The crisis in Indian education and skills is real and deep

We are squandering our demographic dividend. The window will close soon, and we need to act with urgency and great resolve

The nation is transfixed by the Gen-Z protests in Delhi. What started off as anger against the NEET examination question paper leak has snowballed into youth protest at growing white-collar unemployment and unfulfilled expectations. The union government assumed responsibility for a nationwide entrance test for admissions to medical colleges on the Supreme Court’s directive in 2016. The paper leak has only provided the spark for mobilisation of youth. The underlying crisis is real and complex.

First, much of our education, both at school and college levels, has collapsed. About 80% of the kids who pass out of schools, for no fault of theirs, have no real foundation and are products of rote learning and mass copying. Second, poor evaluation systems necessitated competitive entrance tests for highly sought-after STEM courses. Third, in many cases, the states could not do a credible job of testing, and standards of the state board level vary widely, necessitating a uniform nationwide test for standardisation and fair assessment.

Fourth, while medical colleges have mushroomed, only a select few are capable of imparting a reasonable quality of training to young medicos. Therefore, while 136,000 seats are available in medical colleges, there is a scramble for higher ranks to get admission to some of the better colleges. Fifth, in order to meet the demand for preparing kids for competitive medical entrance tests, many coaching centres mushroomed. Given the competition and weak school foundations, young students are subjected to intense pressure during two years of coaching-cum-study.

In this high-pressure atmosphere, leakage of examination papers is a devastating blow for many youngsters at a tender age and parents who sacrifice a great deal to give their children a head start. Given this situation, it is no surprise that NEET paper leakage led to such consternation and unrest.

The govt could have assuaged the pain and disappointment by empathy, strong communication, and sensitive political responses in time. Instead, it was taken as just another issue and was addressed as a managerial and administrative problem, not a potential spark for mass mobilisation. The failure of our political system obsessed with power games and the collapse of reasoned public debate in state legislatures and Parliament did not provide space for systemic correctives or public engagement. The result is predictable. 

While the immediate political ramifications are riveting in a society obsessed with a quest for power, we need to go beyond the spark and examine the powder keg that lends itself to easy combustion. There is a deeper crisis afflicting our education-skills-jobs cycle. Even those who are joining prestigious courses are not equipped with skills, and many of them are unemployable or have to invest several years more to be able to add value to the economy.

Of the 13.5 lakh engineering graduates, it is estimated that only about 15-20% have even minimal employable skills. For no fault of theirs, most of the youngsters come out of college after years of effort with a degree which has no value. Even medical graduates get inadequate training, and the post-graduate pipeline is narrow and gruelling. Even after another entrance test and post-graduate training, many doctors need years of apprenticeship with reputed clinicians to acquire the skills and confidence needed to practise medicine.

If the highly valued STEM courses are in such a sorry state, we can only imagine the plight of the nearly 90 lakh university undergraduate students admitted every year in other courses. All over the world, the job market is changing so dramatically that university degrees are fast losing relevance. With our sub-standard education outcomes, the situation is infinitely worse.

Any modern economy requires a limited number of highly qualified technocrats and a large number of skilled workers. We have an inverted pyramid in India. Only 50% of ITI seats are filled in India. Fewer youngsters join ITI (about 13.20 lakh) and fewer still polytechnic diploma courses (about 6.4 lakh) compared to 13.54 lakh engineering admissions.

And in all these courses, most students only get certificates and degrees without real skills and productivity. China trains 16.62 lakh engineers very well every year—they are real technocrats and engineers with skills; and 56.40 lakh youngsters are imparted vocational education with real skill. And the school education foundations are excellent in China.

We expanded access to schools and colleges, but the quality, in most part, except in a few elite institutions, is abysmal. In all this, students and parents from middle class and poor families are the victims.  We need to radically transform our education and skill development if Gen Z has to have a real opportunity in wealth creation. We need to do a lot more to create jobs in the formal sector, but that is a separate discussion.

The crisis in education is known to every keen observer. We are squandering our demographic dividend. The window will close soon, and we need to act with urgency and great resolve. This is one issue that needs broad political consensus because the stakes are too high to play partisan politics. And most of the action is in states, because most education is controlled by states.

We all—those in politics, administration, civil society, media, and academics—need to come together with a constructive and creative response to this crisis. The time for tired cliches and business as usual is over. If we fail to rise to the challenge, the crisis may overwhelm our politics, economy, and society and undermine our future.

JAYAPRAKASH NARAYAN