essay on teaching methods in india

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Teaching with modern and traditional methods

When we talk about teaching methods then our society divides into three groups; one group favours the traditional teaching methods, second group favours modern teaching methods and third group is the one who supports the combination of both for effective teaching. In this article I will explain that what are the pros and cons of each teaching method and how we can integrate both traditional and modern teaching methods for effective teaching?

• Traditional teaching method is cheaper than the modern teaching methods which make it more suitable in the schools of rural areas.
• Some subjects like mathematics or chemistry are best taught on a blackboard as there is a need of explaining the concept at each every step.
• There is more interaction between the teacher and student in traditional teaching methods as compared to the modern teaching methods. We can also say that in traditional teaching there is more discipline in the class.
• In traditional teaching methods teacher does not require any special technical knowledge and can focus more on his subject for imparting the best knowledge to the students.
• traditional teaching methods don't put any strain on the eyes of students whereas modern teaching methods can adversely affect the eyes of the students.

Modern teaching methods-

• Use of digital games in the classroom
• Use of special websites or blogs for teaching in the classrooms
• Use of microphones for delivering the lecture in the classroom

Merits of modern teaching methods-

• Modern teaching methods create more interest among the students with the help of interesting animations and videos.
• Research has shown that use of visual media for teaching helps the students to understand the subject better and also helps students to memorise the concept for longer time.
• With the help of modern teaching methods teacher can cover more syllabus in lesser time as they don't have to waste their time in writing on the blackboard.
• Videos and animations used in the modern teaching methods are more explanatory than the traditional blackboard methods.

Integration of modern and traditional teaching methods for effective teaching-

• Blackboard and LCD projectors can be used simultaneously in a classroom; for teaching complex mathematical equations teacher can use blackboard while theoretical subjects can be taught on a LCD projector with the help of slides.
• Practical subjects of basic sciences and engineering can also be taught best with the help of combination of both traditional and modern teaching methods. Teacher can explain the theory on a blackboard and for better understanding of the procedure of the experiment videos or animations can be used.
• There is also another aspect through which we can combine both traditional and modern teaching methods for better teaching. Teachers can teach the subject first through traditional methods and then can take the help of modern teaching methods for revising the subject.

Conclusion-

Interesting and useful article. The whole point of this article is to discuss which is better system and it is indeed useful to discuss about this. So you could have avoided the sentence that there is no point in discussing.

In the traditional method of teaching, there is no need of memorizing the subject but he understands well step by step. Writing freely on the blackboard will imprint in the student's even when an error is made and is subsequently corrected. But the modern method of teaching is like flashlight teaching. Many things on the subject will only temporarily imprint in the minds of learners. If we look at the past history, many inventions were made through the traditional method of teaching. In my view, traditional method of teaching is superior.

I feel modern teaching methodology is very simplified and partly misunderstood in this article. The main difference between “traditional" and “modern" teaching methodology is the shifting of the focus from teachers to students, whereby the student is no longer “an empty vessel" needing to be filled with knowledge by the teacher.

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Revue internationale d’éducation de Sèvres

Accueil Publications hors numéro Colloques 2014 ATELIER 2 : SAVOIRS, CURRICULA ET... Knowledge, curricula, and teachin...

Knowledge, curricula, and teaching methods: the case of India

Entrées d’index, mots-clés : , keywords: , géographique : , palabras claves: , texte intégral.

1 In this short note I have developed the outline of what I regard as the major phases in India’s curriculum and teaching, from the pre-independence period to the present day. It is a quick sketch of a complex country with a complex history. I have not developed the idea of regionalism in this sketch, nor have I explored the question of tribal peoples within India, which presents a new set of problems and issues that are also worthy of exploration. I have also not dealt with the questions of teacher preparation. In this outline, I have presented a more “national” view. I have tried to delineate the key ideas in education – curriculum and pedagogy – that have dominated in each period. Rather than thinking of each new phase as supplanting the earlier one, we can think of them as a series of waves entering into the Indian space over time, coexisting, interacting with and altering the status of the earlier ones, but not fully displacing them. In contemporary India, we continue to find multiple ideas coexisting and also enjoying legitimacy with different sections of society.

Historical context

2 The modern school system in India has its origins in the colonial system of education that was shaped between the 1830s and 1870s. Dominant features of the current system, including the centrality of the textbook and examinations, and a highly centralised system of education administration (within a federal structure, centralised at the level of each state), can all be directly traced to the colonial institutional structures. Although there was a widespread presence of village teachers engaged with literacy and numeracy instruction (albeit restricted to higher castes and males only) as well as centres for “shastric learning” (Sanskrit and Arabic), which could be considered as an indigenous system, the British system supplanted these “schools” or centres of learning and effectively cut off forms of state support or patronage that they had previously enjoyed. The curriculum of the colonial school system included Western knowledge, the English language, and “(colonial) citizenship” and excluded all forms of indigenous knowledge. The new system was accessible to all castes and communities and over time also addressed the education of girls; however, it was never intended to be a universal education system. Much of the spread of the system is to some degree accounted for by government effort in some parts of India, but also that of Christian missionaries, local rulers who promoted education in their princely states, social reformers, and finally, the involvement of the private sector. The twin interests of social reform through enlightenment, knowledge, and education, as well as the lure of employment through Western education, drove the expansion of the system. It is worth remembering that this period was also the time when in the colonising European countries the idea of national systems of education and compulsory schooling were developing, and curricular and pedagogic imaginations were being re-formed. What is striking is how quickly debates and developments in Europe found their reflection in the colonies and also how curricular and pedagogic innovation and development in the colonies sometimes preceded and informed progressive changes in Europe. Indigenous centres for shastric learning continued but on a much smaller scale and with limited sources of patronage. The indigenous village teacher seems to have become displaced by, or perhaps subsumed – in a few forms – in, the new “school”; changes in the status and agency of the teacher, now a government servant, have been noted by researchers. It has been noted that features of the indigenous system, particularly the centrality of an authoritarian teacher, knowledge as received, and pedagogies and approaches to learning including repetition and memorisation by an obedient student, all took root in and soon dominated the colonial school – this has been characterized as the “textbook culture”. The idea of the “guru” and the need for legitimate learning to be mediated by the guru is a popular and well-elaborated theme in the indigenous knowledge systems and in popular folklore. Within Indian schools even today, we continue to find the idea of the guru as well as traditional modes of teaching and learning.

Early phase of education reform

3 The phase in which Indian nationalism emerged, eventually leading to the anti-colonial nationalist movement (1890s to 1940s), may be regarded as a first phase of education reform. Reforms were largely informed by a reaction to the colonial rejection of indigenous knowledge and identity, but also by the need for social reform, modern ideas, and the benefits of science, which were a part of the colonial curriculum. Four distinctive responses, from the late 1890s and early 1900s onwards, can be summarised as follows.

4 Firstly, Swami Vivekanand, who articulated a vision of education for character-building and confidence by drawing on indigenous Vedantic philosophy and practice was an early voice and influence. A second response was formulated by Rabindranath Tagore, a celebrated poet, who reacted to the alienating nature of colonial education, and sought to build an alternative system that drew on art and related to nature as its core. Tagore was linked to humanistic education movements in Europe around the same time. A third response came from Jyotirao Phule, whose focus was on the education of the Dalits and women and who argued for an education that was more relevant to rural contexts. The fourth response was from Gandhi, who also formulated an anti-colonial education vision that placed work and the learning of crafts at its core, in place of a curriculum that was academic and bookish.

5 Education which supported self-reliance and which was relevant to a range of traditional lifestyles and occupations and not oriented to government employment, education for cultural and linguistic continuity and integration into, and being situated in, the world (rather than alienation), education for self-confidence and character rather than servility, and universal access through which social reform could be achieved, were dominant concerns of this period. As Indians gained control over education policy, particularly in the post-independence period from 1947 onwards, these interests began to inform the policymaking of a national system of education, though not without contestation, and perhaps were eventually subverted, assuming tokenistic forms within the mainstream. So much so that what continued was a highly differentiated system of education with a strong academic orientation, and with English-medium schooling offered by non-government or private actors as the most desirable education – and frequently associated with “quality”. Inadequate funding to make such a “quality education” universal is also strong theme that emerges in the early post-independence period.

Post-independence: the 1960s

6 The 1960s may be regarded as heralding the growth of science education in India, along with “scientific” curriculum development. The education policy formally linked the spread of education, and in particular of science, to national development. In the 1970s, new developments took shape in voluntary agencies and people’s science movements, which sought to bring a new understanding of what it means to learn science: by doing science, as well as harnessing science for development and taking science into rural India. Perhaps the most important and influential of these was the Hoshangabad Science Teaching Programme (HSTP). Paralleling developments in the United-Kingdom in particular (Nuffield Science), university scientists worked in rural middle schools developing a science curriculum that completely rejected textbookish knowledge and emphasised learning by doing, thinking, and reasoning. These efforts extended from science to social science and primary school curricula between the 1980s and the early part of the 1990s. The 1960s and 1970s were also the period in which Bloom cast a powerful influence on curriculum development and teacher education – with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) supporting Indian scholars to study under Bloom. Bloom’s approach to curriculum development was influential the world over, seeming to complete and operationalise Tyler’s promise of a “method” for curriculum and pedagogy. The same period also saw the emergence of new cognitive theories of learning in the West. However, these did not enter into mainstream Indian education: India’s curriculum, pedagogy, and teacher education missed the “cognitive revolution” that was taking place in the rest of the world. Instead the behavioural-objectives approach in India drew on a behavioural-psychology base in teacher education and introduced new “scientific” orthodoxies into education. The teacher-centred approach to instruction that drew on Bloom and behaviourism did not challenge traditional textbook curriculum. The HSTP, which challenged conventional notions of school curriculum and teaching, remained an experiment at the periphery.

Universalisation of Elementary Education and reform phase from the 1980s onwards

7 From the mid-1980s onwards the curriculum and pedagogy in Indian schools have been increasingly influenced by central government initiatives and supported by civil society activism in a range of large-scale initiatives and programmes for universalising elementary education. The initial phase was largely driven by the central government’s own Universalisation of Elementary Education (UEE) under the National Policy on Education 1986, which heralded the National Literacy Mission and increased access to education through Operation Blackboard and large-scale non-formal education schemes. An important development in this phase was the entry of international aid and loans for primary education, which allowed for increased central influence through “mission mode” programmes to increase access and quality. These centrally sponsored schemes in mission mode have progressively enabled the inclusion and spread of child-centred ideas and social justice educational themes and concerns. The early stages of these developments were possible because of openings created by the aided District Primary Education Programmes (DPEP), which enabled revising of primary-level textbooks and in-service teacher training towards more “joyful” pedagogies, and altering teachers’ mindsets and attitudes towards marginalised communities and gender issues. Curricular and pedagogic responses to support inclusion of marginalised communities and girls, the need for far greater context specificity and inclusion of the child’s language and experience in the curriculum, entered into administrative concerns and “quality” talk. Large-scale initiatives began to link the question of access to school to curricula and pedagogy in addition to infrastructure and recruitment of teachers. The DPEP and subsequent Sarva Siksha Abhiyan programme, have increasingly oriented curricular and pedagogic considerations towards the issues of inclusion and equity. These large-scale centrally sponsored initiatives have generally favoured a movement towards a child-centred curriculum. However, in programming for “quality” there is a palpable tension between favouring the achievement of basic literacy and numeracy through greater teacher accountability and micro-managed mastery-learning curricula, and favouring professionalization of the teacher, teacher professional development and resource support, and more constructivist curricula. It must be acknowledged that between 2000 and 2014, these efforts almost exclusively concern the government schooling system, which has become equated with the question of education of the children of the poor. A parallel development has been to question the ability of the state to provide quality education, and suggest that private providers provide better value for money and are more capable of producing and ensuring “quality”. There is a growing presence of privately provided services to schools, from curriculum and teachers to testing, not only in the rich private schools, but also in private schools that cater to the poor and to government. In this range of private schools which are English medium, we still find forms of the exam-oriented, textbook cultures adapted to new imperatives of competitive examinations.

8 We may regard the large-scale programmes as holding implications mainly for the government schooling system and for the poor, and for primary schools. Since 2000, there have also been more sweeping developments and changes. The development of a National Curriculum Framework and related textbook development have become more noticeable in the public eye and influence the whole of school education (not only education of the children of the poor/government schools), and revealing deep ideological differences within Indian society and the political character of curriculum-making and curriculum change. The 2000 curriculum favoured Hindutva nationalism with implications not only for history but for science and mathematics, with the inclusion of non-Western contributions and including astrology as a science. The 2005 curriculum attempts not only to undo this “safffronisation” but also to question the persistence of rote, continued fear and failure to be countered by teaching for understanding and meaning-making, providing for “local contexts” and the inclusion of critical perspectives in curricula. The 2009 Right to Education Act has further ushered in changes in evaluation through continuous comprehensive evaluation (CEE), the implications of which are just beginning to be felt in the schooling system.

9 These are major developments affecting all strata and stages of school and teacher education. It is useful to remember that the school system in India (including the government, private, and aided schools) is highly differentiated and stratified – not only in terms of its clientele groups, but also in terms of curricular and pedagogic forms. In this complexly differentiated space, the various and varied curricular and pedagogic themes that have been discussed so far, and others that have not been discussed, such as vocationalisation, tribal children’s education, special education, religious learning, heritage crafts and alternative education, can all be found. They not only coexist but also influence and alter each other and use various political, bureaucratic, corporate, religious and civil society levers to influence, engage with, or remain immune from national structures and processes of change or reform. Following the Right to Education Act, we seem to have entered into a period of ideological intensifications that will be decisive for the ability of the Indian state to bring in a national system of education that includes a curriculum and pedagogy. Whether this national system will be homogenising and standardising or supportive of plurality with social justice remains to be seen or imagined.

Bibliographie

Dharampal (1983) The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the 18th Century . New Delhi: Biblia Impex P Ltd.

DiBona, Joseph (1983) One Teacher One School: The Adam Reports on Indigenous Education in 19th Century India . New Delhi: Biblia Impex P Ltd.

Kumar, Krishna (1988) “Origins of India’s ‘Textbook Culture’” Comparative Education Review 32(4); 452-453 & 457-464.

Kumar, Krishna (2005) Political Agenda of Education: A Study of colonialist and Nationalist Ideas 2nd Education. (New Delhi: Sage).

Kumar, Krishna and Sarangapani, P.M. (2004) “History of the quality debate” Contemporary Education Dialogue 2(1): 30-52 — Also an invited paper submitted as a part of the Global Monitoring Report of the UNESCO EFA 2005.

Kale, Pratima (1970) “The guru and the professional: The dilemma of the secondary school teacher in Poona, India.” Comparative Education Review 14(3):371-376.

Naik, J.P. (1979) “Equality Quality and Quantity: The elusive triangle in Indian Education”. International Review of Education 25(2/3): 167-185.

Radhakrishnan, P (1990) Indigenous Education in British India: A profile. Contributions to Indian Sociology 24(1):2-27

Sarangapani, P. M. (2003) Constructing School Knowledge: An Ethnography of Learning in an Indian Village New Delhi: Sage.

_________(2006) “The Tyler Paradox” . Contemporary Education Dialogue (Special Issue on National Curriculum Framework 2005), Vol. 4, No. 1, 119-141.

_________(2009) “The Open Classroom and its Critics” in Concerns, Conflicts and Cohesions: Universalization of Elementary Education in India Ed. Preet Rustagi, (New Delhi: Oxford University Press), pp.191-209.

_________(2010) “Quality Concerns the Extra National Dimension” in Contemporary Education Dialogue 7(1):41-57.

Pour citer cet article

Référence électronique.

Padma M. Sarangapani , «  Knowledge, curricula, and teaching methods: the case of India  » ,  Revue internationale d’éducation de Sèvres [En ligne], Colloques, mis en ligne le 05 juin 2014 , consulté le 03 juin 2024 . URL  : http://journals.openedition.org/ries/3851 ; DOI  : https://doi.org/10.4000/ries.3851

Padma M. Sarangapani

Padma SARANGAPANI is currently working at the Institute of Social and economic change in Bangalore. Earlier she worked at the School of Education, Tata Institute for Social sciences, in Mumbai. Her PhD work was an ethnography of learning in an Indian village school. Since then she has researched indigenous knowledge transmission in a tribal community and researched in various ways recent curricular reform initiatives of the Government of India and Non-Government Agencies. She has been involved with teacher education – both in and pre service – and with the development of new preservice teacher education and post graduate programmes in education. Email: [email protected]

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Education in India – A Detailed Analysis

Last updated on April 21, 2024 by ClearIAS Team

This article is a detailed analysis of the Education System of India.

The post covers various aspects of the problems faced by the Indian Education sector, the Constitutional provisions related to education, and the education policies adopted by modern India.

Also read: Learning Poverty

Table of Contents

History of Education in India

India has a rich tradition of imparting knowledge.

The ‘gurukul’ was a type of education system in ancient India with shishya (students) living with the guru in the same house. Nalanda has the oldest university system of education in the world. Students from across the world were attracted to Indian knowledge systems.

Many branches of the knowledge system had their origin in India. Education was considered a higher virtue in ancient India.

However, the renaissance and scientific thinking as happened in Europe didn’t happen in India at that time.

The British who took control of the Indian affairs by that time had different priorities. Education in British India initially lagged a lot.

However, later, the British established the modern education system still followed in India. They replaced age-old systems of education in the country with English ways . 

Still, the education system in India needs a lot of reforms.

Also read: Examination System in India

Current Status of Education in India: Data from Census 2011

• Literacy rate in India as per Census 2011:  74%.
• Literacy rate: Male: 82.1%; Female: 65.5%
• Kerala tops the rankings, followed by Delhi, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu.
• Bihar is the lowest among states, followed by Arunachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, etc., however, they are improving their position.
• Bihar has a literacy rate of 63.8%, and that of women is 53.3%.
• Literacy rates for both adults as well as youths have increased, still, the absolute number of illiterates in India is as much as India’s population was at the time of independence.
• The gender gap in terms of literacy began to narrow first in 1991 and the pace has accelerated, however still lags far behind the global female literacy rate of 7% (UNESCO 2015).
• There are large state variations in the gender gap.
• However, during 2001 – 2011, the male literacy rate increased by 6 percentage points but female literacy increased by nearly 12 percentage points. Achievement in female literacy in Bihar is noteworthy: from 33% in 2001 to 53% in 2011.
• Be that as it may, India is still lagging behind the world  literacy rate of 86.3%(UNESCO 2015).  A major group of states lies in the average rank i.e. just above the national level of 64.8 percent.  

Indian Education System: The Present Pyramidal Structure

The Indian education system can broadly be considered as a pyramidal structure:

• Pre-primary level: 5-6 years of age.
• Primary (elementary) level: 6-14 years of age. Elementary-level education is guaranteed by our constitution under Article 21 A . For this level, the government has introduced Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) under the Right To Education(RTE) Act.
• Secondary level: Age group between 14-18. For this level, the government has extended SSA to secondary education in the form of the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan .
• Higher education: generally of three levels: UG→ PG→ MPhil/PhD. To cater to the requirements of higher education, the government has introduced Rashtriya Uchhattar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA).

Read: Examination System in India

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) related to Education

Goal 4 of SDG : Education for all – ensures equitable, inclusive, and quality education along with the promotion of lifelong learning opportunities for all by 2030.

Provisions in the Indian Constitution related to Education

• Under  Article 45 in DPSP , it was mentioned that the government should provide free and compulsory education for all children up to the age of 14 years within 10 years from the commencement of the Constitution. As this was not achieved, Article 21A was introduced by  the 86th Constitutional Amendment Act of 2002 , making elementary education a fundamental right rather than a directive principle. Article 45 was amended to provide for early childhood care and education to children below the age of six years.
• To implement Article 21A, the government legislated the RTE Act. Under this act, SSA – Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan – got a further impetus. SSA aims to provide Universalization of Elementary Education (UEE) in a time-bound manner.
• SSA has been operational since 2000-2001. Its roots go back to 1993-1994 when the District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) was launched. However, under the RTE Act, it got legal backing.

RTE Act 2009

• 86th Amendment Act 2002 introduced Article 21-A, which provides for free and compulsory education of all children in the age group of six to fourteen years as a Fundamental Right.
• The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act was enacted to implement this fundamental right.

Provisions of the RTE Act

• ‘Compulsory education’ means an obligation of the government to provide free elementary education and ensure compulsory admission, attendance, and completion of  elementary education.
• Provision for a non-admitted child to be admitted to an age-appropriate class.
• Rational deployment of teachers, ensuring that there is no urban-rural imbalance in their postings.
• Prohibition of deployment of teachers for non-educational work, other than services like decennial census, elections, etc.
• It prohibits (a) physical punishment and mental harassment (b) screening procedures for admission of children (c) capitation fees (d) private tuition by teachers (e) running of schools without recognition.
• Development of curriculum in consonance with the values enshrined in the constitution, ensuring all-around development of the child, building a system of child-friendly and child-centered learning.
• To further inclusiveness, 25% reservation is provided for disadvantaged students in private schools.

Criticisms of the RTE Act

• Even though the RTE + SSA have increased access to schools, resulting in a high enrollment rate, dropout rates increased in tandem. However, there is inadequate attention given to this scenario.
• There is a fear of financial burden on the government for teacher recruitment and training.
• The grey area of teacher transfer is also not helping the cause.
• Since all state holidays are not relevant for all localities, such a calendar preparation by local authorities can increase attendance and can also encourage local panchayats to take ownership of schools.
• RTE students in private schools are paying extra fees as the schools claim that the government fund provided for the same is not adequate.
• Most private schools treat RTE as charity and demand that the onus of universalizing education should be on the government’s head rather than putting pressure on them.
• 70% of students are in government schools. So it must be fixed in priority, by providing infrastructure , teacher quality , and targeted   learning  for children from  disadvantaged  groups to provide an equitable education system.
• Under the RTE Act, till class 8, students should not be failed in exams. This is called the No detention policy. It had reduced dropout rates.
• There is growing criticism of the policy resulting in reducing the quality of elementary education. Hence the RTE Act was amended to scrap the policy.
• RTE Act prioritized schooling of children only from the age of 6, thus ignoring pre-school education. Kothari Commission had recommended the establishment of a center for the development of pre-primary education in each district.
• District Information System for Education (DISE) report states that 30% of primary and 15% of upper primary schools have higher PTRs.
• According to the Economic Survey 2018-19, the PTR at the national level for primary schools is 23 and 27 for secondary schools. Thus PTR appears to be satisfactory, as there are sufficient teachers. However, the main issue is a balanced deployment of teachers based on student strength.
• Even though the Student-Classroom ratio (SCR) improved in almost all of the States, there is disparity across the country.

Modern Education in India: The Evolution of the System through various policies

The British government had introduced modern education in India. From Macaulay’s minutes to Wood’s dispatch to several commissions like the Sadler Commission, 1904 Indian education policy, etc. built the foundation of the Indian education system during the colonial period.

Radhakrishnan committee

In 1948-49, the University Education Commission was constituted under Radhakrishnan . It molded the education system based on the needs of an independent India. The pre-Independent Indian education value system was catering to colonial masters. There was a need to replace Macaulayism  with the Indian value system.  ( Macaulayism is the policy of eliminating indigenous culture through the planned substitution of the alien culture of a colonizing power via the education system). Some of the values mentioned in the commission were:

• Wisdom and Knowledge 
• Aims of the Social Order : the desired social order for which youths are being educated.
• Love for higher values in life
• Training for Leadership

The Independent Indian education system developed along the lines of this value framework. In the present times, where there are imminent threats of political ideologies hijacking the pedagogy of education and commercialization of education eroding value systems, it is appreciable to dust off the values promulgated by the commission. A recent controversial circular by the Central University of Kerala (CUK), directing that research topics for Ph.D. students must be by ‘national priorities’, and research in ‘irrelevant topics’ and ‘privilege areas’ must be discouraged, is a case in point.

Kothari commission

If the Radhakrishnan committee charted out the value system of the Indian education system, it was the Kothari Commission that provided the basic framework of the same. The commission provided for:

• Standardization of educational system on 10+2+3 pattern.
• Emphasized the need to make work experience and social/national service an integral part of education.
• Linking of colleges to several schools in the neighborhood.
• Equalization of opportunities to all and to achieve social and national integration .
• Neighborhood school system without social or religious segregation and a s chool complex system integrating  primary and secondary levels of education.
• Establishment of Indian Education Service.
• On-the-job training of the teaching staff and efforts to raise the status of the teachers to attract talents into the profession.
• To raise expenditure on education from 2.9% of the GDP to 6% by 1985.

This committee report paved the way for the National Educational Policy 1968 which provided the base and roadmap for further development of the education system in India.

National Educational Policy 1968

• The policy provided for “radical restructuring” and  equalization of educational opportunities to achieve national integration and greater cultural and economic development.
• Increase public expenditure on education to 6% of GDP.
• Provide for better training and qualification of teachers.
• Three-language formula : state governments should implement the study of a modern Indian language, preferably one of the southern languages, apart from Hindi and English in the Hindi-speaking states, and of Hindi along with the regional language and English in the non-Hindi-speaking states. Hindi was encouraged uniformly to promote a common language for all Indians.

National Educational Policy 1985

• The policy aimed at the removal of disparities and to equalize educational opportunities, especially for women, SC and ST.
• Launching of “Operation Blackboard”  to improve primary schools nationwide.
• IGNOU, the Open University, was formed.
• Adoption of the “rural university” model , based on the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi, to promote economic and social development at the grassroots level in rural India.

T.S.R.Subramanium committee report

• ECCE is inconsistent across states. So all government schools should have facilities for pre-primary education, which would facilitate pre-school education by the government instead of the private sector.
• The policy of no detention should be upheld only till class five and not till class eight.
• There is a steep rise in teacher shortage, absenteeism, and grievances.
• Need to constitute an Autonomous Teacher Recruitment Board.
• Four years integrated B.Ed. the course should be introduced.
• There is an inadequate integration of information technology (IT) and the education sector.
• The National Skills Qualification Framework should be scaled up.
• The choice of vocational courses should be in line with local opportunities and resources . 
• Bringing formal certification for vocational education at par with conventional education certificates.
• All India Education Service.
• Existing separate laws governing individual regulators in higher education should be replaced by the said act.
• The role of existing regulatory bodies like UGC and AICTE should be revised.
• National Accreditation Board (NAB) subsuming the existing accreditation bodies.

Kasturirangan Report On School Education (Draft National Education Policy)

For restructuring the education system in India, the government is preparing to roll out a New Education Policy that will cater to Indian needs in the 4th Industrial Revolution by making use of its demographic dividend. Committee for Draft National Education Policy (chaired by Dr. K. Kasturirangan) submitted its report on May 31, 2019.

You can read about the National Education Policy 2020 in detail here .

School Education: 

• Low accessibility.
• The curriculum doesn’t meet the developmental needs of children.
• Lack of qualified and trained teachers.
• Substandard pedagogy.
• Currently, most early childhood education is delivered through anganwadis and private preschools. However, there has been less focus on the educational aspects of early childhood.
• Guidelines for up to three-year-old children.
• Educational framework for three to eight-year-old children.
• This would be implemented by improving and expanding the Anganwadi system and co-locating anganwadis with primary schools.
• Expanding the ambit of the Act to all children between the ages of three to 18 years, thus including early childhood education and secondary school education.
• There should be no detention of children till class eight. Instead, schools must ensure that children are achieving age-appropriate learning levels.
• The current structure of school education is to be restructured based on the development needs of students.
• 10+2+3 structure to be replaced by 5-3-3-4 design comprising: (i) five years of foundational stage (three years of pre-primary school and classes one and two), (ii) three years of preparatory stage (classes three to five), (iii) three years of middle stage (classes six to eight), and (iv) four years of secondary stage (classes nine to 12).
• The current education system solely focuses on rote learning. The curriculum load should be reduced to its essential core content.
• Force students to concentrate only on a few subjects.
• Do not test learning in a formative manner.
• Cause stress among students.
• To track students’ progress throughout their school experience, State Census Examinations in classes three, five, and eight should be established.
• Restructure the board examinations to test only the core concept. These board examinations will be on a range of subjects. The students can choose their subjects and the semester when they want to take these board exams. The in-school final examinations may be replaced by these board examinations.
• Although establishing primary schools in every habitation has increased access to education, it has led to the development of very small schools making it operationally complex. Hence the multiple public schools should be brought together to form a school complex .
• A complex will consist of one secondary school (classes nine to twelve) and all the public schools in its neighborhood that offer education from pre-primary to class eight.
• These will also include anganwadis, vocational education facilities, and an adult education center.
• Each school complex will be a semi-autonomous unit providing integrated education across all stages from early childhood to secondary education.
• This will ensure that resources such as infrastructure and trained teachers can be efficiently shared across a school complex.
• A steep rise in a teacher shortage, lack of professionally qualified teachers, and deployment of teachers for non-educational purposes have plagued the system.
• Teachers should be deployed with a particular school complex for at least five to seven years.
• They will not be allowed to participate in any non-teaching activities during school hours.
• Existing B.Ed. the program will be replaced by a four-year integrated B.Ed. program that combines high-quality content, pedagogy, and practical training. An integrated continuous professional development will also be developed for all subjects.
• Separating the regulation of schools from aspects such as policymaking, school operations, and academic development.
• Independent State School Regulatory Authority for each state will prescribe basic uniform standards for public and private schools.
• The Department of Education of the State will formulate policy and conduct monitoring and supervision.

Higher Education

• According to the All India Survey on Higher Education , the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in higher education in India has increased from 20.8% in 2011-12 to 25.8% in 2017-18. Lack of access is a major reason behind the low intake of higher education. The policy aims to increase GER to 50% by 2035.
• Multiple regulators with overlapping mandates reduce the autonomy of higher educational institutions and create an environment of dependency and centralized decision-making.
• The National Higher Education Regulatory Authority (NHERA) should replace the existing individual regulators in higher education. Thus the role of all professional councils such as AICTE would be limited to setting standards for professional practice. The role of the UGC will be limited to providing grants.
• Separate the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) from the UGC into an independent and autonomous body. It will function as the top-level accreditor and will issue licenses to different accreditation institutions. All existing higher education institutions should be accredited by 2030.
• Replacing the current system of establishing higher educational institutions by Parliament or state legislatures. Instead, institutions can be set up through a Higher Education Institution Charter from NHERA.
• Research universities focus equally on research and teaching.
• Universities focus primarily on teaching.
• Colleges focus only on teaching at undergraduate levels.
• All such institutions will gradually move towards full autonomy.
• Total investment in research and innovation in India has declined from 0.84% of GDP in 2008 to 0.69% in 2014. India also lags behind many nations in the number of researchers, patents, and publications.
• NRF will act as an autonomous body for funding, mentoring, and building the capacity for quality research.
• Undergraduate programs should be made interdisciplinary by redesigning their curriculum to include: a common core curriculum; and one/two area(s) of specialization.
• Introduce four-year undergraduate programs in Liberal Arts.
• By the next five years, five Indian Institutes of Liberal Arts must be set up as model multidisciplinary liberal arts institutions.
• Poor service conditions and heavy teaching loads, augmented by a lack of autonomy and no clear career progression system, have resulted in low faculty motivation.
• Introduction of a Continuous Professional Development program and permanent employment track system for faculty in all higher education institutions by 2030.
• The student-teacher ratio of not more than 30:1 must be ensured.
• All higher education institutions must have complete autonomy on curricular, pedagogical, and resource-related matters.

Read: Institutions of Eminence Scheme

Additional Key Focus Areas:

Additional key focus areas are (1) Technology in Education (2) Vocational Education (3) Adult Education and (4) the Promotion of Indian Languages.

Technology in Education

• Improving the classroom process of teaching, learning, and evaluation
• Aiding teacher training.
• Improving access to education.
• Improving the overall planning, administration, and management of the entire education system.
• Electrification of all educational institutions paves the way for technology induction.
• An autonomous body, the National Education Technology Forum, set up under the Mission, will facilitate decision-making on the use of technology.
• Single online digital repository to make available copyright-free educational resources in multiple languages.

Vocational Education

• Less than 5% of the workforce in the age group of 19-24 receives vocational education in India, in contrast to 52% in the USA, 75% in Germany and 96% in South Korea.
• Vocational courses : All school students must receive vocational education in at least one vocation in grades 9 to 12.
• Higher Education Institutions must offer vocational courses that are integrated into undergraduate education programs.
• The draft Policy targets to offer vocational education to up to 50% of the total enrolment in higher education institutions by 2025, up from the present level of enrolment of below 10%.
• National Committee for the Integration of Vocational Education for charting out plans for the above objectives.

Adult Education

As per Census 2011, India had a total of 26.5 crore adult non-literate (15 years and above).

• Establishing an autonomous  Central Institute of Adult Education as a constituent unit of NCERT. It will develop a National Curriculum Framework for adult education.
• Adult Education Centers will be included within the school complexes.
• Relevant courses are made available at the National Institute of Open Schooling.
• National Adult Tutors Programme to build a cadre of adult education instructors and managers.

Education and Indian Languages

• The medium of instruction must be the mother tongue until grade 5, and preferably until grade 8.
• 3 language formula be continued and flexibility in the implementation of the formula should be provided. Implementation of the formula needs to be strengthened, particularly in Hindi-speaking states. Schools in Hindi-speaking areas should also teach Indian languages from other parts of India for national integration.
• To promote Indian languages, a National Institute for Pali, Persian, and Prakrit will be set up.
• The mandate of the Commission for Scientific and Technical Terminology will be expanded to include all fields and disciplines to strengthen vocabulary in Indian languages.

Transforming Education

The policy talked about the synergistic functioning of India’s education system, to deliver equity and excellence at all levels, from vision to implementation, led by a new Rashtriya Shiksha Aayog.

Education Governance

Revitalize education governance by bringing in synergy and coordination among the different ministries, departments, and agencies.

• Constitute the National Education Commission or Rashtriya Shiksha Aayog, as an apex body for education headed by the Prime Minister. It would be responsible for developing, implementing, evaluating, and revising the vision of education and overseeing the implementation and functioning of bodies including the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), National Higher Education Regulatory Authority, and National Research Foundation.
• The Ministry of Human Resources and Development must be renamed the Ministry of Education to bring the focus back on education.

Financing Education

• The Draft Policy reaffirmed the commitment to spending 6% of GDP as a public investment in education.
• The draft Policy seeks to double the public investment in education from the current 10% of total public expenditure to 20% in the next 10 years. 5% will be utilized for higher education, 2% in school education, and 1.4% for early childhood care and education.
• There should be optimal and timely utilization of funds through the institutional development plans and by plugging loopholes in the disbursement of funds.

Criticism of the New Education Policy of India

• The New Education Policy lacks operational details.
• It is not clear from where the funding will be sourced.
• Enough importance is not given to innovation, startup culture or economic principles to be added to the curriculum.
• One-size-fits for all states can’t be a solution as each state in India is diverse in its educational needs. Controversy on NEET has shown this.
• With technological advancement and the democratization of knowledge, the policy should have focused more on how to teach rather than what to teach.
• Economic Survey 2017-18 mentioned the perils of the distinction between research institutions and universities in higher education. The policy recommendation of three distinct higher education institutions of research universities, teaching universities, and teaching colleges will further augment the gap between research and universities.
• The draft policy is silent on the Institutions of Eminence and agencies like the Higher Education Funding Agency.
• The role of Rashtriya Shiksha Aayog should be defined clearly. What would be its role vis-a-vis existing regulators? Also, there are criticisms from some quarters that RSA will open the door to the politicization of education.
• Earlier the 3-language formula proposed by the draft policy made Hindi compulsory in non-Hindi speaking states. However, after the furor, the proposal was removed.
• Even though the policy talks about bringing “unrepresented groups” into school and focusing on educationally lagging “ special education zones” , it doesn’t comprehensively address the inequalities prevalent in the system. It misses methods to bridge the gaps between rich and poor children.
• The policy proposes to remove the provision mandating that primary schools be within stipulated distance from students’ homes and common minimum infrastructure and facility standards that should be met by all schools. If a common minimum standard is not specified, it will create an environment where quality in some schools will fall further thus augmenting the inequalities between schools across the country.

India’s education history is rich with ambitious policies failing at the altar of inadequate implementation of the same. In the absence of a handholding mechanism for states to embark on the path-breaking reforms mentioned in the policy and that too in a short time, will be too much to ask.

Funding requirements and governance architecture pose major challenges in the implementation of the policy. Political commitment is required to increase funding. RTE Act expansion to include preschool should keep in mind the present infrastructure inadequacies and teacher vacancies.

Rashtriya Shiksha Aayog may face administrative problems and turf battles. Also, it will raise questions on the role of new bodies like the National Medical Council.

The recent controversy on 3 language formula shows the sensitivity of language education in India and care should be taken to appreciate the emotional overtures while implementing the same.

Politically acceptability, social desirability, technological feasibility, financial viability, administratively doability, and judicially tenability are 6 pillars that will impact the implementation of the policy.

Be that as it may, the new education policy aims to address the challenges of (i) access, (ii) equity, (iii) quality, (iv) affordability, and (v) accountability faced by the current education system. It aims to revitalize and equip the education system to meet the challenges of the 21st century and 4th industrial revolution rather than catering to 19th and 20th century needs of industrialization. Also, India is on the cusp of a demographic dividend, rather than entered into this phase. So the education system catering to these needs is not a luxury that we hope for but rather a dire need at this moment in Indian history.

The Problems associated with the Education System in India

HRD ministry: Over 1.4 million schools and 50,000 higher educational institutions are operating in India. Out of 907 universities, there are 399 state universities, 126 deemed-to-be universities, 48 central and 334 private universities.

• Even after more than a hundred years of “ Gokhale’s Bill”1911, where universal primary education was originally mooted, India is yet to achieve this goal.
• China had achieved it in the 1970s. As per Census 2011, over 26% of India’s population is still illiterate, compared to 4% in China. About 50% of India’s population has only primary education or less, compared to 38% in China. The 13% of the population with tertiary education at the upper end in India is comparable with China.
• Progress has been made in respect of female participation up to secondary level and GER for girls has exceeded that of boys.
• But the girl’s enrollment rate is lower than that of boys at the higher education level.
• A gap is visible across social categories in terms of enrollment rate at the higher education level.
• According to NSSO’s 71st round (2014), drop-out rates are very high for boys at the secondary school level. Reasons for the same are economic activities, lack of interest in education, and financial constraints.
• The transition rate from secondary school to senior secondary and further to higher education is very low.

Despite these highly ambitious education policies and elaborate deliberations on the same, the outcomes are rather shaky. Major criticisms and shortcomings of these policies and their implementations are:

• Half the population is crowded at the bottom, either illiterate or with only primary education. Meanwhile, a disproportionately large segment is at the upper end with tertiary education.
• The 2015 Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) reflects this deteriorating quality. The report opines that deficits in foundational reading and arithmetic skills are   cumulative, which leaves students grossly   handicapped for further education .
• India had fared poorly in the Programme for International Student Assessment  (PISA) test in 2008, and 09.
• Education policies in India are focused on inputs rather than on learning outcomes.
• Teacher shortages.
• Local politics.
• Corruption in teacher appointment.
• Defects in teacher training.
• Socio-cultural factors like caste division, and cynical attitude towards the teaching profession.
• There is no accountability, as there is a guaranteed lifetime job independent of performance.
• From 1952-2012 , education expenditure as a percentage of total government expenditure increased from 7.92 to 11.7, and as a percentage of GDP increased from 0.64 to 3.31. But it has still not reached 6% of GDP, as was recommended by the Kothari Commission way back in 1964.
• Expenditure by the government on elementary education is more than tertiary level, but expenditure per student is more in tertiary. So there is a need to increase expenditure in all segments.
• All India survey on higher education has shown that in West Bengal Muslim students in universities are very low. Lack of education at the primary and secondary levels is said to be the main reason.
• Even though Article 15(4),(5) provides reservations for SC, ST, and OBC in higher education institutions , the Economic Survey 2018-19 points out their inadequate representation in these institutions.
• The suicide of Rohit Vemula, a Ph.D. scholar at the University of Hyderabad, in 2016 had brought forward the discrimination still existing in these institutions.
• Also, the representation of teachers at these levels is skewed against the backward class in spite of reservations. Article 16(4) provides for reservations of backward class in jobs.
• At the school level, poor children are primarily concentrated in government schools. The poor quality of government schools thus disproportionately affects these children and creates a vicious cycle of illiteracy.
• At the higher education level, the situation is more critical. One reason for the introduction of the National Medical Commission Bill is to curb the exorbitant fees charged by medical colleges.
• Youths coming out of the higher education system in India are not employable, as they lack relevant industry-level skills.
• India’s long-standing neglect of primary and secondary education has limited access to quality basic education. No skill development program can succeed without an underlying foundation of basic education.
• National Policy on  Skill Development and Entrepreneurship 2015 (PMKVY) has shown disappointing results.
• Budget 2019-20  stated that the government enables about 10 million youth to take up industry-relevant skill training through the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY). The  Budget has also increased focus on  ‘new-age skills’  like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, 3D Printing, Virtual Reality, and Robotic.
• Currently, B Tech courses in AI are offered mostly in premier institutions only.
• The budget 2019-20 proposed the National Sports Education Board for the development of sportspersons under the  Khelo India program (2017).

Now we will look at each rung of the education ladder in India.

Early childhood education

• Early childhood education (ECE) is needed for  cognitive development in the early stage.
• Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS)  has a component for providing ECE through Anganwadis . But lack of effective regulation in this sector is eroding the quality of ECE.
• There is a National Early Childhood Care and Education Policy 2013 . However, the policy has not been properly implemented.
• There are multiple service providers but there is no clarity in the types of services provided.
• The sprawling of an unregulated private channel, both organized and unorganized, which is also spreading to rural areas, has led to inequitable access, uneven quality, and commercialization of ECE.
• Both Anganwadis and private schools focus on reading, writing, and arithmetic rather than cognitive and conceptual development.
• There is a decline in the quality and training of teachers.
• S.R. Subramanian’s committee report has brought focus to the quality deterioration in this sector.

Primary level

• There is an increasing trend of parents choosing private schools for the primary level. However, there is variable quality in private schools. Also, fees vary from school to school and are on the higher side.
• Eschew rigid curricula and make them more cognitive and flexible. There should be a broader cognitive approach than rote learning.
• There is a need for activity-based learning. Teachers should teach at the right level, rather than teaching for the average learner.
• The government has launched Padhe Bharat Bade Bharat –  targeting early reading and writing. The twin-track  approach of comprehension and math is the main focus.
• There is a supply-side problem . The government is pumping funds through government schools thus increasing the number of schools and thus enrollment. However, quality and inclusiveness have dropped and dropout rates increased. These lead to poor learning outcomes.

School Complex

• RTE and SSA have resulted in over-access but low-quality primary-level education. Now the aim should be to integrate these into school complexes, as mentioned by the Kasturirangan committee report, thus rationalizing the number of schools in an area.
• The ‘Adarsh’ integrated school system of Rajasthan is an example of a school complex system . Here one school provides classes from l to XII under one principal. There is one such school in every gram panchayat.
• This is an efficient way to solve teacher shortages and also to address the shortages of secondary schools. It can also address the problem of resource scarcity by integrating and rationalizing resources.
• Inclusive learning can be furthered through school.
• Also, these complexes can act as a pivot around which new reforms in education can be implemented.

Secondary level

ASER Rural 2017: In 2017, ASER changed the age group of the survey from primary level to secondary level. The report mentions the following:

• Enrollment is low in this age group. There is a high digital divide at this level. Low quality also persists at this level. There is a high amount of absenteeism as well.
• There is a need to expand RTE to cover the 14-18 age groups.
• To realize the demographic dividend, skill education for these groups is necessary.

Economic Survey 2018-19 points out that Indian demography is changing and it requires more quality secondary education system rather than merely an increasing number of primary-level schools.

Private fees

• The vagueness in the judgment regarding ‘reasonable surplus’ and ‘commercialization’ of education has watered down the outcome of the judgment.
• There are state laws for capping fees. However, implementation problems and litigation make them ineffective.
• CAG report mentioned misreporting and mismanagement by private schools. So laws should address this problem through stricter inspection, penalties, etc.

Higher education

There is an increasing number of higher education institutions but their quality is questionable, effectively making ‘islands of excellence amidst the sea of mediocrity. Increased accessibility to a low-quality higher education system has made democratization of mediocrity.

Raghuram Rajan, the ex-RBI governor, argued that India needs idea factories and universities by leveraging India’s inherent strengths like tolerance, diversity, etc. He said that there is a need for strong accreditation agencies and continuing education.

Problems of the higher education system in India

• There is a dual problem of both quality and quantity. The gross enrollment ratio (GER) in higher education is only 24.5.
• Even though education policy had an elitist bias in favor of higher education, the state of the same is much worse than the state of school education. Unlike school education, there is no national survey of the learning levels of college students.
• The desired levels of research and internationalization of Indian campuses remain weak points.
• Also, there is a low philanthropic investment in this sector. This creates an exclusive dependency on government funding by universities. This, in turn, reduces the autonomy and vision of these universities.
• Privatization of higher education has not been led by philanthropy but the commercial interest that does not have a symbiotic relationship with the vision of universities.
• These have led to inadequate human capacity, shoddy infrastructure, and weak institutions. Recommendations of the Narayana Murthy committee,  on the role of the corporate sector in higher education, have not been implemented and thus channeling of CSR funds to higher education remains inadequate.
• Banks and financial institutions are not giving adequate attention to this area. Giving PSL status to these institutions can be considered.
• Indian higher education system is of a linear model with very little focus on specialization.
• UGC and AICTE act more as controllers of education than facilitators.
• Due to the mushrooming of colleges at a higher rate since the 1980s , there is a regulatory sprawl in higher education.
• Poor governance , with mindless  over-regulation , is widespread in this sector. Educational institutions responded to this with claims of academic and institutional autonomy for themselves, which was mostly a smokescreen for a culture of sloth in these institutions.
• There is a concentration of powers, as these regulatory institutions control all aspects like accreditation, curriculum setting, professional standard-setting, funding, etc.
• Compartmentalization and fragmentation of the knowledge system.
• Disconnect with society.
• Overemphasis on entrance tests.
• Absence of innovation in learning methods.
• Corrosion of autonomy of universities.
• For long basic disciplines across the physical and social sciences and humanities were ignored.
• However, the Economic Survey 2017-18 mentioned that there is an increase in Ph.D. enrolment in India in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) due to efforts by the government to increase the number and quantum of fellowships. However, there are still fewer researchers in India in comparison to other countries.
• Budget 2019-20 proposes ‘Study in India’  with a focus on bringing foreign students to higher educational institutions in India to make India a “hub of higher education.”
• Higher education institutions are used as rewards for loyalists and channels of graft by political parties in power.
• Indian higher education system is plagued by unregulated and shoddy coaching institutions. The coaching industry makes around Rs. 24000 crores a year in India. Proper regulation of the same is required.

Research and development (R&D)

Economic Survey 2017-18 stated: “To transform from net consumer to net producer of knowledge, India should invest in educating its youth in science and mathematics, reform the way R&D is conducted, engage the private sector and the Indian diaspora, and take a more mission-driven approach in areas such as dark matter, genomics, energy storage, agriculture, and mathematics and cyber-physical systems”.

• Although Gross Expenditure on R&D (GERD) is consistently increasing, as a fraction of GDP it has been stagnant between 0.6-0.7  percent of GDP over the past two decades.
• The universities play a relatively small role in the research activities in India. There is a disconnection between research institutes and universities. This results in the compartmentalization of research activities and teaching into two separate silos.
• The  separation of research from teaching leads to a situation where universities  have students but need additional faculty support, while research institutes have qualified faculty but are starved of young students.
• India was, at one point, spending more on R&D as a percentage of GDP than countries like China – but currently, India under-spends on R&D.
• Doubling of R&D spending is necessary and much of the increase should come from the private sector and universities.

The need of the hour

• It is imperative to improve math and cognitive skills at the school level to make a difference at a higher level.
• There is a need to expand R&D in India and to go beyond paper presentations and patents to a broader contribution of providing value for society.
• There is also a need to encourage Investigator-led Research for funding science research.  Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) 2008,  a statutory body of DST, is a step in the right direction.
• 50:50 partnerships with SERB for industry-relevant research under the Ucchatar Avishkar Yojana (UAY) is the right way to go forward.
• It would strengthen state universities and provide knowledge in areas specific to a state.
• National Research Foundation,  to fund, coordinate, and promote research at the college level, is proposed by the Kasturirangan report. It is reiterated in Budget 2019-20 : NRF will ensure the overall research ecosystem in the country is strengthened with a focus on areas relevant to national priorities without duplication of effort and expenditure. The funds available with all Ministries will be integrated into NRF.
• Link national labs to universities and create new knowledge ecosystems. Together they can link up with the commercial sectors and help develop industrial clusters.
• National Mission on Dark Matter
• National Mission on Genomics
• National Mission on Energy Storage Systems
• National Mission on Mathematics
• National Mission on Cyber-Physical Systems
• National Mission on Agriculture
• Ramanujan Fellowship Scheme.
• Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research ( INSPIRE ) Faculty Scheme.
• Ramalingaswami Re-entry Fellowship.
• Visiting Advanced Joint Research Faculty Scheme ( VAJRA ).
• Improve the culture of research thus ‘ ease of doing research’. There is a need for less hierarchical governance systems that encourage risk-taking and curiosity in the pursuit of excellence.
• Greater public engagement of the science and research establishment is needed. A greater effort at science communication  is needed.

Government initiatives on higher education

The government is trying to revitalize the Indian higher education system and for this many initiatives have been launched. Let’s discuss the importance of them.

National Testing Agency (NTA) 2017

• NTA was set up for conducting entrance exams in higher educational institutions. It is based on the recommendations of the Ashok Mishra committee on IIT entrance 2015.
• It will conduct JEE, NEET, National Eligibility Test (NET), Common Management Admission Test (CMAT), and Graduate Pharmacy Aptitude Test (GPAT).
• It will provide diversity and plurality in higher education. It will also ensure independence and transparency in conducting the exams.
• However, it should be ensured that the computer-based test should not lead to further exploitation of rural students.
• NEET stands for National Eligibility cum Entrance Test . It is for admissions in medical courses by replacing a plethora of medical entrance tests with one national-level test.
• Supreme Court had said that NEET should be the sole basis for admission to medical courses.
• There is a controversy about whether urban and CBSE students will dominate NEET. The government should pay heed to this criticism.
• In Tamil Nadu doctors serving in rural areas get weightage in PG admission. NEET will effectively dislodge this system.
• This controversy brought forward the conflict between the fair and transparent system of admission to curb the commercialization of medical education and the socioeconomic goals of the state, which in the case of Tamil Nadu includes ensuring enough doctors for rural areas.
• Controversy on NEET has brought the following question to the limelight: should uniformity be thrust upon a country with such vast disparity and diversity? The political leadership should iron out the differences and produce a suitable admission policy. This task should not be left to the judiciary.
• Be that as it may, states can’t remain insulated from the need to upgrade their education standard.

RUSA: Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan 2013

• About 94 % of students in higher education study in 369 State universities, whereas less than 6% of students study in 150 Centrally-funded institutions.
• 11th 5-year plan  (2007-12) opined that the center’s bias towards premier central institutions had skewed funding for these institutions mainly and thus neglected state-level institutions.
• State investment in higher education was declining. UGC’s system of direct release of funds to State institutions bypassing State governments also leads to a sense of alienation for the states.
• RUSA tried to correct this bias. The scheme aims at financing state institutions concerning their governance and performance.
• RUSA has shown the result in increasing the performance of state institutions and changing the way regulators function for the good. State Higher Education Council(SHEC)  made medium-long-term state perspective plans.
• Cabinet in 2018 decided to continue the scheme. A renewed focus by the center on RUSA will be a success only if it is impartially administered and states are willing to heed the advice of SHEC.

HECI: Higher Education Commission of India bill

• On the recommendation of the Yashpal Committee 2010 for renovation and rejuvenation of higher education, the National Commission on Higher Education and Research bill was introduced but was not passed.
• HECI was proposed to act as an overarching regulator of higher education by replacing UGC, which will maintain academic standards, approve new educational institutions, etc. but with no funding powers.
• Draft Higher Education Commission of India (Repeal of University Grants Commission Act) Bill, 2018 was introduced in 2018. Budget 2019-20 proposed to bring a bill on HECI this year.
• The draft bill had separated funding and placed it under MHRD. This was criticized for the fear of increasing political control and reducing the autonomy of universities.

IoE: Institutions of Eminence 2017

• Around 2005, the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and the QS World University Rankings started, and in 2009 the Academic Ranking of World Universities started. From India, only the Indian Institute of Science was included in the top 500 every year. This prompted the government to introduce NIRF and IoE.
• Under IoE, UGC was tasked to select 10 government universities and 10 private ones as IoE. These would be given autonomy in operations.
• Selected government institutions would be provided with ₹1,000 crore over five years.
• The IoE tag is expected to help them achieve the world’s top 500 higher education institutions in a decade and later into the top 100.
• Institutes among the top 50 in the National Institute Ranking Framework rankings or in the top 500 in international ratings were eligible.
• The model for the sector remains dependent on state patronage.
• Entry into the global education race could now become an overriding concern when many systemic issues are plaguing the sector.
• Funding only for public institutions is discriminatory.
• Humanities institutions were neglected.
• Transparency in the selection process, and the public sharing of benchmarks and guidelines. The furor over the selection of Jio Institute, even before it functioned, had attracted many eyeballs and criticisms.
• Separate category to include sectoral institutions like IIM.

National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2015

NIRF is a methodology adopted by the MHRD to rank higher education institutions in India.

• NIRF is common for public and private institutions as well as state and central institutions. Comparison of state-level colleges with central and private colleges may lead to a vicious cycle of low funding, poor performance, and low ranks among state-level institutions because of the resource gap.
• So performance index values should be normalized concerning investments and resources that have gone into that institution. Also should consider making another ranking system for state-level institutions.

HEFA: Higher Education Financing Agency 2018

Introduced in Budget 2018-19, HEFA is a joint venture of MHRD and Canara Bank

• With an initial capital base of Rs 1,000 crores, it will act as a not-for-profit organization that will leverage funds from the market and supplement them with donations and CSR funds. These funds will be used to finance improvement in infrastructure in top institutions.
• It has been tasked with raising ₹1 lakh crore to finance infrastructure improvements in higher education by 2022.

 Foreign Education Providers Bill 2013 

• There is no account of programs delivered by foreign universities in India. Inadequate regulation has led to low-quality courses offered in this sector.
• The foreign Institution bill was not been able to pass in Parliament. However,

EQUIP report has mentioned the revival of this bill.

There are many other schemes and initiatives like SWAYAM, which offers open online courses from Class IX to post-graduation free of cost, GIAN and IMPRINT which are primarily focused on elite institutes like IITs and IISc.

APAAR: One Nation One Student ID Card

The Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry (APAAR) is a transformative initiative introduced in alignment with the National Education Policy (NEP) of 2020 and the National Credit and Qualifications Framework (NCrF).

It aims to provide a unified and accessible academic experience for students across India by assigning a unique and permanent 12-digit ID to every student, consolidating their academic achievements in one place.

Other Major Issues connected with the Education sector in India

The Indian education sector is also affected by other issues like the politicization of campuses, gender parity problems, poor-quality standards, etc.

Politicization of campuses

• JP movement had provided an impetus to the politicization of students.
• In Indian higher education institutions, university politics has become a launchpad for political ambitions.
• Though campus politics is vital for democracy, as it makes students better citizens, the negative side of the politicization of campuses has been visible across Indian campuses. Recent incidents at Kerala University are a case in point.
• One of the most important problems of student politics in India is that it acts as an appendage to political parties without having an independent identity or autonomy.

Gender Parity

• By parents → who send boys to private and girls to government schools. Economic Survey 2018-19: enrollment of girls is higher than that of boys in government schools but the pattern gets reversed in private schools. The gender gap in enrollment in private schools has consistently increased across age groups.
• By teachers → who reinforced the belief that boys are quick learners.
• Girls are eased out of school to work on home chores or get married.
• Economic Survey 2018-19 opines that BBBP has been a success and proposes to extend the cause of Gender equality by coining the slogan of BADLAV (Beti Aapki Dhan Lakshmi Aur Vijay-Lakshmi) to enhance the contribution of women in the workforce and the economy.
• For ranking states based on gender disparity, Digital Gender Atlas for Advancing Girl’s Education was launched by MHRD.
• In higher education, gender disparities still prevail in enrollment.
• Efforts by the Government through programs like Beti Padhao, and Beti Bachao, the GPI has improved substantially at the primary and secondary levels of enrolment.

Quality of education

Learning outcomes are not assessed in India as numerical outcomes. The 12th Five-Year Plan noted the need for measuring and improving learning outcomes.

• Children of illiterate parents can’t supplement school studies at home and also can’t afford expensive tuition, leading to a vicious cycle of illiteracy.
• From 2014 to 2018, there was a gradual improvement in both basic literacy and numeracy for Class III students but only a quarter of them are at grade level (ability to read and do basic operations like subtraction of Class II level).
• The report also shows that 1 out of 4 children leaving Class VIII are without basic reading skills (ability to read at least a Class II level).

Government initiatives

• Central Rules under the RTE Act were amended in February 2017 to include the defined class-wise and subject-wise learning outcomes.
• Nationwide sub-program of SSA to improve comprehensive early reading, writing, and early mathematics programs for children in Classes I and II.

Teacher Training

• Teachers play the most critical role in a student’s achievement.
• The need is for better incentives for teachers, investments in teacher capacity through stronger training programs, and addressing the problems in the teaching-learning process.
• However, teachers in India, especially in government schools, are considered a cog in the way to efficient governance. There is an inadequate focus on their motivation and skill updation.
• NCERT study shows that there is no systematic incorporation of teacher feedback into designing pieces of training. Also, there is no mechanism to check whether this training is translated into classroom performance.
• These results in de-professionalizing the teaching profession and curb a teacher’s “internal responsibility” — the sense of duty to the job.
• World Development Report on Education (2018) opined that both teaching skills and motivation matter. Individually targeted continued training is important. In line with this, MHRD and the National Council for Teacher Education launched the National Teacher Platform, or Diksha in 2017 . It is a one-stop solution to address teacher competency gaps.
• However, the current training through Diksha follows a one-size-fits-all approach. Even though the platform is designed to democratize both access to and creation of content by teachers, its real benefits are in the ability to provide continuous professional development which complements existing physical training.
• This technology-enabled platform allows training to become a continuous activity rather than an annual event and also creates a feedback loop ensuring the effectiveness of the material.
• Diksha has the potential to re-engineer in-service teacher training in India. It is important to create good content and also to ensure technology consumption by teachers, the role of headmasters in promoting teachers’ professional development, etc.

As India participates in the PISA in 2021, it is to be made sure that we recognize the importance of teachers and their role in education outcomes.

Private Schools vs Public Schools: The Big Debate in Education

At least 30% of students between the 6-14 age groups are in the private sector.

• There is an increasing perception that the quality of teaching in private schools is better than that of public schools. Thus there is a clamour for increasing the number of private schools and simultaneously limiting public spending on government schools.
• However, the claim on the quality of private schools is debatable as there is a wide disparity of the same among these schools.

Research paper by Geeta Gandhi Kingdon, professor of education and international development at the Institute of Education, London, offers insights into private-public school education in India:

• The paper points out that between 2010-11 and 2015-16, the average enrolment in government schools declined from 122 to 108 students per school, while in private schools it rose from 202 to 208.
• Nevertheless, according to the District Information System for Education (DISE), 65% of all school-going children, 113 million, get their education from government schools.
• The study points out that the migration to private schools is due to the belief among parents that these schools offer better value for money in terms of quality.
• IndiaSpend, in 2016, reported that despite the Rs 1.16 lakh crore spent on SSA, the quality of learning declined between 2009 and 2014. It also points out that less than one in five elementary school teachers in India are trained. Also, the contractual teachers, who are high in number in government schools, are likely to be less motivated and accountable.
• Preference for private school tutoring is there.
• The quality of schools varies between states. In 2016, in Kerala, the proportion of children enrolled in primary government schools increased from 40.6% in 2014 to 49.9% according to ASER 2016.
• States with better-functioning government schools have more expensive private schools as there is no market for the ‘low-fee’ budget private schools. Around 80% of private schools in India are ‘low’ fee schools.
• ASER 2016 has shown small improvements in learning outcomes in government schools.
• Between 2010-11 and 2015-16, the number of private schools grew by 35% – to 0.30 million. On the other hand, the number of government schools grew only by 1%, to 1.04 million. The migration out of government schools has left many of these economically unviable.
• Government teachers in India earn four times that of China but don’t perform as well. Up to 80% of India’s public expenditure on education is spent on teachers. There is a need to link teacher salaries to their accountability.
• However, the salary of private teachers is very low compared to their government counterparts. This is due to the “bureaucratically-set high ‘minimum wage’, which is being influenced by strong unions of government school teachers.
• Another reason for the low salary of private school teachers is that the private education sector offers salaries based on market factors of demand and supply. Since 10.5% of graduates are unemployed in India, there is a high supply of teachers.
• Rather than merely increasing the budget outlay for education, the need is to revise the Education policy for better accountability and monitoring mechanisms.
• Gandhi argued that a Public-private partnership (PPP) model may be the solution, with public sector funding and private resources for education, since reforming the present system may not be politically feasible.

Rather than debating about private versus public schools, the focus should be to  enable the private sector to set up more schools under the scrutiny of regulatory authorities. There is no point in driving off the private initiative in schooling given the limited resources of the states. Private investment should be encouraged but made accountable for quality and conduct.

The above discussion showed the challenges of the Indian education system. A workforce that India wants to create in this digital age requires reforms in education at all levels. UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report 2016 opined that India is expected to achieve universal primary education in 2050. India is 50 years late in achieving its global education commitments. If the nation wants fundamental changes in the education system, it has to meet the 2030 SDG targets on education. There is an urgent requirement for greater evolution in education in India.

Education Quality Upgradation and Inclusion Programme (EQUIP): How to transform Education in India?

EQUIP is a  five-year vision plan on education, released by MHRD, by  the Prime Minister’s decision to create a five-year vision plan for each Ministry.

The EQUIP project is crafted by ten expert groups led by experts within and outside the government:

• Group 1: Strategies for expanding access
• Group 2: Towards global best teaching/learning process
• Group 3: Promoting Excellence
• Group 4: Governance reforms
• Group 5: Assessment, Accreditation, and Ranking Systems
• Group 6: Promotion of research and innovation
• Group 7: Employability and Entrepreneurship
• Group 8: Using Technology for Better Reach
• Group 9: Internationalisation
• Group 10: Financing Higher Education

The groups have suggested initiatives to transform the education system completely. The goals set by the groups are:

• Double GER in higher education and resolve the geographically and socially skewed access to higher education institutions.
• Upgrade the quality of education to global standards.
• Position at least 50 Indian institutions among the top 1000 global universities.
• Introduce governance reforms in higher education for well-administered campuses.
• Accreditation of all institutions as an assurance of quality.
• Promote Research and Innovation ecosystems for positioning India in the top three countries in the world in matters of knowledge creation.
• Double the employability of the students passing out of higher education.
• Harness education technology for expanding the reach and improving pedagogy.
• Promote India as a global study destination.
• Achieve a quantum increase in investment in higher education.

We can see that each of the above goals has been known to us for a long time. The problem is its implementation. The political class and all other stakeholders should come together to achieve these goals. The plethora of government initiatives on higher education is a sure sign of the importance given by the political class in the reform of the education system of India. Let’s hope that a new dawn of Indian education is around the corner which will bring back the glory of ancient times when India was the centre of knowledge production.

As the Economic Survey 2016-17 points out, lack of health, malnourishment, etc. affects the cognitive ability of children. This will, in turn, have a detrimental effect on their future educational prospects. This leads to a vicious cycle of inter-generational illiteracy, poor health, and ultimately poverty. So education and health are complementary to each other and reforms in one sector should invariably be preceded and followed by reforms in other sectors. Human development as a whole can be considered as a wholesome development and we must appreciate the interlinkages of each section of human capital formation, be it health, education, digital literacy, skills, etc.

Also read: PM-USHA

In the larger domain of human capital , education, and skill development have a big role.

Census 2011 data on literacy gives us a quick perspective on the current status of education. However, education is not just about literacy.

RTE act acts as a cornerstone for Indian education. Nevertheless, it is the various education policies, charted out since Independence, which led to the historical evolution of the education system in India.

The results of these policies can be said to be mixed. There is still a lot of room for improvement.

There are various government initiatives targeting each level of the education system in India. The higher Education System is given a greater focus these days.

The latest update in the education sector is the Kasturirangan report or draft new education policy . It captures the need of the hour for reforming education.

The modern Indian education system is crying for a revamp. The draft New Education Policy (NEP) is the right moment to take stock of its history, achievements, and misgivings to chart out a futuristic education plan for 21st-century India.

Article by  Sethu  Krishnan M, curated by ClearIAS Team

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Reader Interactions

November 27, 2019 at 10:33 pm

Wow what the largest matter of education is?. Very nice thank u sir

November 28, 2019 at 12:09 pm

Nice article but it is too long we need around 400 words which explains education in india,challenges,way forward only It is very hard to remember and segrate from given imp because all points look like imp please try to make it around 400 words only

November 28, 2019 at 2:00 pm

@MKM – The aim was to cover almost everything about Education in India as a comprehensive post. The post covers: (a) History of Education in India (b) Current Status of Education in India: Data from Census 2011 (c) RTE Act (d) Various Educational Policies in the past (e) The New National Educational Policy (NEP) (f) The Problems associated with the Education System in India (g) Education Quality Upgradation and Inclusion Programme (EQUIP): How to transform Education in India?

Though ClearIAS prefers short and crisp articles, for important areas like Education, we felt a detailed write-up would be useful.

Thank you for your feedback. We will continue to create concise articles as well.

November 28, 2019 at 12:35 pm

Good Source thank you Team.

November 28, 2019 at 1:56 pm

November 28, 2019 at 2:41 pm

November 29, 2019 at 7:45 am

This is a very nice and comprehensive information on education.

November 29, 2019 at 2:21 pm

Such a nice article sir thank you..

December 16, 2019 at 5:31 pm

March 30, 2020 at 12:48 pm

Sir,a small corrrection regarding literacy rate ranking, Kerala (93%)tops its followed by Lakshadweep(92 %), Mizoram (91 %) , Tripura (87.7 %) and Goa (87.4 %) as 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th places repectively according to 2011 census.

June 16, 2020 at 12:20 am

Excellent Work

August 31, 2020 at 1:14 pm

Thank you vry much team.🤗 You provide excellent data ,analysis,facts,etc…evrything at one doc.

November 16, 2020 at 10:47 pm

Absolutely amazing stuff. Can’t believe.. Thanks from the bottom of my heart ❤️❤️

May 27, 2021 at 12:38 pm

Great article about Education ​very informative thanks for sharing

May 31, 2021 at 11:55 pm

Well and easy to understand…thank u for the team

September 12, 2021 at 10:37 am

Very good and such a broad information thank u 💖.. Lots of love

December 16, 2021 at 11:10 am

Need to update with current data eg how much percentage of school/ children get access of online education in pandemic Era COVID challanges others family support etc thank

January 28, 2022 at 10:32 am

Thank you so much for your birthday support

February 27, 2022 at 5:33 pm

good information

June 10, 2022 at 3:00 pm

Nice article very informative…traditional classroom study should be changed into a smart classroom online

July 14, 2022 at 8:55 pm

December 18, 2022 at 1:05 am

Absolute coverage article, Kindly keep it up for your determined spectators.

May 28, 2023 at 9:10 pm

desserstation on education/slums/miagration par hindi me pdf mil sakta hai

January 23, 2024 at 8:06 pm

The analysis provides a comprehensive overview of India’s education system, highlighting its pyramid structure and alignment with Sustainable Development Goals. Constitutional provisions like Article 21A and the RTE Act aim for universal education. However, the RTE Act faces criticism. To enhance educational outcomes, addressing these concerns and ensuring effective implementation are imperative. Schools in Pataudi Gurgaon focus on quality, inclusivity, and overcoming criticisms can lead Indian education to new heights. Thank You Samriddhi Sharma

February 7, 2024 at 7:44 pm

It’s crucial to delve into the challenges confronting the Indian education sector and understand the constitutional framework and policies guiding it. Exploring these aspects sheds light on the complexities and opportunities within the system. However, it’s equally important to consider how these discussions translate into action at the grassroots level, especially in local communities like Rajajinagar, Bangalore. How are schools in rajajinagar bangaloreaddressing these systemic issues and implementing reforms to ensure quality education for all students? This intersection of policy discourse and on-the-ground realities is where meaningful change happens.

March 8, 2024 at 6:22 am

Is there any data on how many states provide free education to girls till grade X and how many provide it till grade XII?

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Essay on Education System

• Updated on  
• Nov 15, 2023

The future of a country is shaped by its classrooms. Implementing a sound education system based on a holistic approach to learning is quintessential for ensuring that every student gets the best learning environment to flourish. As education is the most important and basic right, everyone should have, it is our moral duty to facilitate the perfect learning environment for our students.

With the educational journey playing the foundation role in one’s career, there are contrary views concerning the type of education system and approaches we need to take. Hence, it has become a frequently asked topic under the essay writing section in school tests as well as competitive exams. To help you with this topic, we have curated a complete guide on how to write an essay on education system, with useful tips and tricks as well as reference samples. 

This Blog Includes:

How to write an essay on education system, essay on education system in india in 100 words, essay on education system in india in 200 words, sample essay on education system in 300 words, essay on new education system, essay on education system in india during covid-19, essay on education system in india: good or bad, how can we improve the indian education system, list of best education systems in the world.

Generally, the essay topics on education system revolve around analysing a specific education system, its strengths and weaknesses as well as suggesting the solutions for its improvement. You might also be asked about writing an essay on the Education system of India in which you must mention the characteristics of the history of our educational apparatus from the Gurukul Education System to the Current education system in India . You can also take notes from our exclusive blog on the New Education Policy formulated by India with a unique approach to academics. Further, your essay on education system must also imperatively elucidate the key aspects of the system and its salient features as well as an unbiased analysis of its strong characteristics as well as a critical overview of its weak areas where improvement is needed.

• Format – Before drafting an essay on education system, you must know about the format of essay writing. Take a look at the following pointers which elaborate upon the general format of writing structured and impressive essays
• Introduction -The education system essay introduction should provide an overview of the given topic in the introduction, i.e. highlight the recent instances or questions related to the concerned education system. When it comes to the writing style, the introduction as the first paragraph will set the tone of the whole essay thus make sure that it covers a general outline of your topic
• Body of Content – After the introduction, you can start elaborating on the topic of the education system, its role in the development of a country, its key objectives, salient features (if a specific education system is given as a topic) as well as highlight its strong and weak areas. Then, you can further assess how the education system has evolved from earlier times. For example, talk about the history of the education system, and the prominent measures that contributed to its growth, amongst others. Analyse the major points thoroughly according to the essay question and then move towards the next section
• Conclusion – The conclusion is the final section as you wrap up your essay underlining the major points you have mentioned. Avoid ending it abruptly, either go for an optimistic touch to it or just summarize what has been mentioned above

The education system in India comprises four levels: pre-primary, primary, secondary and senior secondary system; all these levels are well-structured and developed to systemically introduce students to the subject matter, develop their language and cognitive skills and prepare them for higher education. The Indian education system gives equal value to knowledge-based learning as well as co-curricular. Countries are now rigorously working on providing free access to education. Nowadays, being in school isn’t the same thing as before. Every individual is skilled in different fields and interests with a due focus on the set curriculum. We need a society that is more elevated towards balanced personal and professional growth . 

Also Read: Importance of Education in Development

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For a nation to have harmony, the education system must focus on a holistic learning approach, i.e. provide equal educational opportunities to everyone, emphasize a wholesome curriculum as well and incorporate educational technologies to make learning a fun and interactive process. When it comes to the education system in India it is not only focused on rote learning and also pushes students towards sports , building interpersonal skills , etc. When schools were shut due to a global pandemic, Indian schools adopted online learning as the new method. There are a few drawbacks as well that the grading system starts from elementary classes and students are under the constant burden to score and pass the exams. Instead of learning something, new students become competitive to score better than the other students. The constant competition and comparison affect the mental health of all students. 

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The need for a well-balanced education system has become a necessity for every country as it plays a significant catalyst in its growth and development. As we know irrespective of one’s background, or family income the right to education is a necessity for everyone. Thus, the government of a nation shall work to make the system more accountable to every citizen. It should aim to enhance the features and policies as per the needs of the country so that it can contribute to the overall development as well as the growth of the economy.  Every child should get an opportunity to attend school and get educated as it is rightly said that “educated people make an educated nation”. The teachings of a sound education system help us to improve our lives in every way. For individuals, education raises self-confidence and opens opportunities for earning. On a country-wide level, it reduces the level of poverty and develops long-term economic growth.

The lack of diversity and engaging recreational activities is one of the biggest problems leading to the global crisis of illiteracy. For the developing nations, it is necessary to have ample knowledge regarding who is learning and what they are learning, so that they can mould their system in a more efficient way and hence, the future. The need for making the system reliable for children is very specific. It should aim to promote comprehensive growth which will ultimately help them in almost every aspect of life. The school and the teachers together shall prepare the children for future times. The children must know the practical aspects of what they are learning in the class. It can be easily said that students nowadays lack the ability to perform efficiently when given fundamental tasks. Thus, an education system must aim to penetrate creativity, decisiveness, communication, collaboration leadership and the spirit of teamwork.

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Rooted in the ancient learnings of Vedas and Puranas, the Indian education system has come a long way from the old-school Gurukuls to the new-age hi-tech academic institutions. The students in schools and colleges are not just tested based on their learning abilities but also on their acquired knowledge and skills as well as their performance in extracurricular activities . This system is implemented in order to emphasize the importance of the overall growth of the child to broaden their horizons. The academic institutions in India, be it primary, secondary, or higher education, are embracing advanced technologies in facilitating learning and bringing a revolutionary change to the same-old classroom teaching. Many schools have brought tablets into their traditional classrooms to make learning an engaging and interesting process by teaching kids through digital applications .  

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Covid-19 has affected the world of education leading to a major shift from traditional four-walled classrooms to online classes. Online classes for online courses definitely lack the ‘personal’ touch and one-to-one interactions between teachers and students. On the contrary, traditional classrooms are less flexible and accessible to many students, especially in underprivileged communities. Attention and interaction are objective to every individual and can’t be attributed to any platform or mode of learning . Teachers and students have enhanced interaction and creative learning by using chatboxes, screen-share, whiteboards, etc. Which are useful for the presentation of images or PPTs. online classes becoming the new normal also gave the world the opportunity to make learning more flexible and accessible on a global level. It is also cost-effective since a good internet connection and a working computer is all you need to teach your class. 

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The Indian education system is one of the oldest, most diverse learning systems in the world. The Indian educational system is designed to ensure a well-developed and uniform curriculum across different states for different grades in the subcontinent. Education is given utmost importance in India with schemes like free and compulsory education for children between the ages of 6 to 14, Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao campaign and Mid-meals in government schools to encourage students to attend school. Under the system, sports and performing arts are given the utmost significance and all students are encouraged to take part and develop a skill or expertise that will help them in the future. The Indian education system also focuses on practical learning and group activities to provide exposure and teach students the importance of teamwork and communication . The Indian education system focuses on the overall development of each student by introducing them to the basics of all the subjects from the start till the secondary level.

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With the rise in a lot of problems in the Indian Education System, we need a proper solution that will be effective. There is a requirement for improvement that creates a brighter future for the candidate. We can initiate a focus on skill development at the school level. Students and parents must understand that not only the ranks and grades but also the analytical and creative skills are also important. The subject taught in school must have both theory and practical teaching methods. Time-to-time syllabus update is necessary with changes with time.

This is also a high time for the government and private colleges to increase the payroll of teachers. The teachers who are working hard for the future of the students deserve more than what they are offered. The schools must hire teachers qualified teachers. The Indian Education System must change all these things. The schools must give equal opportunities to the students. The system now needs to let go of the old and traditional ways to elevate the teaching standards so our students can create a better and more advanced world.

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A sound education system based on a holistic approach to learning is quintessential for ensuring that every student gets the best learning environment to flourish.

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Article contents

The teaching of english in india.

• Usree Bhattacharya Usree Bhattacharya Department of Education, University of Georgia
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.1777
• Published online: 19 October 2022

In India, the teaching of English, a British colonial import and imposition, occurs within an ideologically contested, socioeconomically stratified, and politically charged terrain. Several centuries after its first arrival on Indian shores, English remains a minority, elite language, accessible mostly to urban dwellers and those in the middle and upper classes. Therefore, its present-day circulation helps reproduce and sustain colonial language hierarchies. Significantly, ideologies about English span a wide spectrum, from the language being cast as an illness, to its being seen as a necessary evil for progress, to its being heralded as a vital instrument for uplifting the poor and marginalized. Furthermore, the idea of an indigenized “Indian English” holds sway in the scholarly imagination, even as it is unclear what shape its porous boundaries take within the national consciousness. In perpetual dialog with other Indian languages, English is constantly negotiating a role in India’s rich multilingual networks. Crucially, it functions as the most powerful medium of instruction in the country, firmly regulating access to socioeconomic mobility and higher education. English instruction in India was established to serve colonial interests, and the traces of this past remain in contemporary pedagogical practices. Further, English instruction faces a variety of challenges in India today, including infrastructure constraints, complexities of multilingual pedagogy, rigid grammar translation pedagogy and rote-learning practices, teaching to the test, widespread use of inappropriate and culturally insensitive textbooks, and inadequate investment in teacher training. English controls access to power, prestige, and privilege in modern India; these factors, among others, play a determining role in perpetuating educational inequality across classes. Shining a light on the context in which English instruction occurs in India is thus both an educational and a social justice imperative.

• English teaching
• medium of instruction
• teaching methods
• colonialism

Introduction

In India, the teaching of English, a British colonial import and imposition, occurs within an ideologically contested, socioeconomically stratified, and politically charged terrain. Several centuries after its first arrival on Indian shores, English remains a minority, elite language, accessible mostly to urban dwellers and those in the middle and upper classes. Therefore, its present-day circulation helps reproduce and sustain colonial language hierarchies. Significantly, ideologies about English span a wide spectrum, from the language’s being cast as an illness, to its being seen as a necessary evil for progress, to its being heralded as a vital instrument for uplifting the poor and marginalized. Furthermore, the idea of an indigenized “Indian English” holds sway in the scholarly imagination, even as it is unclear what shape its porous boundaries take within the national consciousness. In perpetual dialog with other Indian languages, English is constantly negotiating a role in India’s rich multilingual networks. Crucially, it functions as the most powerful medium of instruction in the country, firmly regulating access to socioeconomic mobility and higher education. English instruction in India was established to serve colonial interests, and the traces of this past remain in contemporary pedagogical practices. Further, it faces a variety of challenges in India today, including infrastructure constraints, complexities of multilingual pedagogy, rigid grammar translation pedagogy and rote-learning practices, teaching to the test, widespread use of inappropriate and culturally insensitive textbooks, and inadequate investment in teacher training. English controls access to power, prestige, and privilege in modern India; these factors, among others, play a determining role in perpetuating educational inequality across classes. Shining a light on the context in which English teaching occurs in India is thus both an educational and a social justice imperative.

A Colonial Inheritance

In the Indian context, the English language is arguably “one of the most visible and tangible indicators of the influence of British colonialism” ( Parameswaran, 1997 , p. 22) that spanned several centuries. Its colonial contours remain prominent in the popular imagination: for example, Vice President of India Venkaiah Naidu labeled English “a disease left behind by the British” ( Dhume, 2018 , p. 1). English first entered Indian shores through trade, “transplanted” ( Mukherjee, 2020 , p. 167) by the British East India Company in the early 17th century . Yet, the East India Company did not wish to invest in developing general educational infrastructure or spreading English education in India ( Evans, 2002 ). In fact, Christian missionaries provided the initial impetus in the spread of English. Driven by rising evangelical fervor, they established a variety of schools, starting in the early 18th century . At the time, regional elites developed a growing demand for English as a result of the association of English with power dynamics in India (see Frykenberg, 1988 ). Over time, British colonizers offered greater encouragement to missionary education in India, because missionary education was specifically geared toward preventing Indians from developing a sense of their own rights (or the lack thereof) within colonial rule and to create collaborators who could convert other Indians to the British cause” ( Jayendran et al., 2021 , p. 32; see also Evans, 2002 ). Importantly, the year 1800 marked the start of English teaching in formal, institutionalized settings in India in the then British capital, Calcutta ( Mehrotra, 2000 ).

Annamalai (2005) outlined how, for the colonizers, the calculus of educating colonial subjects primarily entailed financial and political consideration because education had to be in service of furthering British colonial interests. Within this formulation, three strategies were popular. The Orientalist position, for one, supported continuing with conventional educational systems, mediated in Sanskrit and Persian, with the addition of European works to the curricula. It was believed that this would assimilate existing elites into the colonial power structure and lead to the least turmoil by maintaining the previous social order. Another position was the Anglicist position, which supported English education for a select few, who were then expected to use vernacular languages to disseminate European knowledge and ideologies. The push for this position came strongly from the evangelical movement ( Evans, 2002 ). Ultimately, these two positions were fashioned as the struggle between tradition and modernity: Evans (2002) framed the difference thus, contrasting the “Anglicist vision of a moribund culture transformed by modern science and the Orientalist vision of an ancient culture revived by its traditional learned classes” (p. 266). The third position had the least traction: it held that the government should invest in public schools, which would then use instruction in the vernacular medium to propagate European knowledge.

These debates came to a head and culminated in the enactment of the Anglicist position as official policy after Thomas Babington Macaulay’s notorious “Minute on Indian Education” of 1835 , “which advocated the creation of a class of anglicized Indians who would serve as cultural intermediaries between the British and their Indian subjects” ( Evans, 2002 , p. 260). The most influential policies undergirding the teaching of English in India are widely attributed to the Minute. Importantly, Macauley is notorious for showing open scorn for Indian literature and local knowledge, noting: “I have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia” ( Phillips, 1977 , p. 1405). While Macaulay has been widely held to be the dominant policymaker with reference to the spread of English education in India (see Phillipson, 1992 ), Evans (2002) has convincingly argued that his importance has, in fact, been exaggerated. Ultimately, there were many other complex factors that gave shape to specific English educational policies in India.

Debates about the implication of English within the colonial circumstance have been deeply anchored to questions about Indians’ subjectivity in the British empire. Some scholars and policymakers have argued that the colonial roots of English are irrelevant in contemporary India. Veettil (2013) reiterated these sentiments, claiming that “English is no more viewed as a colonial imposition” (p. 14). An influential policy document, the NCERT “Position Paper on the Teaching of English” (2006) also adopted a similar position, asserting that English’s “colonial origins [are] now forgotten or irrelevant” (p. 1). Vaish (2005) went further, arguing that the language performs, in fact, as “an agent of decolonization” (p. 187) in contemporary India, specifically as an instrument for uplifting the urban poor. Scholars on the other side of the debate have been convinced that there is no unyoking of English from its colonial roots. As Niranjana (1990) put it, the English language in India “is inextricable from the process of subjection/subjectification under colonialism” (p. 773). This was reiterated by Mishra (2000) , who stated that the “tainted and suspect origins [of English] lie in the ideologies of colonialism” (p. 388). In fact, this is deeply embedded within the English teaching context: scholars have previously powerfully demonstrated how instructional methods, assessment practices, and the canon for English teaching have been shaped by the British colonial project (see Kumaravadivelu, 2003 ). More recently, Bhattacharya’s (2017) work elucidated how the colonial encounter in fact continues to frame, inform, and regulate ideologies about the English language in India, particularly as voiced on the margins. Ultimately, the story of English and its relationship to the colonial past is thus anything but straightforward, and even in its denial, it remains attached to its roots.

The Circulation of English

There is little consensus on how many Indians “speak” or “know” English. A key problem is gauging what constitutes “speaking” or “knowing” English. These are fluid categories that are difficult to define across such a varied population; moreover, calculations are affected by the types of English that are recognized as legitimate. Estimates, therefore, differ quite a bit. According to the National Knowledge Commission (2000) , 1% of Indians used English as a second language. Crystal (2003) , however, estimated the same at 20%. Hohenthal (2003) claimed, meanwhile, that the total number of English speakers was 4% of the total population. For Mishra (2000) , however, the number was 5%. According to Mohanty (2006) , less than 2% of Indians “knew” English, while Baral (2006) stated that English was used in the daily lives of a mere 4% of the population. Furthermore, Sonalde and Vanneman (2005) asserted that 4% of Indians could speak English with a high degree of fluency, and that 16% could speak a little bit. Mukherjee (2020) , meanwhile, suggested that English “is used competently and regularly by c. 35 to 50 million Indians today” (p. 167), suggesting yet another small fraction. However, Timalsina (2021) claimed there were 129 million English speakers in India, similar to Dhume’s (2018) estimate of 125 million English speakers drawn from a British Council report. Ultimately, with India’s population nearing 1.4 billion, there appears to be clear consensus that the language remains a minority one within the rich multilingual tapestry of the country. But a minority language in India, even when associated with a small percentage of the population, is still associated with a sizable population overall: if the higher range estimates are accepted, there are more English speakers in India than anywhere other than the United States ( Dhume, 2018 ).

Bedi (2020) charted several reasons why English has managed to play such a dominating role in the Indian context, even as it remains a minority language. For one, it has been the language of power in India since colonial times. For hundreds of years, English has served as the principal language of political administration, the judiciary, and commerce. Additionally, it has served as a useful instrument for unification: it is able to bring together speakers of different native languages under one umbrella. This is particularly convenient considering the resistance to Hindi (the other hegemonic language) in certain parts of the country. Furthermore, in terms of geographic spread, English is spoken across more regions than any other language. Its wider reach makes it effective in bridging differences. Moreover, since the neoliberalization of the early 1990s, English literacy has been closely linked to popular discourses on development and globalization in India. Its global importance as the preeminent language of international communication and commerce has thus made English extremely desirable. Additionally, higher education in India is conducted almost exclusively in English; therefore, it serves as the key gatekeeper to educational opportunities ( Christ & Makarani, 2009 ).

In a land of deep socioeconomic divides, these perceptions and realities fuel the popularity of English. It is perceived to be a critical driver of socioeconomic mobility; without access to the language, economic and educational opportunities are significantly limited. Particularly for communities on the margins, access to English is seen as critical ( Bhattacharya, 2013 ; Chakraborty & Bakshi, 2016 ). The consecration of a temple to the “Goddess of English” by the Dalit community (previously referred to as the “untouchables”) in 2010 is a compelling example of this ( Pandey, 2011 ). Historically, the Dalit community has been a brutally oppressed as a result of deep-seated caste politics, with literacy serving as a crucial site of struggle. Literacy had been denied to the Dalit for centuries. The consecration of the temple to the Goddess of English symbolized access not only to privileged literacy forms but also to a better future. As Mishra (2000) noted, however, in India, English functions as a “double-edged sword . . . possessing the potential for a liberatory future while at present creating and abetting the production and reproduction of a hierarchical world” (p. 384). Thus, while powerful language ideologies uphold English as a critical way out of rigid cycles of poverty, the language helps institute and maintain socioeconomic structures of inequality ( Bhattacharya & Mohanty, 2021 ).

“Indian English”

While English has long had local flavor in India, it has historically been constructed as a foreign language, because of how it arrived. However, in recent decades, there has been a growing assertion that it has been successfully indigenized. Mishra and Mishra (2016) asserted that English is “an Indian language” (p. 399), and Agnihotri (2008) argued that in contemporary India, English functions as “an integral part of the language ecology” (p. 4). Moreover, Bedi (2020) called it “the de facto national language of India” (p. 6). For Raja Rao (1978) , the language was already deeply interwoven into the fabric of Indian society: “As long as we are Indians . . . we shall have the English language with us and amongst us, and not as guest or friend, but as one of our own, of our caste, our creed, our sect and of our tradition” (p. 421). Pandey and Jha (2021) , meanwhile, focused on its important functional status in India, calling it “an institutionalised second language” (p. 13).

Further, the notion of a singular “Indian English,” a language ideological abstraction, has been hotly contested over the years. Sharma (2013) perhaps most closely captured its complexity in her definition: she described Indian English as “a superordinate term that encompasses a range of predominantly L2 varieties of English” (p. 523). Some scholars have invoked the idea of “Indian Englishes” to better capture the language’s variance and internal heterogeneity, to mixed response ( Sailaja, 2009 ; Sridhar, 2020 ). Distinctions regarding the use of English in India have been drawn in terms of linguistic and regional affiliations as well as socioeconomic status (see Agnihotri, 2010 ; Kachru, 1965 ; Sailaja, 2009 ). According to Sridhar (2020) , however, the variety of Indian English spoken is most crucially shaped by a speaker’s mother tongue and any additional (local) languages known. In fact, the latter directly impacts a range of linguistic aspects, including “pronunciation and accent, as well as lexical choice and grammatical characteristics, and stylistic features” ( Sridhar, 2020 , p. 253). Annamalai (2004) referred to this as the process of nativization of English. Regardless of the linguistic differences, variance across Indian English forms is relatively limited.

Overall, the overarching idea of Indian English prevails in scholarship ( Pandey, 2015 ; Sridhar, 2020 ). It is one of the most widely spoken types of English and is thought to be “the oldest nonnative variety” in the world ( Sridhar, 2020 , p. 243). Historically constructed as a deviance from a standard form (i.e., British English), Indian English is slowly coming to be recognized as a vibrant, legitimate variety, “integrated into the multilingual fabric of India” ( Sridhar, 2020 , p. 272). In terms of English teaching, two issues are of critical importance. First, Indian English is still often considered an illegitimate variety for instructional purposes; the “prestige” varieties of British and American English are often seen as the true standards. This stance crafts yet another hierarchy within educational language politics. Second, there isn’t sufficient clarity regarding the intricate workings of this language variety for instructional purposes ( Sridhar, 2020 ). Research on these two issues is slowly emerging, but there remains a great deal of fuzziness regarding appropriate practices in English instruction.

English in Multilingual India

India is one of the most linguistically diverse countries in the world; Upadhyay and Hasnain (2017) cited a popular Hindi saying that, in India, “at every four miles language changes and at every eight miles changes the taste of water” (p. 115). Furthermore, as in the estimates of English speakers, there is wide variance. By one count, India is home to 780 languages belonging to many different language families ( Devy, 2014 ); by another count, the country has 1,652 languages ( Census of India, 1961 ). Regardless of the actual numbers, English in India is perpetually in dialog with its linguistic neighbors.

In terms of official languages, that status was accorded to Hindi in 1950 , with English being labeled as an associate official language. At the time, the expectation was that the country would transition to the use of Hindi predominantly as a national language, with English being discontinued. However, anti-Hindi resistance and the popularity of English resulted in the cementing, rather than the phasing out, of the dominant role of English. Today, English has a preeminent role in the workings of the government, the judiciary, commerce, and education, among others.

Importantly, the Indian Constitution has recognized 22 languages as “scheduled languages.” While Hindi is counted in the scheduled languages, English is not. Constitutional and other policy support has been a vital aspect of shaping a pecking order in and around languages ( Mohanty, 2010 ). Scholars have argued that differential language policies have, in effect, created a “hierarchical and pyramidal power structure” ( Mohanty, 2019 , p. 329). This has been labeled a double divide ( Mohanty et al., 2010 ; Ramanathan, 2005 ), a term referring both to hierarchies created by differential resources accorded to languages across the English–vernacular divide and to hierarchies among vernacular–other (minority) languages ( Mohanty et al., 2010 ).

The divides have caused political and social turmoil in the linguistic landscape, and they have been “variously resisted, contested, and negotiated in the society through individual and collective identity strategies” ( Mohanty et al., 2010 , p. 215) within and outside of educational spaces. Thus, the teaching of English in India occurs in the context of multilingualism, whether by design or default ( Bhatia, 2021 ; Taylor & Mohanty, 2021 ). In this context, the three-language formula, approved by the government in 1968 , has been the most influential language policy document navigating this complexity since India’s independence from British colonial rule. It has been central in framing language-in-education policies, impacting language policy and planning at the local, regional, and national levels. As LaDousa and Davis (2018) explained, the policy unfolds along a “north–south axis,” as a result of which “students from Indo-Aryan language regions would receive exposure to Dravadian languages and students from Dravadian language regions would receive exposure to Indi-Aryan languages” (p. 4). Despite the formula’s dominance from a policy perspective, its implementation has been inconsistent ( NCERT, 2006 ) and mired in contentious regional language politics. Ideologies about the stature and importance of different languages, as well as economic considerations, have guided the selection of languages by various stakeholders in the three-language formula ( Khubchandani, 1978 ). Further, the hegemony of the two most powerful languages, Hindi and English, in national language policy discourses has served to exacerbate local tensions as a result of a complex matrix of regional language politics ( Bhattacharya, 2013 ; Mohanty, 2019 ). While in principle it facilitates choice-making, the three-language policy has imposed serious constraints on language education. In fact, Annamalai (2005) decried “its rigidity, built on its premise of unidirectional vertical integration” (p. 29), leading to policy abandonment by language minorities across India. Inadequate and inappropriate institutional support in teacher training for policy implementation has also received pointed criticism. Last but not least, the policy has been criticized for its confusing language calculus, which, according to Mohanty (2019) , has led to the dominance of English in schooling. Ultimately, as Mohanty (2006) stated: the policy has been “more abused and less used” (p. 279), even as it has significantly transformed the language-education setting of India.

English-Medium Instruction

The supremacy of English in Indian language politics has strongly contributed to the popularity of (mostly private) English-medium schooling, i.e., education through English ( Mohanty et al., 2010 ). English functions as medium of instruction across schools in more states than any other language now, and more than 40% of total schoolchildren are enrolled in English-medium schools ( Mohanty, 2019 ). Relatedly, over the years there has been a dramatic decrease in the number of vernacular languages used for instruction ( Bhattacharya & Mohanty, 2021 ; Mohanty, 2019 ). In fact, protests have erupted against the government-led imposition of a regional language instructional medium in certain states ( Bhattacharya & Mohanty, 2021 ; Borooah & Sabharwal, 2021 ). Parents, in particular, have driven the demand for English-medium schooling. Ramanathan (2005) described the widespread “craze for English” (p. 49), while Raj and Prakash (2020) described “parents clamouring for getting their kids admitted into English-medium schools” (p. 32). Lower-income parents, as Nambissan (2016) has suggested, see “linkages . . . between the knowledge of English, middle-class jobs, social distinction, and elite status” (p. 86). However, as research has shown convincingly, not all English-medium schools in India are created equal ( Annamalai, 2005 ; Bhattacharya, 2013 ; Mohanty, 2019 ); access to an English-medium school does not necessarily lead to acquisition of English and its attendant privileges. Mohanty et al. (2010) referred to this as the “myth of English-medium superiority” (p. 214).

A key problem is that the widespread demand for English-medium schooling has led to the proliferation of unregulated or semiregulated private educational institutions, specifically targeting poorer sections of Indian society ( Annamalai, 2005 ; Jhingran, 2009 ; Srivastava, 2013 ). Mohanty et al. (2010) claimed that such educational institutions offered “cosmetic Anglicization” (p. 216): that is, English instruction in name but not in practice (see Bhattacharya, 2013 ).

Agnihotri (2008) has powerfully argued that the major socioeconomic divides in India have been driven by a hierarchically structured educational system and inequitable access to English instruction. Unfortunately, poverty-stricken families are often the worst affected by this. Poorer parents, who typically have lower formal literacy and/or knowledge of English, will stretch themselves financially to enroll their children in the unregulated private institutions, unaware of the surface-level English instruction taking place ( Bhattacharya, 2013 ). The variety of English learned at such institutions, as Annamalai (2005) recognized, is not “critical, creative and applicable to the problems of real life and the needs of the society” (p. 26). Schools of this type have also been criticized for leading to the acquisition of “bookish” English and poor development of communication skills. Other factors that also contribute to low-quality language instruction in formal educational settings for poorer sections of society include chronic teacher absenteeism and infrastructural issues ( Nedungadi et al., 2018 ), widespread poverty ( Tilak, 2018 ), child labor ( UNESCO, 2015 ), high dropout rates ( Marphatia et al., 2019 ), gender disparity ( Sahni, 2017 ), graft ( Kingdon, 2007 ), and inconsistent application of educational policy ( Grant, 2012 ), among other issues.

Wealthier students, meanwhile, often have exposure to English in their everyday lives, are typically taught by teachers with better training and resources, and have better access to after-school support ( Mohanty, 2006 ). Their English learning typically entails greater nurturing of communication skills and creative expression, factors that contribute to superior academic achievement ( Gilbertson, 2016 ; Nussbaum, 2006 ). As a result, Sheorey (2006) referred to English in India as a “divider rather than a unifier . . . [since] advantages and the ‘power’ inherent in English literacy are enjoyed primarily by the middle and upper classes” (p. 18). Therefore, the majority of the population faces a double bind: they are either restricted in their access to English or the language skills they acquire do not meet the demands of the job market ( Mohanty, 2006 ). In fact, Mohanty (2019) asserted that English-medium instruction “and the role of English in public and private schools have led to a new caste and subcaste system in India, differentiated on the basis of quality of English proficiency” (p. 197). The fact that students experience markedly different learning opportunities across socioeconomic divides is a critical educational equity issue. As Mohanty (2006) asked poignantly, “Whom do English-medium schools teach and whom do they cheat?” (p. 273). The socioeconomic divide continues to sharpen as a result of uneven language access and instruction, thus impacting both student achievement and retention over the long term.

English Instructional Context

Multigrade context.

Multigrade pedagogy entails “the teaching of students of different ages, grades and abilities in the same group” ( Little, 1995 , p. 1). All classroom contexts evidence differences along these lines to some degree; but in India, the multigrade classroom, where children from different classes are placed in the same physical room, functions as the national norm. This makes the teaching situation significantly complicated, because in ethnically and linguistically diverse classrooms in India, teachers must simultaneously manage “multi-age children across . . . [multiple] grades, as well as children from different family backgrounds, castes, cultures, languages, [and] ideologies, even within the same village” ( Diwan, 2015 , p. 194). The impact of multigrade teaching is felt most at the primary (elementary) level, where more than three quarters of schools have three or fewer instructors despite burgeoning class sizes ( CREATE, 2011 ; Sangai, 2019 ).

Bhattacharya’s (2013) work offered insight into how multigrade pedagogy affects the teaching of English. In the multigrade classrooms in her work, classroom management became a crucial pedagogical consideration for language instruction. The situation led teachers to assign extensive quiet work (i.e., copying and silently memorizing) as a way of managing large groups of children across different classes. This practice resulted in minimal time for interactive learning and in the deliberate sidelining of communicative activities. Aslam (2006) highlighted similar findings in the Indian English instruction context, noting how multigrade classrooms diffused teachers’ attention, reduced practice of communicative activities, and resulted in heavy reliance on lecturing. Such modifications in service of multigrade pedagogy can be a demoralizing force for both instructors and students ( Aslam, 2006 ; Bhattacharya, 2013 ). While there is a great deal of criticism of the multigrade model, some scholars have found that it can be useful despite its disadvantages. For example, Sangai (2019) offered some powerful insight into how the multigrade teaching challenge can be converted into an opportunity for vertical and peer learning, among others. Bhardwaj (2014) argued along similar lines, that multigrade pedagogy is critical for accomplishing universal education in India, and found that it has a variety of advantages, including helping keep girls in school and making schooling possible in underresourced areas. Scholars on both sides of the debate concur, importantly, that multigrade pedagogy is likely to remain a key feature of Indian schooling in the years to come. And while scholars agree that the most effective way to combat some of its disadvantages is through appropriate teacher training, there has been limited progress in that area currently.

Multilingual Practices

The typical English classroom in India manifests translingual communications. Vernacular languages are widely used in English instruction and are woven into everyday conversation ( Mohanty et al., 2010 ). Policy documents often speak to the importance of embracing this complex reality. The “Position Paper on English Teaching” ( NCERT, 2006 ) noted: “Linguistic purism, whether of English or the Indian languages, must yield to a tolerance of code-switching and code-mixing if necessary” (p. 12). Bhatia’s (2020) study, similarly, highlighted the importance of “literacy acquisition of Hinglish and other mixed systems, conceptually grounded in additive multilingualism, complex interactional practices of Indian multilingualism, and classroom management talk” (p. 30) for holistic and meaningful English instruction. Relatedly, Amritavalli (2013) offered:

English is taught by Indians to Indians so that we may interact with one another and with the world. The acknowledgment that English is a global language in a multilingual country has the (second) methodological consequence that we need not insulate it from our other languages in the classroom (as the audio-lingual era did), any more than in our everyday lives. It has been an abiding national vision that the teaching of English creates multilinguals to enrich all our languages.

Likewise, Agnihotri (2008) stressed “that the actual heterogeneity rather than the assumed homogeneity of the classroom should inform the project of education” (p. 1). Despite this push to embrace Indian multilingualism in the classroom, however, there are problems in implementation. Mohanty et al. (2010) pointed out that teachers carry the heaviest burden of figuring out how to navigate the disjuncture “between state-prescribed teaching objectives with respect to languages and what they experience and confront in the classrooms” (p. 228). Despite the multilingual underpinnings of nationwide language policies, they are often monoglossic in nature ( Rajasekaran & Kumar, 2020 ). Further, as Anderson and Lightfoot (2018) have proposed, teachers are not necessarily invested in incorporating translingual competence into their pedagogy. Anderson and Lightfoot suggested that this is influenced by a range of factors, such as a preference for the target-language-only approach, distrust of translanguaging in schooling contexts, and traditional ideologies related to educational goals. In their work, they also advised that Indian English teachers embrace hybridity and adapt to the multilingual circumstances in which the language circulates. Agnihotri’s (2010) call that we proceed with “an approach that is rooted in multilinguality and that keeps the multiplicity of languages and cultural practices available among children at the centre of classroom transaction” (p. 10) is a powerful way forward, if the pedagogical practicalities can be sorted out satisfactorily.

Grammar-Translation Method

The grammar-translation method remains the dominant language pedagogical approach in most Indian classrooms, particularly in government-run schools ( Mohanty, 2020 ). The method emphasizes explicit grammar instruction as well as (bidirectional) translation practices. At its worst, as Pennycook (2008) put it, it entails “deadening practices of bad pedagogy where translation is a punitive exercise, a means to fill an hour of classroom time, a means of showing superior teacher knowledge, or a chance to reduce languages to mere equivalents of each other” (p. 36). Elizabeth (2010) listed other disadvantages of the method, including that speaking and pronunciation practice is minimized, there is overemphasis on reading skills, the process of translation works through linguistic and cultural approximations (thus curtailing direct access to meaning), the learning process is passive, and, ultimately, that “this method does not help the students to learn the language” (p. 54). Additionally, Grover (2014) raised other concerns, such as that it is “not the natural way of learning language” and that it curtails “free expression of thought in English” for Indian learners (p. 2). Moreover, according to Grover (2014) , the method stifles creativity and “has proved a stumbling block in learning English language in a real sense” (p. 3). Bhattacharya (2013) also found that the approach was a hindrance in the English language classroom. In the classrooms she investigated, she found that during lessons the teachers translated words, phrases, and sentences into the local language (Hindi), but the process itself was unsystematic and unpredictable. During the translations, it was not clear to the students which syntactic or lexical items were being added or removed. This affected students’ ability to decode individual English words, in addition to affecting their ability to comprehend texts independently. Thus, teachers directly controlled meaning, while students’ access to it was mediated through translation activities. This adversely affected students’ English acquisition and development of communication skills (see also Ramanathan, 1999 ). In a related study, Bhattacharya (2016) found that unsystematic translation practices limited students’ ability to participate in the classroom, leading to the dis-citizenship of learners.

Elizabeth (2010) offered a different perspective, outlining some advantages of the use of this method in English teaching in Indian classrooms. One advantage is that it relieves some measure of the teaching burden in large classrooms. Second, it gives quicker access to meaning, facilitating approximate understandings while students develop language proficiency. Third, it allows for quick comprehension checks in a familiar language, making it easier for teachers to understand if students are following. Finally, the method fosters student learning through cross-linguistic comparison, building bridges across languages and cultures.

Ultimately, in India, “English is always a language in translation, a language of translingual use” ( Pennycook, 2008 , p. 34), and its teaching will, of necessity, be shaped by this reality. What needs addressing urgently is how to tap into its possibilities while providing direct access to ownership of the English language for learners.

Rote Learning

Rote learning entails repetition techniques to acquire new knowledge, giving primacy to recall rather than deep understanding ( Tokuhama-Espinosa, 2010 ). Rote-learning practices have been criticized for leading to passive, unanalytic learning styles ( Subramaniam, 2008 ). The memorization of formulaic chunks of information functions as the primary learning goal in the process, leaving “no room for exploration and critical thinking” ( Pande & Relia, 2020 , p. 40). While rote learning has been used over millennia in India for religious and language instruction, its formal instructional shape in the early 21st century has been traced to colonial times. According to scholars, this teaching approach was adopted in formal schooling to socialize Indians into subservient British subjectivity ( Balaram, 2005 ; Sheshagiri, 2010 ).

Rote learning has been widely criticized in Indian language educational scholarship, because it is seen as limiting access to both English and content ( Annamalai, 2005 ; Bhattacharya, 2013 ; Mohanty, 2019 ; Pandey & Jha, 2021 ). The dominance of rote instruction in English pedagogy is a crucial problem, honing the operation of memory but not sufficiently fostering communicative ability, creativity, and critical thinking ( Bhattacharya, 2013 ; Mohanty, 2006 ; Nussbaum, 2006 ). One key issue to keep in mind is that linguistic minorities and students of lower socioeconomic status typically have greater exposure to rote methods; therefore, English rote-learning practices continue to reproduce educational inequalities along socioeconomic and linguistic lines ( Annamalai, 2005 ; Bhattacharya, 2022 ; Gilbertson, 2016 ; Mohanty, 2019 ). For upwardly mobile students, meanwhile, schooling is much more likely to engender learning, creativity, and deeper understanding ( Gilbertson, 2016 ). This naturally constructs a deep divide in terms of educational access and success across socioeconomic lines. Moreover, the powerful ideologies undergirding these practices reveal why they continue to dominate classroom instruction. It is important to extend the nascent literature on this topic ( Bhattacharya, 2022 ; Bhattacharya & Mohanty, 2021 ). Also, it is widely noted that teachers rely on rote-learning methods largely because that is how they themselves learned the language. This remains a largely neglected area in teacher training and will need to be tackled before any major reforms can be instituted.

Teaching to the Test

Testing is a central concern in English language instruction in India. In fact, Ramanathan (2008) claimed that in India, an exam-driven focus “defines the curriculum and classroom activities” (p. 124) related to English instruction. Both instructors and students place a great deal of weight on test performance, leading to its prioritization in the instructional sequence ( Aslam, 2006 ; Elizabeth, 2010 ). Much of the time, the emphasis is on acquiring memorizable chunks of information, rather than deep learning ( Bhattacharya, 2022 ; Bhattacharya et al., 2007 ). In addition to the devotion of a great deal of instructional time to examination preparation, learning objectives are subordinated to teaching to the test ( Aslam, 2006 ). Crucially, the focus on testing and assessment leads to poor investment in oral proficiency in English, since that is rarely tested in the Indian educational setting ( Aslam, 2006 ; Elizabeth, 2010 ). Yet another issue is that, in some contexts, concern about student performance on tests leads teachers to provide answers to the students. Bhattacharya (2013) captured how learners never generated any answers in the English classrooms she observed; teachers provided the answers, usually drawing on guidebooks (teacher’s copies). Teachers would also often inform students what questions would appear on the tests; as a result, students would narrowly focus on what was anticipated and not engage with study materials beyond that. They would memorize answers and aim to reproduce them as faithfully as possible within test conditions. What was tested during examinations, then, was recall and memory, rather than language proficiency, as students focused on memorizing rather than understanding. In this manner, the practice socialized children further into modes of passive learning, where responding to questions was the domain of teachers. These aspects suggest that the overemphasis on testing must be urgently addressed at all levels, in discussion with key stakeholders. Another area of consideration is the lack of interest in diagnostic and formative assessment ( Ramanathan, 2008 , 2016 ). Further, teacher training in assessment remains a matter of general neglect, requiring a “sea change” in perspective ( Ramanathan, 2016 , p. 123). While some positive changes are underway in relation to English testing, related reforms are moving slowly in the country ( Ramanathan, 2016 ). This issue needs more urgent consideration than it has received so far. Finally, how differential testing practices and outcomes result in the maintenance of socioeconomic divides must also be immediately and carefully evaluated.

Textbooks play a crucial role in English instruction, functioning often as “the primary carriers of school knowledge” ( Chen, 2002 , p. 40). The situation has only marginally improved since Vaish (2005) noted that “students are still burdened by texts with a middle-class, urban, upper-caste bias” (p. 198). Bhattacharya (2019) also found that English textbooks were grossly misaligned with the everyday realities experienced by marginalized schoolchildren in India. Furthermore, the language used in textbooks is often information-driven, not geared toward knowledge building ( Vaish, 2005 ). Criticizing the inadequacy and inappropriateness of textbooks used for English instruction, Aslam (2006) noted that the books were mostly written by first-language English speakers and were “linguistically difficult and culturally alien” (p. 22) for Indian learners. The medium of instruction also raised some challenges with regard to textbooks. For example, Bhattacharya (2013) examined classrooms in which the textbooks were written in English but instruction was in Hindi. This created a major disconnect, and, due to confusing instructional translation practices, students found textbooks to be largely impenetrable, leading to greater reliance on rote learning. Furthermore, newer communicative approaches in the English textbooks were ignored because teachers had no or inadequate training in the method, which is a common problem in India. Another issue is that teachers are not often given the opportunity to write textbooks ( Elizabeth, 2010 ); therefore, the gulf between classroom realities and the instructional principles in textbooks is quite wide. In recent decades, there has been a push to better attend to textbooks as a wider educational problem ( Elizabeth, 2010 ), and there remain critical areas for improvement, such as prescriptive approaches to language, disconnect from students’ sociocultural backgrounds, and little understanding or appreciation of multilingual pedagogy, among others ( Bhattacharya, 2013 ; Rajasekaran & Kumar, 2020 ).

Teacher Education

Many of the core English instructional issues outlined in this article are a result of poor investment in teacher training. Teachers are not adequately prepared to teach multigrade classrooms ( Bhattacharya, 2013 ; Diwan, 2015 ), and they are not taught how to manage rich multilingual environments in a systematic manner ( Bhattacharya, 2013 ; Menon et al., 2014 ). Ideally, teacher training would address the socioeconomic imperative for English as well as nurture education in vernacular languages, but this is far from the current reality ( Menon et al., 2014 ). In addition, Aslam (2006) noted a variety of other issues. Reading and writing are prioritized in English teacher training, to the neglect of other skill areas. It was also noted that there is only minimal professional development for in-service instructors; teachers have to take the initiative and learn on their own if they want to advance their learning. Further, teacher training does not effectively strengthen teachers’ foundations in English, leading to reliance on rote pedagogies and grammar-translation approaches ( Aslam, 2006 ; Bhattacharya, 2013 ). Moreover, inadequate policy support and planning exacerbate existing issues. Menon et al. (2014) suggested that, in addition to investing in it more deeply—from a financial and policy perspective—teacher training for language teachers in India must empower instructors “to become active agents in meaning-making through a shared engagement in critical enquiry” (p. 61). A wide-ranging, comprehensive, and in-depth re-evaluation of existing teacher preparation programs must be undertaken urgently, and reforms must be considered, especially if English instruction in India is to be successful and just across socioeconomic divides.

Future Directions

The teaching of English in India is, one the one hand, “inextricably entangled with the politics of the Empire” ( Krishnaswamy & Krishnaswamy, 2006 , p. v), and, on the other hand, woven into the complex tapestry of national neoliberal development discourses. Thus, English is taught at the intersection of ideological, sociocultural, economic, and political tensions. Its status as a language of privilege and prestige accords it a special place in the linguistic landscape of India, even as, or precisely because, it remains at the heart of elite production in Indian society. Access to the English language, ultimately, maintains and sharpens socioeconomic inequalities across different divides. Therefore, questions about who teaches it, why, in what ways, and to whom, are critical, not only from a language educational perspective but also from a social justice lens.

India has possibly the world’s largest English instructional context; however, research in this area remains woefully underdeveloped. There is insufficient local, rigorous, peer-reviewed research in India focusing on English teaching. One issue is that language education scholars often lack adequate methodological and theoretical training. This is exacerbated by restricted access to wide-ranging library resources. Another key issue is that the understanding of English instructional principles is often guided by imported and outdated frames of reference; local conceptualizations of language are thus often refracted through foreign theoretical and methodological lenses. In addition, scholars continue to understand existing English instructional methods through imported frames of reference (see Jayendran et al., 2021 ); change is needed so that language teaching in India can be unpacked and conceptualized in locally meaningful ways, particularly in ways that acknowledge the colonial history of the methods. There is a pressing need for more robust and diverse language educational scholarship that privileges the uniquely Indian voice in the literature. This will require not only a great deal of investment in developing research skills among language education scholars, but also a fundamental change in the understanding of mindful citation and discursive practices. Even as local knowledge develops around this issue, it is important to question whose voices are centered in the scholarly discourse and why.

Another issue is the still limited longitudinal qualitative inquiry in Indian scholarship on English teaching. Without this, it is challenging to understand the nuances surrounding the complexities of the context and/or to get a sense of transformation over time. Furthermore, the ideological underpinnings of instructional and learning practices need greater attention, to better capture how language beliefs, values, and attitudes shape English teaching in India ( Bhattacharya, 2017 ; Bhattacharya & Mohanty, 2021 ). The double divides, which act as metaphors for linguistic hierarchies in India, also merit further analysis. It is crucial, additionally, to continue research into the language border crossings that occur constantly in English classrooms, particularly in relation to how they are articulated or regulated in language policy and planning. Critical areas to explore remain how aspects like class, gender, disability, and caste impact teaching and learning of English, and to explore issues of intersectionality ( Crenshaw, 2017 ) in them. The post-colonial implication of English pedagogy, moreover, deserves continuing scrutiny. A useful next step would be to foster international scholarly dialog with other South Asian countries on the topic, to develop a more comprehensive picture of how English instruction is situated within regional politics and history. Discussions about this must also be contextualized within the Right to Education Act ( 2009 ), to see how the political reach of universal education impacts on-the-ground instruction in English (see Bhattacharya & Jiang, 2018 ). Currently, English functions as a key gatekeeper and divider in India; with greater scholarly attention to this topic, it is likely the landscape could be transformed into a less unequal one. Perhaps it could become a space of possibility and hope for a better future. For that, English teaching will have to be less about selling a dream and more about addressing what it has perpetuated for centuries: oppression and inequality.

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Teacher Education in India: An Overview

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Recently, India is encountering quick and sudden changes in teacher education. The one-year B.Ed. Program was converted into a two-year Program in 2015, and it was implemented abruptly and without much planning in the same year. While the stakeholders of teacher education are still busy in reflecting and debating the pros and cons of 2-year B.Ed. programme, NEP 2020 has declared that from 2030 the Integrated Teacher Education Programme (ITEP) i.e the 4-Year Integrated B.Ed. Programme will be the lone teacher education programme in the country for preparing secondary education teachers. It appears that teacher education is in the midst of a significant transformation. Teacher educators, pupil-teachers, and all other stakeholders are unsure what will happen and, if implemented, how it will be carried out in B.Ed. colleges and universities’ departments of teacher education. The vision and mission of teacher education, which directs and decides the fate of school education, must be crystal clear. This chapter attempts to revisit the development of teacher education in India, analyses current challenges, the prevailing curriculum framework, eligibility criteria for teacher educators, and forecasts some possible solutions to the issues and challenges confronting teacher education in the country.

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Ahmad, J. (2018a). Changing contours of teacher education in India: Issues, concerns and probable way-outs. University News , Association of Indian Universities, 56 (36), 3–11. ISSN-0566-2257.

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Ahmad, J. (2023). Teacher Education in India: An Overview. In: Ahmad, J., Masih, A. (eds) Teaching and Teacher Education in India. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4985-4_1

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Perspective article, effective teaching practices for success during covid 19 pandemic: towards phygital learning.

• 1 Shakti Chaturvedi, School of Management Studies, REVA University, Bengaluru, India
• 2 Sonal Purohit, University School of Business, Chandigarh University, Mohali, India
• 3 Meenakshi Verma, Symbiosis Center for Management Studies, Symbiosis International University, Nagpur, India

Following the outbreak of COVID 19 in February 2020, Indian universities were shut down and used digital platforms to teach their students since then. Drawing from Kolb’s Learning Theory, John Dewey’s theory, Jack Mezirows transformative learning theory, and Jean Piaget’s theory, the authors in this paper offer a viewpoint on some of the practical teaching practices which can be adapted in business schools in India to be successful in this emerging blended or phygital environment. Using a Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework, the authors reflect on the effective teaching practices based on their own experience, theoretical knowledge gained from an exhaustive web search of various databases of the period, particularly from February to August 2020. The authors performed a careful manual content analysis of the selected research papers. They concluded seven principal teaching methods to create an effective blended environment for students and faculties in Indian business schools: a) reframing virtual spaces in India through online knowledge repository and virtual labs b) using reflective thinking for andragogical and pedagogical Indian approach c) Indian teachers’ readiness to offer various genres of courses on demand d) reinforcing resilience in Indian schools through meaningful participation and conflict resolution e) purposeful learning and inquiry-based learning for Indian students f) experiential learning through an inclusive online pivot in India g) useful apps are discussed to reach out to Indian parents community. These initiatives can influence academicians, educationists, podcasters, and the entire teacher fraternity to design an efficient and adequate teaching plan for the student community in India.

Introduction

COVID 19 is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered virus, “Novel Corona Virus” ( Dhawan, 2020 ). This virus has now become an unparalleled worldwide sensation due to three major reasons: widespread contamination of elevated mortality rate and considerable delay in the formulation of the vaccine. All this has led the government to implement mammoth measures ( Chaturvedi et al., 2020 ). Great efforts are in place to ensure social and physical distancing by convincing the public to stay at home. These endeavors are primarily directed to break the infection chain and ensure a reduced burden on the civic-health machinery. While the onus of all the trouble was laid on the medical facilities, the changes that have been adopted are massive. This has resulted in subsequent commercial and communal defeats. The consequential fiscal and communal exercise of social distancing has led to some major policy changes in the functioning of higher education guided towards “online pivot” ( George, 2020 ). For the first time in the history of the Indian education system, there has been a shift from a face-to-face teaching model to a completely online one ( Zimmerman, 2020 ). The extensive use of digital media is in place. Teachers across the section of the society variably or invariably have had to quickly get used to the online mode of teaching guided towards a digital mindset (Victoria, 2020). The student community is also deeply affected. They have had to let go of their campus life, stay indoors, and attend online classes (Chaturvedi and Pasipanodya, 2019; Govindarajan and Srivastava, 2020 ). Some researchers believe that students who adopt an online learning mode are slightly more receptive than those who “prefer to learn in a traditional face-to-face environment.” However, some other researchers proved that the blended teaching mode yields the best results ( Means et al., 2013 ). The teaching community remains cynical about the success of online teaching and learning pattern. A study conducted on complete reliance on online mode of teaching based on the Technology Acceptance Model ( Davis, 1989 ) has revealed that students and faculty share common concerns regarding the availability of the Internet, student-teacher engagement, and incessant workload ( Wingo et al., 2017 ). In line with this, the Unified Technology Acceptance and System Success (UTASS) model was proposed, which said that system quality, social influence, and facilitating conditions positively impact students’ behavioral intention towards e-learning systems ( Chaturvedi et al., 2018 ; Zhang et al., 2020 ). Fundamentally speaking, the entire student and teacher community must bridge a gap quickly from the offline mode of teaching to complete online mode. This is without a choice for either of them as large sums of money are involved. All this has taken a huge toll on the admissions of students in the Universities. The future of educational institutes remains erratic as the government is unable to arrive at any concrete decision. Despite all these uncertainties, university finances are further affected because of the unstable stock market, reduced or no grants from government bodies. Several small and medium-sized private institutions would be worst affected and eventually close due to the tumultuous finances. Higher education remains the most affected. Meanwhile, Business Schools are also not far from being affected by this pandemic. Some industries have immediately come under the spell of COVID 19, such as all the service sectors. Students who intend to make their careers in these sectors are now compelled to shift their focus to other sectors. The government is doing its best to help the economy, and people recover from this crisis ( Bolaran, 2020 ). However, the fact remains, organizations and sectors that can successfully transform themselves from a physical model of operations to online would be the only ones to survive this crisis. To serve all these needs, the organizations need to turn to a blended model of education, which has been referred to as phygital mode ( George, 2020 ) of education. However, it is challenging for organizations to implement the phygital model most effectively. The burning question here is what can be the effective teaching practices from a phygital perspective? Concerning all these challenges, the authors in this paper throw light on some of the effective teaching practices that could be followed in higher education regarding business schools (B schools) in India to achieve success during these uncertain times of the COVID 19 pandemic. It would be interesting to see the novel teaching practices in the phygital mode. There has been much research on education and teaching in the COVID pandemic. However, none of those have focused on the practices that can increase teaching effectiveness in a phygital mode, specifically in a B school context. Moreover, the empirical or qualitative studies are restricted to the study contexts and fail to present more generalized information. Thus, we collected information from secondary sources to present information that the education institutes can practically use. We use Kolb’s Learning Theory, John Dewey’s theory, Jack Mezirow’s transformative learning theory, and Jean Piaget’s theory to present a viewpoint on some effective teaching practices that can improve teaching effectiveness in a phygital mode. Thus, we intend to contribute to the extant literature on education and teaching practices through this study. We also present a framework based on the research findings that the education institutes can use for designing effective teaching pedagogies.

How Indian Business Schools Would Adapt to This Virtual Teaching?

The authorities may envision a bright future. The management may take this vision to the next level by putting it into practice. However, ultimately it is the teaching fraternity (Faculty members) who would have to work at the ground level to change ( Bates, 2000 ). When it comes to distance learning courses, the primary concern is regarding the infrastructure and internet support from the Institution, quality of lectures as they will be delivered online ( Bao, 2020 ). The research of the adoption of a complete online teaching mode is yet in its nascent stage to recommend anything. Hence institutions have a significant role in lending proper and timely support to adopt a complete online teaching mode. For instance, the exciting research in Computer Vision focuses on predicting the pose of the human head in an image. This describes the object’s rotation in 3D space. By predicting this, we can determine the direction a human head face. Having a computer able to figure out which direction a human head is facing provides many practical applications. For instance, it can be used to map a 3D object to match the direction of the students in the classroom to have the best visual effect on their minds for learning purposes ( Liu et al., 2021 ). Also, in a case study experimentation of Peking University’s online education during COVID 19, few specific instructional strategies were presented to summarize current online teaching experiences for university instructors who might conduct online education in similar circumstances. For instance, online effective delivery mechanism, adequate support provided by faculty and teaching assistants to students, and high-quality participation for better student learning can be followed for better learning experiences ( Bao, 2020 ). The authors have highlighted some benchmarking teaching methods in the following sections of the paper to extract some learnings imparted in Indian business schools in India for the effective pedagogical methods amidst COVID 19. The research objectives of the paper are mentioned in the following section.

Research Objectives

The main objectives of the paper are as follows

 1. To present some successful teaching practices that can be/are followed in Indian Business schools amidst COVID 19.

 2. To understand the challenges that came with adopting technology by both students and faculties amidst COVID 19.

 3. To conclude, some principal teaching methods based on existing theories of learning from literature to create an effective blended environment for students and faculties in Indian business schools amidst COVID 19.

Research Methodology

This study had reviewed several online research articles published, newspaper stories, conference papers, working papers, and books using manual content analysis. It was a cross-sectional analysis where the authors searched various electronic databases in March and then again in June 2020 with no language restrictions. The authors also searched the WHO research database on COVID-19 with the term “school,” which only resulted in one article that was not considered more general than specific to our topic. Therefore, the authors searched again using the keywords such as “teaching practices during COVID 19,” “adoption of technology in higher education during COVID 19,” “learning AND teaching pedagogy during COVID 19,” “Indian business schools AND COVID 19,” “digital learning during the lockdown,” “online teaching during a pandemic,” “education policy during COVID 19” and “phygital learning during the shutdown” and the combinations of these words. All authors performed data management and cleaning. All three authors triple screened (by S.C., S.P., and MV) the articles on title and abstract. The authors excluded viewpoint papers, systematic literature reviews, and studies on other viruses and other languages. The selected research papers were not limited only to India but also from the United States, United Kingdom, and Europe to gain an international view of the topic. As the authors analyzed the papers already written, there was no need to get the formal ethical clearance for citing them. The key themes identified and discussed included “online teaching practices during COVID-19,” “blended mode of teaching in higher education,” and the “shift towards online teaching during COVID 19.”

All full-text downloaded articles identified were reviewed by S.C. The authors maintained to keep highly cited articles out of all downloaded articles for the present study. The authors did not try to rate the quality of studies included in this paper. The authors also included findings of some preprint articles and peer-reviewed articles. Most of the articles cited are from renowned publishers like Elsevier, Emerald, Sage, Springer, Taylor and Francis, and Wiley. The different database searches identified 100 articles, of which 30 full-text articles were assessed, and eighteen were included in this paper. No relevant articles were returned searching the WHO Global Research Database on COVID-19. The search on medRxiv resulted in 20 preprint articles, out of which one was included in the review. In total, 30 journal articles, ten books, eight conference papers, and one working paper were included in this review (see the flowchart Figure 1 below).

FIGURE 1 . Article Selection criteria Flowchart.

Emerging Teaching Practices Discussed

The word technology connotes different meanings to faculty members engaging in different subjects. For example, a teacher of mathematics and a philosophy teacher will have their ways to use technology for teaching their subjects. The word technology is often used in common parlance to digital devices, online and blended systems, scientific artifacts, tools, and other facilitating objects ( Brown and Sammut, 2012 ). At times, technology also refers to engineering procedures that assist in the creation of new gadgets. It is now commonly used even in the arena of teaching (Elen and Clarebout, 2006). Few members of the teaching fraternity who are comfortable using the latest technology for teaching can be termed as those set of individuals who are welcoming the change in the gamut of teaching ( Gershon, 2017 ).

Moreover, such individuals are the ones who are the pioneers in adopting this new digital teaching pedagogy across the globe. The theoretical framework which can be used to understand the online teaching and learning process is the Community of Inquiry (CoI) model (Refer to Figure 2 ), which consists of three critical factors: Social element, Cognitive element, and Teaching element ( Garrison et al., 2000 ). It is the interactions of all three elements of the model that facilitates the educational experience for participants, as illustrated in Figure 2 . Based on this model, Social Presence is understood as the ability of participants to project their characteristics and therefore presenting themselves as real people. Cognitive Presence is defined as the “extent to which the participants in any particular setting can make meaning through sustained communication” ( Garrison et al., 2000 ). Teaching Presence is composed of the design of the educational experience and the creation of sound knowledge to better society ( Garrison et al., 2000 ).

FIGURE 2 . The community of inquiry model ( Garrison et al., 2000 ).

Reframing Brick and Mortar Practices in Virtual Spaces: Reflections From India

In 2006, Chau and Lam talked about unique teaching ideas to suit the age-old “brick and mortar” universities shifting to the online mode of teaching. Currently, India is in the initial stage of adopting an online teaching mode, and we are marching ahead with small but firm footsteps. One such breakthrough in online teaching was achieved through MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courseware) in India. Because of its immense benefits, MOOC is now acknowledged across the globe. It can successfully substitute the face-to-face teaching mode with online teaching by enhancing the pool of wisdom and facilitating blended teaching and learning environment. These online classes can be categorically classified under two heads, synchronous and asynchronous, based on the conduction of the classes. Synchronous mode refers to the type of learning where students and teachers are present at the exact location and at the same time for teaching and learning. This comprises in-person classes (where teachers and students are present in the same classroom), online meetings and live streaming of classes or demonstrations on Zoom, MS Teams, Google meet, and other platforms ( Calongne, 2008 ). Precisely it is a “real-time” type of learning where a group of learners is engaged simultaneously. Hence, it enables collaborations amongst the students and teachers to ask doubts and get them resolved on the spot. For example, webinars, online classrooms, and video conferences are examples of synchronous classes. Asynchronous mode refers to the universal form of teaching and learning that does not happen simultaneously or in the same classroom. The students are not present in the class at a prescribed time. However, they have access to the previously recorded lecture videos of their teachers in addition to online study materials ( Hsiao, 2012 ). Students can respond through emails and any social media network. The teachers generally record their classes. This recording is made available to the students; it is a learner-centered approach, where the students can undertake any course without fulfilling the criteria of being present at the same time and exact location as the tutor. For instance, blogs, youtube videos, and online lectures are examples of synchronous classes. In line with this, the Indian institutes have also experimented with several experiential learning tools, e.g., uploading recorded videos of faculties, creating online discussion forums for students, asking students to upload their self-made videos, and embedding the research into the course curriculum ( Mishra et al., 2020 ). Kolb’s Learning Theory from the literature also emphasizes the “conversational learning” approach, which enabled learners to make meaning and convert experiences into knowledge through the exchange of conversations ( Kolb et al., 2002 ). The major challenge lies with the practical courses that are difficult to deliver online. One of the institutes in India created virtual labs where experiments were demonstrated through video conferencing ( FutureLearn, 2020 ). Another issue was the support for students in remote areas with limited access to high-quality teaching and less knowledge of the English language ( Flack et al., 2020 ). Several tech companies such as BYJU’s worked towards this digital divide and create apps that support live classes and localized language for such communities. However, more needs to be done to cover the digital divide for these communities ( Brundha and Chaturvedi, 2021 ).

Experiential Learning Approach in Creating Virtual Management “Sandbox” in India

The concept of sandbox technology in our paper denotes a cloud or a computer-generated space for teaching. However, the different methodology needs to be adopted for students’ different age groups (adults, middle school students, and kids). This implies the policies and procedures adopted for higher education must necessarily be different for school-level education ( Halupa, 2015 ). Thus, satisfying the needs and requirements of both sets of the audience. The teachers must adhere to an altogether new focus and degree of teaching in the classrooms. The tutor must curb all the obstacles that come his/her way during a teaching in an online platform. For this, the practices of “Experiential Learning” need to be embraced to gauge and then accentuate, strengthen, and communicate the experiences in activities. Experiential learning (E.L.) refers to the procedure that involves “learning by doing,” resulting in gaining specific experience. For instance, a student learns by working in a company during the internship or learning to ride a bike. In this learning, the outcome is based on the involvement in the experience. Prior researchers have contributed several definitions for the E.L., the scope of which is extended to the pedagogies, learning domains, and undertakings (Eyler, 2009; McClellan and Hyle, 2012 ; Morris, 2016 ; Beard and Wilson, 2018 ). The philosophy mentioned above of experiential learning has its roots in John Dewey’s theory. Dewey (1938) emphasized that experience is continuous, and the experiential learning process is of vital importance to adult education. Therefore, E.L. is a procedure that involves immersion and self-direction, resulting in a meaningful experience that helps gain knowledge that can be applied in future contexts. Given the issues of student engagement and impactful learning for the students at the online platform, the faculties have identified ways to implement the experiential learning model (ELM) effectively.

For example, at some universities, the courses were redesigned utilizing the experiential learning module to enable the MBA students to develop presentation skills to enhance their employability. One of the universities used iPads equipped with Panopto’s mobile app, creating an experiential learning opportunity for the physician students. Students made videos of their role-play interacting with patients uploaded on the video content management system of the university from where they were available to the professors who left feedback for the students. On the other hand, some universities are including Industrial Informatics into their master’s degree curriculum to address Industry 4.0. The pandemic has resulted in the growing importance of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) in the industry, resulting in great demand for CPS talent and know-how. The mission of academia is to address the needs of the industry for CPS engineers and develop a curriculum to fill the existing gaps in the qualification of the CPS workforce ( Colombo et al., 2020 ).

Offering À La Carte and On-Demand Online Courses in Indian Business Schools

The pandemic has compelled the education institutes to embrace virtual teaching and learning methodology. This has further pressed the institutes to offer an extensive menu of courses and those in great demand. For instance, mechatronic education and experimental systems have, for example, been developed to facilitate experiential education and enhance the learning process in order to encourage students to think. The Mechatronics systems are designed, implemented, programmed, tested, and used by the students successfully within designed Lab sessions. The developed systems have their learning indicators where students acquire knowledge and learn the target skills through engagement, hands-on experience, brainstorming, and interactive discussions ( Habib and Nagata, 2020 ). To provide such courses to the students, first teachers will have to learn these courses to further enhance their knowledge in the respective subject. This is in synchronization to Jean Piaget’s cognitive development of experiential learning. Piaget (2008) asserted that learning is a lifelong process of finding knowledge from experience. Some countries like Germany are surveying the teaching fraternity to understand their requirements, abilities, and career enhancement objectives. Subsequently, when the colleges reopened, they were given free tutoring on the curriculums they were keen on. This exercise is intended to meet the distinctive requirements of teachers. However, the primary motive was to provide skill-based courses to all teachers. Later, these teachers were summoned to teach the same skill-based course to the students. This was the practice followed by some countries like Germany. Taking cues from there, India can follow on these lines and offer professionally motivated courses in Indian B schools.

Strengthening Resilience in Indian Schools in Challenging Times

The word resilience means having the ability to have a successful outcome despite being in a challenging situation ( Masten et al., 1990 ). The school authorities and teachers are solely responsible for promoting resilience amongst the student community in these challenging situations. The authors in the present paper have arrived at specific recommendations to foster resilience amongst the student community towards online teaching with the help of studies conducted by Benard (2004) and Henderson and Milstein (1996) :

 1. It is improving social skills by showing affection and concern towards adults (e.g., instituting absolute optimistic regard, establishing a philosophy of care and mutual admiration, constantly appreciating each-others work).

 2.  Establishing elevated and clear expectations for educational accomplishment and school room conduct (e.g., cooperation and dispute solution, constant enactment of policies and directions, conveying a belief that students are adept at increased academic performance).

 3. Offering prospects for significant involvement in learning (e.g., forming the curriculum so that every child benefits, linking the syllabus to learners, supporting home dialect, offering practical learning, encouraging the use of group activities while teaching the course).

Improving Digital Pedagogical Methodology in India

The teaching pedagogies have been transformed with the information and communication technology (ICT) innovations ( Konig et al., 2020 ). For instance, ICT has facilitated the faculties adoption of student-centric practices such as learning through projects (Law, Pelgrum, and Plomp, 2009 ) that helped the promotion of purposeful learning ( Koh and Chai, 2014 ), inquiry-based learning ( Bell et al., 2013 ) and learning through problem-solution ( Walker et al., 2012 ). Prior researchers have presented strong arguments in favor of ICT as a catalyst for a metamorphosis of the teaching pedagogies ( Beauchamp and Kennewell, 2010 ). The model identifies the interaction between the knowledge of a faculty about the technology, pedagogy, and content for an efficacious utilization of ICT for delivery in a classroom ( Herring et al., 2016 ). There has been much research on the factors that affect the acceptance of technology in education. This includes the adoption of e-learning among the students, e.g., Boateng et al. (2016) , Sanchez et al. (2013), Zhou and Xu (2007) and teachers, e.g., Holzmann et al. (2020) , Salinaz et al. (2017) , Buckenmeyer (2010) , Nicolle and Lou (2008) , Kotrlik and Redmann (2009) . However, the COVID 19 pandemic created a situation wherein both the teachers and students had to adopt the technology not by choice but as an essential requirement for the education system’s smooth functioning. The adoption came with many challenges related to the lack of knowledge about the use of technology by both students and faculties, difficulty finding and selecting a suitable platform for online class delivery, cost of the license, and issues related to the infrastructure unavailability of the Internet in remote areas. This pivots the need for research from factors that affect the technology adoption to the factors that would affect the continued use of technology for blended learning and student benefit. Instead, research that can guide the behavioral change strategy for both students and faculties would be needed.

Moreover, the content delivery and examination pattern required a significant overhaul. The uncertainty of events posited a dilemma for the education institutes and policymakers about the pattern of examination. A need-based approach was followed at the school level. Some primary class students were promoted directly to the next class; an online examination was conducted for several higher semester classes and offline exams for those who appeared for the board (secondary and senior secondary) exams. The universities and Business schools majorly adopted online mode for conducting the examinations as the direct promotion could affect the career and placement. As far as higher education is concerned, it seems that the teaching pedagogies would adopt the blended learning and teaching mode for higher effectiveness.

Transformative Learning for Inclusive Online Pivot in India

The introduction of digital tools has enabled educators towards a blended approach for learning; for instance, flipped classrooms providing room for the enhanced classroom experience. Educators are using the technology to develop videos that enrich the digital content, thus enabling them to utilize the free time for other innovations. According to Jack Mezirows (2003) , in transformative learning theory, learning begins with an experience called a disorienting dilemma (cognitive dissonance, which happens on realizing that your current understanding of the world does not fit with the current evidence). The abrupt, unplanned, and rapid transition into online learning triggered by COVID 19 has contributed to cognitive dissonance because our educational expectations are called into question. If we talk about India, the central issue was faced by the students who are supposed to undertake practical field training called summer internships, where they are supposed to be trained on the job while working with the corporation. The lockdown and closure of most offices resulted in a lack of opportunity for the student to go through this practical training. Several students got the work from a home internship, but they could not learn or get accustomed to the environment and system in which work is done in a corporate ( Srivastava and Chaturvedi, 2014 ). Some institutes facilitated the students by providing them projects that required in-depth study of the field or industry they wanted to cope with. This helped the students to get prepared for the jobs. However, the kind of “mindset change” a student goes through after and on-the-job training was absent. This posits the need to develop an education system of blended learning with an industry interface embedded within the course for a better experience. Here comes the role of a mentor who accelerates preliminary activities that enhance introspection, face challenges, and includes probes and mutual understandings ( Chaturvedi et al., 2019 ). However, it is ideal to understand the requirements of the students and the demands of the course curriculum and then adopt a suitable teaching methodology that is acceptable and understandable by the majority of the audience at large. In the end, the authors support the notion of Sharp and Marchetti (2020) , who said that the natural way should be to choose the correct teaching practice in the present phygital scenario of COVID 19.

The authors point out these examples to take lessons for Indian management schools ( Chaturvedi, 2020 ) where the whole idea of experiential learning through video observation is picking up fast. Moreover, given the difficulties with effective experiential learning with the existing platforms raises a need for the development of e-learning facilities that can be compatible with the extant infrastructure, thus pivoting towards blended learning/phygital learning.

Collaborating With Parents Through School-Wide Online Strategies in India: Apps discussed

As per recent research findings, there has been a substantial drop in the number of parents who believe in the effectiveness of the personalized methods of communication to get informed about student performance, e.g., face-to-face meetings. In India, parents take an interest in the education of students at the university level, and several universities communicate the performance to the parents through various modes such as phone calls. The findings indicate the increasing adoption of digital methods of communication for getting informed about student performance. This opened a door for a new opportunity and apps such as ClassDojo, Spotlight, Remind. Seesaw developed an interface that allows mobile messages, videos, and other alerts about its activities and student performance. For instance, a university used technology to send texts about grades, attendance, and assignment submission to the parents, resulting in an increase in student attendance by 18% and a decline in the course failures by 39% ( Bergman and Chan, 2017 ).

Another example is about a university that sent literacy tips along with text messages to the parents. The outcome was an increased parent-teacher interaction that increased the literacy scores for students. There is an increase in such apps that are parent engaging; a selected few are presented here with their success stories for learning purposes. B schools can adopt the same to enhance the learning experience for students.

ClassDojo is a popular tool that allows the instructors to provide feedback to the parents on students’ behavior. It allows communication in 35 languages. The parents can also obtain information about their child’s school experience and class through pictures and videos. The app is substantially popular among the K-8 schools and has successfully connected with 15 k new schools since 2019. This app can be helpful if implemented in Indian B schools to give parents community feedback about their children.

The Spotlight was developed by Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) in California while looking for means to reach the diverse families in a high-poverty urban district with just 28% of English speakers and above 50 languages spoken over. The video report card application of Spotlight was piloted in three schools in 2015 that 16 schools adopted till the year-end. Spotlight allows the texting of a link to the parents that land them to a personalized video that provides a detailed report on the student performance, including the performance summary in core subjects, areas of improvement, and guidance towards improved learning such as reference of library groups or open-source learning platforms.

Remind is used by Groton elementary school in rural New York to connect with the parents. The instructs can use the app to send personalized and class-wide and school-wide texts to the parents. The instructors send weekly texts about the learning and development of the students that can be translated into above 70 languages. The application also facilitates the sending of pictures of students in class and methods that parents can use to help the students with the homework. The instructors can identify the messages that are read and make decisions about follow-up through other means.

Seesaw was adopted by over 25,000 schools in the United States across 200,000 classrooms and in more than 150 countries for effective learning in the schools. Through this app, the students can describe their learning to the parents in live classroom settings. The student can document their project by video recording, pictures, and audio and show to parents. The text can be sent only after the approval of the instructor, and the parents can respond with questions. Several instructors use the app to communicate the student learning is to the parents. The authors share that these apps can be successfully launched in Indian Business schools to help the school make an inclusive and effective “online pivot” during COVID 19.

Taking cues from some established theories of learning, the authors furnish unique teaching initiatives in this paper to combat the challenges of online teaching put forth because of the novel COVID-19 pandemic (Refer to Figure 3 ). Covid-19 exerted several changes in the education system at a broad scale. The pandemic concurs with the increased potential of information technology. The outcome is likely to reconfigure the teaching pedagogies making use of the information technology. While one cannot deny the importance of the offline education system, the future would be directed towards blended learning guided towards online pivots and a digital mindset. When we move towards digital technology adoption for teaching, several issues need attention. First, the development of an appropriate interface for learning and engagement compatible with the extant infrastructure is required, given the financial concerns of institutes discussed in the opening sections. Second, the efforts must be guided towards the continued adoption of technology for education. Third, due to the limitations about the internships that enabled the B school students to learn in a natural working environment, the pathways for effective experiential learning that can also enhance the skillset and employability of students need to be determined. Lastly, techniques to fill the digital divide for all-inclusive learning need immediate attention. The COVID 19 pandemic has guided the education system towards a new paradigm that needs to be explored for effective blended learning. The authors firmly believe that B schools will rise to the occasion and adopt benchmarking teaching practices, leading to effective student-teacher virtual communication in India.

FIGURE 3 . A pictorial representation of the main findings of the paper.

Future Directions

The study provides valuable insights on effective teaching practices in the online mode in the COVID situation. However, there are several limitations of the study that can be covered in future research. The study is limited to higher education in the context of B Schools in India. Future research can be extended to the other courses in various regions to understand the online teaching practices. Moreover, qualitative data collected through interviews with the beneficiaries and participants can provide a comprehensive understanding of the various online teaching pedagogies ( Adedoyin and Soykan, 2020 ). The shift to online teaching is still in the nascent phase, and the long-term implications and effects are still unknown. Future studies can conduct cross-sectional surveys to analyze the potency of the various teaching practices in online mode. It would be interesting to understand what factors would govern the continued use of the blended learning approach even when the pandemic is over.

Limitations of the Study

The study cannot be generalized in the absence of empirical analysis. Hence there exists a scope for further research by including data collection. The inferences drawn from the study can vary depending upon the size and availability of resources with various universities. The study talks about the extended infrastructure required to adopt online teaching methodology but did not throw much light on the methods in which this infrastructure can be developed. The study focuses on the continued adoption of technology for education. However, given that India is a developing nation and not all institutes and Universities have access to the high technology required for the said purpose, it might take some time for the universities to absorb online learning and teaching.

Data Availability Statement

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/Supplementary Material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Author Contributions

SC and SP contributed to the conception, structure of the paper, and interpretation of available literature. SC contributed to the development of the initial draft. MV reviewed and critiqued the output for important intellectual content. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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Keywords: digital learning, experiential learning, effective teaching methods, blended learning, phygital learning, reinforcing resilience, business schools, COVID 19 pandemic

Citation: Chaturvedi S, Purohit S and Verma M (2021) Effective Teaching Practices for Success During COVID 19 Pandemic: Towards Phygital Learning. Front. Educ. 6:646557. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2021.646557

Received: 27 December 2020; Accepted: 28 May 2021; Published: 10 June 2021.

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Copyright © 2021 Chaturvedi, Purohit and Verma. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Shakti Chaturvedi, [email protected]

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Home > Books > Education at the Intersection of Globalization and Technology

Indian Education: Ancient, Medieval and Modern

Submitted: 03 July 2020 Reviewed: 17 July 2020 Published: 27 October 2020

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.93420

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Education is a platform in which young generations are trained and make them future-ready. Education provides knowledge and skills which help the person to be employable. The Indian education system is very popular and diversified among other countries’ education systems due to its change in the evolution from ancient to the modern education system. During the ancient and medieval periods of education, students were trained by teachers in such a manner that they can survive and live in that era. After independence, there is a tremendous growth in the Indian education system providing teaching and training in all aspects, but it does not satisfy the global demands of the market. This chapter focuses on teaching methodology, curriculum, characteristics, methods of learning, aims of the Indian education system during the ancient and medieval period and how it differed in today’s modern education and what are the things that our today’s modern education need to learn and implement from ancient and medieval education. The mentioned points are used to differentiate ancient, medieval, and modern education with advantages and disadvantages. Through this chapter, students, teachers will get to know the difference in the education system and what else to be adapted in the future to overcome all the problems.

Author Information

Mangesh m. ghonge *.

• Department of Computer Engineering, Sandip Institute of Technology and Research Centre, Nashik, Maharashtra, India

Aniket Singh

*Address all correspondence to: [email protected]

1. Introduction

Technological improvement has boosted the economic growth in India. Science and technology have an important role in the economic development of India. Compared to other developed countries, India has more youth manpower. Proper education will play a significant role in making youth future-ready and increasing economic growth by providing skilled persons which will also boost industrial development. In the modern era of education, every institution or university is adapting new teaching methods using their teaching methodologies. Indian education is the biggest and well-known education systems in the world. During ancient education, there were 5 big well-known universities like Takshashila, Nalanda, Vallabhi, etc., which focus on the all-round development of students and those in the medieval period there exists 2 institutions madrasah and maqtabs which mostly focus on building student religious and leaders of the future. In modern education, there are well known autonomous institutes like IITs and IIMs which are famous all around the world.

During ancient education, students live away from their parents, their education comprises of subjects like physical education, mental education, politics, economics, etc. They were shaped in a way that they can live in any condition considering how difficult the situation will be? Medieval education also followed the same protocol as ancient education in spite that their education mostly focuses on religion. In today’s modern era of big institutes like the Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institute of Management (IIMs), everything is changed like the living standard of students, curriculum, all-round development. The principle objective of the student has been to just achieve its goal and be successful. Only the big institutes like IITs, IIMs, and some other private and aided universities have adopted modern methods of learning. There is a difference in curriculum, teaching methods, and living standards of students in every institute. The syllabus of the current education system is not industry-oriented and also not according to new upcoming trends. The main objective of education is mostly theoretical and not practically implemented [ 1 ].

The main purpose of this paper is to convey what all the things need to adopt in our current education system from ancient and medieval times and also some new trends associated with it. The paper is mainly categorized into three sections Ancient, Medieval and Modern education system, including sub-sections such as curriculum, method of learning, the aim of education, characteristics of education, educational institutes, higher educational institutes, advantages, and disadvantages of the particular education system.

2. Ancient education

During the ancient period, two systems of education were developed, Vedic, and Buddhist. The medium of language during the Vedic system was Sanskrit, while those in the Buddhist system were pali. During those times the education was of Vedas, Brahmanas, Upnishads, and Dharmasutras. From the Rigveda onwards, our ancient education started with the objective of developing the students not only in the outer body but also on the inner body. The ancient education focused on imparting ethics like humility, truthfulness, discipline, self-reliance, and respecting all creations to the students. The education was mostly imparted in ashrams, gurukuls, temples, houses. Sometimes pujaris of the temples used to teach students. The education system of ancient India has some special features and uniqueness which was not found in any other ancient education system of the other countries. The education was mostly given in forests under the blue sky, which keeps the student’s mind fresh and alive. During ancient times people used to live a simple life and doing their work with devotion and hard work [ 2 ].

2.1 Aim of education

The main objective of education was to equip the students with a good quality of education. The education mostly focused on the enrichment of culture, character, and personality, development, and cultivation of noble ideals. The objective was gaining the mental, physical, and intellectual personality of students, to make the students future-ready and survive in any situation [ 3 ].

2.2 Characteristics of education

During the ancient period, the state government and the people did not interfere in designing curriculum, payments of fees, regulation of teaching hours. There was a strong bonding between teacher and student. Every student was allotted with one teacher and more emphasis was given to the student-teacher relationship, each student used to meet teachers personally to learn and gain instructions from them. During ancient times, royal families, as well as kings of states, used to donate their wealth to improve the education system and quality. The syllabus was designed in accordance with the demands of that era. At that time students used to leave their houses and went to live with their gurus until their education was completed. During the early Vedic period, women’s education was also given more emphasis. The education focuses on the physical and mental development of students. The course duration was about 10–12 years, as there were no books so students used to memorize all things, memory played a crucial role during learning. The education was imparted in forests away from cities and peoples to give students a pleasant and silent environment of study.

2.3 Curriculum

Curriculum plays an essential role in the education system. It was dynamic and not static; it was made up of different stages. The fundamental goal of building a good curriculum was to develop students physically and mentally. The curriculum consists of four Vedas, six vedangas, Upnishads, darshanas, Puranas, Tarka Shastra. The six vedangas were Shiksha, Chhandas, Vyakarana, Nirukta, Jyotisha, and Kalpawhile the darshanas were Nyaya, Baiseshika, Yoga, Vedanta, Sankhya, Mimasa. Algebra, Geometry, and grammar were also given more importance at that time. Panini was famous in the domain of grammar at that time. The curriculum of the Buddhist system consists of pitakas, Abhidharma, and sutras. Besides this medicine, Vedas were also given importance. Hindu learning was a part of Buddhist learning, although more emphasis was given to Buddhist learning. Both the systems were going hand in hand at that time. The education was totally through orals and debates, and the exams were conducted every year. The education system of the ancient period focused on subjects like warfare, military, politics, religion.

2.4 Methods of learning

At that time books were not there, so students had the habit to learn and memorize all the things taught in the class, and teachers also helped them in memorizing.

The students used to deep dive into the concepts taught by their teachers and explore new methods to learn it.

Listening, Contemplation, and concentrated contemplation were some new methods of exploring the way of learning.

The teachers used the storytelling methods to teach the students.

Students used to ask questions about the topics taught by the teachers and these topics were discussed and then answered to the students.

The education of that time mainly focused on practical knowledge of the topics taught in the class.

The students got plenty of knowledge through seminars and debates conducted at frequent intervals.

2.5 Educational institutions

Gurukul was the hometown of teachers where students come after completing their initiation ceremony and learn until the completion of their study. The parishads or academies were the places of higher learning and education where students learn through discussions and debates. Goshti or conferences were the places where the kings of the states used to invite scholars from every institute to meet and exchange their views. Ashramas or hermitages were the other learning centers where students from various parts of the country used to come and learn from saints and sages. Vidyapeeth was the place of spiritual learning founded by great Acharya, Sri Shankara in places like Sringeri, Kanchi, Dwarka, and Puri, etc. Agraharas was an institution of Brahmins in villages where they used to teach. Viharas were the educational institutions founded by Buddhists where the students were taught the subjects related to Buddhism and philosophy.

2.6 Higher educational institutions

Takshashila or Taxila: Takshashila was the famous center of learning, including religion and teaching of Buddhism in ancient times. It was famous for his higher education learning comprising of subjects like ancient scriptures, law, medicine, sociology, astronomy, military science, and 18 silpas, etc. The well-known scholars from the university were great grammarian Panini, he was an expert in his subject of grammar and published his work on Ashtadhyayi, Chanakya who is skilled in statecraft both studied here. Students from Kashi, Kosala, Magadha, and also from different countries flocked into the university despite a long and arduous journey. Takshashila was an ancient Indian city currently situated in north-western Pakistan was the well-known center of learning and has been declared as an archeological site and world heritage by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1980.

Nalanda: When Xuan Zang came to Nalanda it was called Nala, which was the center of learning in many subjects. The students used to come here from different parts of the country and the world to study here. Different subjects were taught, including the Vedas, fine arts, medicine, mathematics, and astronomy. Xuan Zang itself became the student of Yogashastra. Nalanda which is currently situated in Rajgir, Bihar, India was also declared as a world heritage site by UNESCO. The other famous institutes around ancient times were Vallabhi, Vikramshila, Ujjain, and Benaras.

2.7 Advantages

The system focuses on the all-round development of students.

More emphasis was given to practical knowledge rather than theoretical knowledge.

The students were not just involved in bringing the ranks, but their main focus was on knowledge.

Classrooms were built-in forests which provide a pleasant study environment to the students.

There was no pressure laid on students related to studies so that they can learn effectively.

The government did not interfere with the formation of curriculum, kings at that time helped in the development of education.

2.8 Disadvantages

Women were not admitted to the Gurukuls.

There was caste discrimination as only Kshatriya was allowed, Eklavya was not given admission to the Gurukul.

3. Medieval education

During the eighth century Anno Domini (A.D) a huge number of Mohammadian invaded India. Mahmud Ghaznavi captured India and set up a large number of schools and libraries in the country by the looted wealth. Later Muslim leaders established their permanent empire in India, they brought a new system of education. The ancient education system was drastically changed. The Arabs and the Turks bought some new cultures, traditions, and institutions in India, in that the most remarkable change was the Islamic pattern of education which was different from the Buddhist and Brahmanic education system. The medieval age, education system primarily focused on the Islamic and Mughal System.

3.1 Aim of education

The main objective of education during the medieval period was the spread of knowledge and the propagation of Islam. The objective behind this era of education was to spread Islamic education its principles, and social conventions. The purpose of the education system was to make people religious minded [ 4 ].

3.2 Characteristics of education

The rulers helped in the spread and development of education. They helped in the establishment of different educational institutes and funded it, big landlords also gave them some wealth in the development of institutes. There was no control of rulers over the educational institutes and also to their management. The student-teacher relation was also good like the Buddhist and Brahmanic period, although students did not live with their teachers at that time. Teachers took interest in learning, at that time teachers were used to teaching students individually.

3.3 Curriculum

During that time books were not there, therefore the students were used to write on taktis. The stress was laid on teaching the student from the beginning that is teaching them first alphabets and then words. Calligraphy and grammar were the most important subjects taught during those days. Students also learned “paharas”(multiple of numbers), and also they memorized it while learning. Arabic and Persian were the main languages of communication and these languages were important for the students who wanted to get higher posts. The recitation of the Quran was made compulsory, the students used to learn the Quran by heart as this was an important part of their curriculum. The students at their early ages were taught to recite the first 13 chapters of the Quran as a poem. Ibn Sina, an Islamic Persian scholar, and a teacher write that students during the age of 14 should be given the choice of selecting their favorite subjects for masters, for example, reading, manual skills, literature, medicine, geometry, trade, and commerce. There were two types of education during medieval times like secular and religious education. Religious education consists study of the Quran, Mohammad, and his invasions Islamic laws and Islamic history. The secular education consists of the study of Arabic literature, grammar, history, philosophy, mathematics, geography, politics, economics, Greek language, and agriculture.

3.4 Methods of learning

Orals, discussions, and recitations of the lesson taught were the main methods of learning at that age.

Emperor Akbar encouraged the students to focus more on reading and writing and to reform the scripts. He wanted the education system to be systematic and advised teachers to first teach students about the knowledge of alphabets, then words-knowledge, and then sentence formation.

More emphasis was given on practical education.

There was no half-yearly or annual examination fixed for students, but the students were evaluated based on practical situations of life.

3.5 Educational institutions

Maktabs:-Maktabs were the center of the primary education for the children of general people. Along with religious education, students were also taught subjects like reading, writing, and arithmetic. They were also taught some romantic literature of Persian example, Laila-Majnu, Yusuf-Julekha, etc. Along with practical education, letter writing applications, and accountancy were also taught in Maktabs.

Madrasas:- After completing the primary education in Maktabs, the students were sent to the Madarsas for higher education. Madarsas were the centers of higher learning and Emperor Akbar did remarkable development in the education of the medieval era. Along with religious and practical education, Akbar stopped the tradition of the Islamic religion and instructed to teach Hinduism and philosophy in many Madrasas. The subjects such as medicine, history, geography, economics, political science, astrology, philosophy, and mathematics were taught in Madarsas. Akbar made subjects like Vedanta, Jurisprudence, and Patanjali compulsory for Sanskrit students.

3.6 Important educational centers

Delhi: Nasiruddin established Madarsa -i-Nasiria under the reign of the Shiraz Allauddin Khilji and established many Madarsas with renowned teachers in them. Mughal emperor Humayun established many big institutions of astronomy and geography in Delhi. He also introduced institutions where subjects like Arabic, Persian, Grammar, Philosophy, and Astronomy was taught.

Agra: Sikandar Lodi established many Madarsas and Maktabs in Agra and attracted many students from other countries to come and study. Akbar made Agra the center of culture, fine arts, and crafts.

Jaunpur: Sher Shah Suri completed his education in one of the educational institutes of Jaunpur city. The main subjects of teaching were political science, warfare, history, and philosophy, Ibrahim Sharki set up many Madarsas in Jaunpur.

Bidar: Mohammad Gawan had established many Madarsas and Maktabs in this city and it became the famous center of learning. The city consists of a library that contains 3000 books on subjects like Islamic theology, culture, philosophy, medical science, astronomy, history, and agriculture.

3.7 Advantages

Practical education was given more importance, students and teacher’s relations were good. Students were taught from the basics and rulers also supported the development of education.

3.8 Disadvantages

Religious and Islamic education was given more importance.

The student aimed to focus on leadership for ruling the country.

4. Modern education

In the middle of the medieval age, the British invaded India and started to capture it. The modern education was introduced during the British empire. In the 1830s Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay introduced the English language. The subjects and the syllabus were limited to some extent, the main aim of modern education of the British was to spread Christianity. As time passed education started to develop and entered into the modern era that is in the twenty-first century, the era of science, technology, and innovations. And the demand and the need for education stills remain the same as it was in ancient and medieval times. In the modern era of science and technology, the industrial sector is increasing day by day. As demand increases our education sector also needs to change and adapt to that environment [ 5 , 6 ].

4.1 Aim of education

The objective of modern education was to inculcate values in students such as equality, secularism, education for all, and environmental protection, etc. To understand the culture as well as people of our country, every student must be provided at least a minimum level of education and also to provide education to the people who cannot afford it, to prepare the students with the ever-increasing demands.

4.2 Characteristics of education

The student-teacher relations remained the same as it was in ancient and medieval, but students did not live in the teacher’s house. As technology is increasing day by day, the education sector is also following the trend of technology by teaching the students through online lectures and Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). In Aviation and the medical sector, more emphasis is on practical knowledge as compared to other sectors. Women’s education is giving more importance, and the Government has launched many programs to encourage women’s education. In the modern era electronics gadgets like projectors, Light Emitting Diode (LED), and computers are used to teach the students. The Government has established many programs and there are many organizations that promote education in India.

4.3 Curriculum

In modern education along with studies, the emphasis is given on extracurricular activities and sports for all-round development of students.

4.4 Methods of learning

Students mostly learn concepts through online platforms like YouTube, Coursera, and Udemy.

Students refer to the notes given by the teacher’s side by side while learning online.

During class hours doubts are solved through discussions, debates, etc.

Pupils were assessed based on mid-sem written exams and practical exams to check their practical knowledge.

4.5 Educational institutions

Schools: Schools are the educational institutes where children are sent for their primary education. There are many private and government schools situated in India, primary education means education from Nursery to 10th standard. Children at their early ages are sent to schools to learn poems, grammar, prayers, alphabets, etc. besides this, the other subjects taught in the schools are English, mathematics, science, history, geography, and other regional languages. Schools are situated inside the city, also there are many cultural programs and sports events conducted in schools for the students to develop their interpersonal and physical skills. Private schools are run by organizations and the principal manages the academics and cultural activities in schools.

Colleges: After completing primary education from schools, students are sent to colleges for secondary education. After primary education, students are required to give entrance exams to take entry into colleges and according to the marks scored in entrance exams students are allotted colleges. In some states, during college, they are advised to choose a stream from science and commerce and then further carry on their secondary education. College education consists of 11th and 12th standard. Different subjects taught in secondary education according to their streams are physics, chemistry, geometry, algebra, accounts, and many other regional languages.

University : After the secondary education, students are required to give the entrance exams like Joint Engineering Entrance (JEE) and other state-level exams to take admissions in universities. Students are given choices to choose a stream like a computer, electronics, civil, and Mechanical and then start their career in it. The University provides undergraduate and postgraduate course comprising of course duration of 4 and 3 years, different universities in India are Savitribai Phule Pune University, Mumbai University, and many other aided non-aided and private universities. There are many cultural and sports events conducted in universities for giving students some time to joy and relax from studies.

4.6 Higher educational institutions

Indian Institute of Technology: It is one of the greatest universities in India for higher education like undergraduate, postgraduation, and many more streams. There is a total of 23 IIT colleges in India, every year lakhs of students compete to take admissions in these IIT’s. JEE-Mains and JEE-Advance are the two entrance examinations to take admission in these IIT’s, according to the All India Rank (AIR) and marks students are allotted IIT’s. Due to its high level of educational teaching and curriculum, IIT is famous all around the world.

The other top universities are Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), National Institute of Technology (NIT), Indian Institute of Science (IISC).

4.7 Advantages

Use of technology in learning, students is learning free-lancing and many other new technologies.

Many programs and missions have started to increase the employment of India.

Top class universities and colleges with good infrastructure and environment.

4.8 Disadvantages

Interference of government in education, management, and syllabus.

Lack of quality teaching as well as the environment in government schools and colleges.

Increase in fees of schools and colleges of private institutes.

Lack of practical knowledge orientation.

Due to the increase in fees, the family, which is below the poverty line cannot afford education and hence there is an increase in the number of laborers in India.

Lack of connectivity of the students who lived in rural areas.

5. Conclusion

In the modern era, industries and technology are increasing day by day. Every industry sector is looking for a person who best suits their industry. With the ever-increasing demand for industrial sectors, our current education system also needs to be upgraded. In universities, students are learning just for competing with each other to come first, no practical knowledge is gained. There is a lot of pressure and burden of work and studies on them, due to this student are committing suicide. Our education system needs to learn from ancient and medieval education system regarding the implementation of practical knowledge, student-teacher relations, ways of life student lived in that age, the contribution of kings towards the education, there was no stress laid on students and much more. The future of industries and commercial sectors will be very tough and ever demanding, so our government has to provide such an education system which will bring all-round development in students and make them future-ready and also teach them to live in any critical situation.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that there is no ‘conflict of interest’.

• 1. Glukhov VV, Vasetskaya NO. Improving the teaching quality with a smart-education system. In: 2017 IEEE VI Forum Strategies Partnership of Universities and Enterprises of Hi-Tech Branches (Science. Education. Innovations) (SPUE). 2017
• 2. Ahmed A, Ahmed HA. A proposed model of education system using cloud computing. In: 2018 3rd International Conference on Emerging Trends in Engineering, Sciences and Technology (ICEEST). 2018
• 3. Available from: http://www.vkmaheshwari.com/WP/?p=512
• 4. Available from: https://www.sociologygroup.com/indian-education-system-features-pros-cons/
• 5. Jayapalan N. History of Education in India; 1996
• 6. Available from: http://digitaltk.com/indian-education-system-advantages-disadvantages/

© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Essay on Teaching Methods for Effective Learning Today

In what way are/were you taught and how will you teach? Teaching methods are vital for everyone – we all go or went to a school where teachers try to involve each student in the learning process. Namely, this learning process is identified as effective or ineffective by means of effective or ineffective methods of teaching accordingly. Methods of teaching are one of the primary topics any student undergoing pedagogic training has to deal with. It is no wonder that the majority of questions arising in this field are in this or that way connected with misconceptions or wrong assumptions concerning this topic. That is exactly what explains why a student willing to master knowledge or skills should pay special attention to grasping at least the basic theory of teaching methods and doing a lot of practice: for example, writing an essay about it.

In this article, you’ll learn how to write an essay on the topic “Teaching Methods”. Besides, you are given the list of references you can consult additionally. Make progress in essay writing right now!

3 ‘Teaching Methods’ Issues to Address in an Essay

You as a person who is receiving education don’t think about methods employed in this process. Education is something that just happens to you, and you don’t give extra thought to how it all is organized. Right? It is a common perception among students but the task to write an essay about teaching methods can’t remain unaddressed as it will influence your academic performance that is expressed in marks. You can do your best to get high marks for writing this particular essay. First and foremost, address the key points of the topic. Here you are:

1. Groups of Teaching Methods Differ in Outcomes, But All Are Aimed at Teaching

In reality, teaching methods are a complicated and multi-lateral issue, with many opposing schools of thought. When all’s said and done, however, most teaching methods can be roughly subdivided into two groups: teacher-centric and student-centric.

• Teacher-centric learning approach is also often referred to as the traditional educational model because it is basically what we are all used to associate with teaching and studying. In this model, students are considered to be de-facto “empty vessels”, passive receivers of knowledge and skills. It is a teacher’s job to provide instructions and guidance for them, “filling up” these empty vessels in the process, and students are supposed to learn by listening to lectures, observing and copying the teacher’s actions and in general subjecting themselves to the teacher’s ultimate authority.
• Student-centric learning approach to learning is a much more recent development, placing emphasis on students’ participation in the educational process. This approach considers students to be not just objects but subjects of education as well, and the teacher’s role is viewed as not as that of the instructor but facilitator and delegator. To simplify it a bit, a teacher doesn’t provide one or another method of doing things that are already set in stone but offers guidance and support so that students are capable to figure things out on their own, thus making them active participants of the process.
• Another subtype of student-centric approach, the so-called cooperative learning, emphasizes teamwork: students are encouraged to work in groups and engage in reciprocal teaching. The teacher is not eliminated from the equation altogether, but his role, again, is that of facilitator and delegator rather than that of the one and only authority on every question. This method is based on the assumption that students learn best when they work and communicate with their peers.

It is important to understand that there are no good or bad methods of teaching. One can easily assume that a teacher-centric approach is outdated, anachronistic and generally “bad”, while the student-centric one is progressive and modern. However, they both have their areas of application. For example, teacher-centric methods far outpace student-centric ones in teaching fundamental skills. In other words, both groups of teaching methods have their areas of application and can be used to great effect – if used appropriately.

2. The Areas of Teaching Methods Application Differ as Well

If we start speaking about different areas of using specific teaching methods, it is logical to name them. Don’t omit this point in your essay as well. Today, the educational process differs from that existing several decades ago. Modern teachers have to not only explain a topic and provide the knowledge to students and mentor them, but also to:

• Facilitate learning for students in a classroom encouraging active learning,
• Develop mutual cooperation among students,
• Give prompt feedback to guide students in the right direction to the progress,
• Motivate students to learn new materials and develop essential skills like problem-solving, critical thinking, etc.

In general, a teacher is supposed to prepare a student to deal with the real world. It is possible only when a person is equipped with the relevant theory and practical skills necessary for successful communication in modern society and personal, professional development. Only this gives a competitive advantage in life. For each aim of teaching, there are particular methods. If a teacher needs to simply present the information, he or she uses a lecture method. It is true that sometimes it is boring to listen to a lecturer. For that reason, this way of teaching is extended by the others, for example, interactive and participative methods. It is important to encourage students’ participation and develop discussions that result in gaining hands-on experience.

3. The Effectiveness of Teaching Methods

More and more instructors develop their teaching approach depending on students’ learning needs . They are far from simply going to school, college or university to get knowledge. Unfortunately, the understanding of learning needs differently can cause various learning challenges and pitfalls and problems in the educational system. The result is that it reflects on the professional development of graduating students negatively. What is a doctor whose learning needs aren’t met at university? The medical system is impaired. So the assessment of learning needs should become part of government policy in relation to the continuing professional development of all professionals. Let’s observe what learning needs determine the appropriate use of teaching methods:

• Know about phenomena occurring to various areas of study;
• Finding answers to different questions;
• Define problems that need to be solved;
• Develop and use original ideas;
• Plan and carry out systematic investigations;
• Analyze and interpret data, a lot of data (due to the information overload);
• Use critical thinking;
• Construct solid explanations and design optimal solutions and many more.

All these needs, exactly their fulfillment, influence the effectiveness of using one or another teaching method. The most critical condition applicable to effective teaching in the 21st century is that all the teaching practices need to create personal and social relevance for students. They need to be intellectually and emotionally engaged in their own active learning, in other words, motivated to learn this world and solve some problems. In fact, teaching for success while taking a test is insufficient today. The current education policies that give priority to assessment need to be severely curtailed.

This idea and many other ideas can be mentioned in your essay about teaching methods. However, it is important to always back up all the research ideas. Look at the following references you can also use in your essay:

7 References to Use in the Essay about Teaching Methods

• Arnold, J. (1998). Towards more humanistic English teaching. ELT Journal, 52(3), pp.235-242.
• Bligh, D. (2000). What’s the use of lectures?. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• Cullen, R. (1998). Teacher talk and the classroom context. ELT Journal, 52(3), pp.179-187.
• Dörnyei, Z. (2001). Motivational strategies in the language classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Gibbons, M. (2002). The self-directed learning handbook. San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass.
• Legge, K. and Harari, P. (2000). Psychology and education. Oxford: Heinemann.
• Wiseman, A. and Anderson, E. (n.d.). Annual review of comparative and international education 2014.
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Age-old teaching methodology of the Indian Education System vs Modern Learning

Education has been a continuously evolving field. In a country like India, we have seen our education system evolve for many decades. The history of the Indian Education system dates back to the 10th century.  Even though modern universities as an official form of education started building up in the 20th century, we have been known for our Vedic teaching methods and Puranas for a long time. Right from the point when we were pioneers of education and attracted students from all over the world to Nalanda university and Takshshila University to the peak of the Gurukul era to classroom teaching and now the everyday evolving digital learning space. Even though we have come a long way in garnering the digitalization of education to the students, we still have a long way to go in order to shed certain tentacles of the traditional or age-old education methodology that has been so stubbornly embedded into our minds. 

First of all, let us dive into the main divide :

Age-old teaching methodology of the Indian Education System?

As the name suggests, this is our traditional teaching methodology that has been followed ever since the concept of teaching emerged. It is a rooted method of teaching wherein the teacher stands in front of the class and addresses the class and is designated to complete a certain portion of the syllabus which has been already decided as per an academic calendar. The students are individually responsible to fulfill the assignments and homework and are subjected to the marking system. 

Though everything comes with its own share of mishaps and boons, we still have to see the silver lining in our rooted teaching methodology even though there will be a few. Let us have a look into some of the key advantages of the Indian Education system.

Direct Interaction with the teachers as opposed to a digital mode

Even though the advantages are generic in nature we still need to necessitate them as they are necessary for maintaining a certain decorum in the class. Now let us dive into some of the key disadvantages of our Indian Education System.

• Most of the curriculum is legacy and it has not been changed for years. There is zero significance given to the practical mode of Education in our daily life.
• There is no focus given on character building, etiquette and mannerisms are not taught in school and this creates an awkward bridge in the corporate workspace.
• The Homeworks are not fun. They are extremely tedious and subject students to a copious amount of stress.
• There is a lesser focus on student’s learning and an undue focus on the grades.
• There is no learning and enhancement curve that is being followed. 
• Our learning methodology is rather stagnant with end focus given to the examinations.

Adjusting the chaos:

As we have seen from the above-mentioned factors, our Indian Education system has been in some mess for quite a while. However, with the emergence of digitalization, there are several changes that have been implemented in the teaching methodology. It has brought a form of order to not only the method of teaching but also making students a more involved part of the learning process. Digitalization in classrooms has changed the education system. Some factors have really hit hard and some just had a brush of change wave, but there has been a viable change as a result of it. 

The emergence of the Indian Education system through digitalization:

Let us look into some of the aspects that have been hit by this change wave brought to the Education system in India:

Student-Centered

The digitalization of education has made education totally student-centric. All the chapters, the dips, and the deviations have been designed across gauging the interest of the students. Be it motion chapters or 3d based explanations, the entire learning faucet has been designed to keep in mind the engagement value of the students. Even the instruction strategy is not memory-focused, it is more focussed on learning.

2) Flexible Progression

Digital learning is mainly about flexible chapter progression of the syllabus, unlike the traditional learning method, which mainly focuses on a prescribed progression. A prescribed and locked progression is bound around completing a certain aspect of the syllabus no matter if it proliferates learning or not. This lockstep method of completion takes away from the charm of natural learning.

3) Multisensory Stimulation

Digital and technical learning are all about a plethora of various modes of sensory stimulation. Unlike its counterpart, it is not about handling just one mode of stimulus which involves the blackboard and makes learning rather monotonous. After all, colors are all about enriching your visual stimuli. Digitalization involves rich media modes such as video learning, animated chapters, 3d chapters which entices your visual stimuli and attention to the fullest. They make the classes enriched and entertaining.

4) Real-World Collaborations

Digitalization helps in keeping the students hands-on with all gadgets and devices on which they are required to access their notes, connect with peers for collaborative project efforts and build multi-faceted presentations with infographics. This not only enhances their personal skills but also enhances their technical skills. It prepares them for the world of tomorrow unlike the traditional method wherein there is no scope of any technical and collaborative hands-on learning.

5) Learner’s Construct

E-Learning and digital classrooms are more about enhancing the way students can learn. It captures different aspects of the same chapter and different ways in which a particular terminology/explanation can make sense. It is more about adopting an all-in-all pragmatic approach to learning. The construct of digital classrooms is solely dependent on the ease of the learner unlike the traditional method of learning which mainly passes its knowledge from limited and authoritative sources.

Conclusion: Digital learning or Modern learning by a method is an integrated model of learning. It works best when we can combine traditional resources with technology. Neither can technology alone reap wonders on to a mind neither can a restrictive curriculum. However, if both of them chuck their differences behind and build a 360-degree collaborative learning environment then nothing can beat our country to once again become one of the greatest pioneers of learning.

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The Great Derangement After The Great Derangement (PAMLA, roundtable)

Terrence malick’s filmography at fifty plus (pamla, roundtable).

PAMLA will meet next in the waning days of famed and enigmatic filmmaker Terrence Malick’s eightieth year, his remarkable filmography having recently turned fifty. It begins with  Badlands , that is, which appeared on October 15, 1973, followed five years later by  Days of Heaven  (1978). He returns after a twenty-five year hiatus with a triptych of literary and historical adaptations, including  The Thin Red Line  (1998),  The New World  (2005), and  The Tree of Life  (2011).

British Literature 20 and 21st Century

The "British Literature and Culture: 20th and 21st Centuries" session welcomes papers that explore the rich cultural heritage of 20th and 21st Century British literature. It is important to note that this session uses the term “literature” liberally to include visual and performing arts, products of stage and screen that point to aspects of British culture generally, including the country’s politics. With regard to the conference’s theme “Translation in Action,” the session also welcomes but does not require proposals that discuss how the non-Anglophone world has reacted to/understood/re-interpreted 20th and 21st century British literature, or thoughts on teaching this literature in the American classroom.

RSA 2025 71st Conference: Thanatic Self-Fashioning: Attempted Suicides in Early Modern England, On- and Off-Stage

Epistémè (Sorbonne Nouvelle) sponsored Panel – RSA, Boston, 2025

Thanatic Self-Fashioning: Attempted Suicides in Early Modern England, On- and Off-Stage

Corpus methods in the analysis of discourse - Special Issue

We invite you to submit papers in English for the next 43rd issue of the journal “Świat i Słowo” (World and Word), which we dedicate to the use of corpus linguistics methods for the analysis of various linguistic phenomena occurring in discourse – broadly defined as “language in use” (Brown and Yule 1983). The aim of the volume is to present research that combines corpus linguistics and the analysis of different forms and varieties of discourse. Preference is given to articles presenting the results of original research of an empirical or analytical nature conducted using corpus linguistics tools and techniques to analyse the ways in which language is used in different contexts for communicative purposes.

CFP - Alizés (online journal): Learning and Teaching English in Multilingual Educational Environments

Learning and Teaching English in Multilingual Educational Environments

Deadline for abstracts (400 words) and short biographical notes (150 words): July 15, 2024 Notification of acceptance: September 16, 2024 Submission of full draft papers: January 31, 2025

Submission of final papers: June 15, 2025 

Languages: English, French

Sci-Fi Special Issue

Call for Papers:  

Special Issue: “Vol. 2 No. 1, Sci-Fi’s Narratives of Possibilities and Probabilities” 

The Classical Connection (ISSN 2994-9262 Online)

RSA 2025 Margaret Cavendish Society Sponsored Sessions CFP

The Margaret Cavendish Society will sponsor two or more sessions (panels or roundtables) at the Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting in Boston, MA. The RSA conference in 2025 will be held jointly with the Shakespeare Assocation of America.