Education has perception issues

I have been thinking a lot during this weekend on why education system in India is the way it is. At some point, I thought I got an answer in: education should be affordable to everyone irrespective of their status quo. But that is already happening in India. The Government of India already provides free primary education in all states and yet many people either don’t want to attend schools or don’t want to send their kids to study.

After discussing it with couple of people and reading hundreds of smart answers on Quora – it’s clear that the problem that education faces is perception.

For years, education has been a shortcut to get out of poverty quickly and and with guarantee, helping the middle class population to rise. This is where the perception that education will raise your income and your social status in return, comes from.

This worked very well for our parents, while it didn’t change a thing for others. For whom it didn’t change anything, hand down the same learnings to their kids. While our parents handed down the same to use, that go to school then college and earn lots of money. Be secure.

This needs to change. The perception that education is the ticket to make lots of money. Unless it changes, it will be very difficult for India as a country to rise.

And how would this work? The first step is to get everyone to get enrolled in school. India being a cost sensitive country (no doubt it is), education on primary level at least needs to be free or cheap that everyone can afford. Our government is already doing the first step. 

Once everyone at least gets basic level of education, education will no longer be a ticket to getting out of poverty and start becoming about learning. Remember, we are at least 40-60 years behind the countries in the west. 

The only problem is that it will take a lot of time, at least 5-6 generations, to come true and as a country where horrific events take place everyday, that’s too long before the country burns itself. 

Disclaimer: I work for ClassMatrix.com, where we help institutes to focus on learning outcome.