and for that they need to score good percentage. On one side our government coins the slogan of ‘Sab padhe..Sab badhe’ or ‘shiksha par sabka adhikar hai’ but on the other hand today’s education policy is flawed. A student who has scored 90 per cent marks is not confident whether he may get admission in a reputed college or not. All good educational institutions in the country demand that they accept only skilled students scoring better percentage. If a student scoring 90 percent is finding it difficult to get admission then imagine the plight of children scoring 60-to 70 per cent. Is there lack of good institutions for them? Remember, children scoring 50 to 70 per cent or less might hail from poor family background who might never have seen the face of any private English school till 12th standard. And we are all aware of the fact about the condition of government schools today.
It is noteworthy that boards like CBSE or other private educational institutes grant more marks to their students as compared to the state-level boards. Students studying from CBSE or ICSE affiliated institutions easily score 90 to 95 per cent while their counterparts from state level boards are unable to match them. Can’t these students improve their performance? Whether the students themselves are responsible for this, or the teachers who draw hefty salary and doesn’t give proper attention towards them, or is the flaw of entire education system? Even though the government talks about ‘Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan’, but the reality is something else on the ground.
The medium of instruction of government run school is vernacular whereas most private schools which are accredited by central level boards like CBSE or ICSE follow English as a medium of instruction. A question which arises here is if English is the basis of education and the student’s future depends on that then why government schools are following vernacular language as medium of instruction? Why books are published in languages like Hindi, Bengali and Marathi etc in most of the states? Is the government not messing up with students’ future? I am not against Hindi or any other Indian languages, but I want to ask why the burden of saving or grooming these languages should be put only on the students of government schools.
Students who possess good command over English language get selected for civic services or secure employment in private and government sector. Most good books are also available in English. Now think, children who have not read a book of these topics up to 10th and 12th standard and if they want to pursue higher education in engineering or medical stream then will it be easy for them to adapt? Probably not. Every year thousands of children are unable to get admission in their preferred colleges because on one hand our education is now based only on numbers. After all why such colleges continue to function, where quality education is not provided? Why can’t the government upgrade the infrastructure of these colleges or do they lack political will to do so?
Vivekanand V. Vimarya
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
