FICCI Arise Analyses Indian School Education after 71 years of Independence

With India completing 70 years of Independence, FICCI Arise a collegium of members representing various facets of the education ecosystem analyses the progress our country has made in the school education system.

While India has made significant strides in providing education to its citizens, which is evident from the considerable rise in our literacy rate that has increased from 12 percent to 75 percent, there is a growing need for the Government to increase its education spends. India’s per capita (PPP basis) spend on education is around Rs 32,500, which is about 4 times less than the average per capita spend of upper middle-income countries. Countries like Finland, Singapore and US are making huge investments in R&D and Innovation and leading the global primary and secondary education.

Prabhat Jain, Chairman, FICCI Arise says, “The Education system of a nation plays most vital role in nation building, not just for current generation but generations to come. India of 21st century is young, ambitious, aspirational and eager to bridge the gap with developed economies. It is poised to be a global power in this century and in order to achieve this dream, it is necessary that the academic ecosystem facilitates quality education”.

In last few decades ‘need for imparting quality education; has rapidly changed into ‘demand for quality education’. This demand has led to more and more students opting for self-financed institutions. Today over 43 percent of school students are enrolled in self-financed independent educational institutions.

There is a strong need to uplift our education system which is embedded in mindless learning to a place that fosters creativity, analytical thinking, problem solving in learners, our system requires rethinking the traditional education model and adopting cutting edge teaching practices.

There is a need to re-imagine the existing heavily regulated and restrictive system to one that provides an enabling and facilitative policy framework that not only incentivizes and promotes good performers and challenges low performers which can promote the highest standards of governance and transparency based on principles of self-regulation.