There was a time when Indians embraced education, formal or informal, as a method of realizing human values already in them. Even to nourish our inquisitive mind, we used to visit the elders or knowledgeable personalities to acquire more knowledge in those days. The elders used to narrate how the universe and human came into being. We paid obeisance to them for their vast knowledge!! But with the gradual increase in population, change in perception about life, liberalization of Indian economy in recent past, the education has become a way of life to bring in socio-economic transformation in society.
Our policy makers in some extent have succeeded to go with the times and expand its tentacles’ to spread the light of education in remote and inaccessible pockets of the country. Obviously, we can now feel proud as skill and talents of our students get recognition globally. Of course, thousands of students of our country go abroad in search of knowledge and skill and similarly thousands of students from abroad throng India for the same.
Following the recommendation of the National Knowledge Commission, the Govt has already taken major steps which include the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education, English language teaching, constitution of three tier structures for vocational education and training under the National Skill Development Mission (NSDM) and launching of National Mission on Education through information and communication Technology (ICT). Under this Mission 20,000 institutions of Higher Education and nearly 10,000 University Departments will be provided connectivity.
Despite all these reformative approaches to bring about a paradigm shift in our education system to harness our greatest asset – human resources, the picture of rural areas of North East, more particularly in Arunachal Pradesh is not at all encouraging.
Doubt is always there whether the new approaches for inclusive growth and expansion of education will bring about a major change in interior areas of this geographically isolated state of Arunachal Pradesh? Will the new approaches strengthen the link between education and employability, particularly for the students of interior places who percolate down in Capital city in search of better way of life?
Will we have a time when the students need not demand a solution to pathetic condition of schools infrastructure and poor ratio of teachers and students in interior areas of the state in their agenda?
No doubt we have education policies which claims to be all inclusive, but important components of policies have vanished in the air on its way to interior places of the state.
It is time policy makers ensure that loopholes are corrected and there is no room for complacency. Only a vibrant inclusive education system can ensure a peace and prosperity and put the country at par with the rest of the world.