Clarissa Jaucian

November 5, 2015
GCU 114
Education in India
The United Nations has enacted the Global Education Initiative with the purpose of improving
the lives of the worlds population through education. There are three priorities at the heart of their plan:
put every child in school, improve the quality of learning, and foster global citizenship (1).
Through this agenda Indias education system can be assessed to see how they fare.
In 1986 and 1992, the Indian government worked to make education a free possibility for its
citizens (2). Not only was school meant to be free, but attendance was required (2). If the government
was going to make a push for higher quality education, they needed to make sure that the students were
going to be present for the education. All children under the age of 14 were required to attend school,
this was Indias way of meeting the UNs priority of put[ting] every child in school (1). This increased
population in the school systems meant that the government had to commit more money to education
than had been given previously. The following chart (Image 1) shows the net attendance ratio in India
based on the individual states. The map shows
that attendance was 80% or higher in much of
the country. There were only a few states that
had less than 79% attendance. This graphic is a
little old, but it shows that India was making
good headway toward the first priority in the
UNs Global Education Initiative.
The second priority is meant to ensure that
the children attending school are actually

getting a good education. Unfortunately, much of Indias resources are focused on attendance. Money
has not quite reached the school system to improve the quality that every student is receiving. This is the
reason for high primary school attendance, but a low higher-secondary school attendance which shows
that only 35 per cent reach Class 12 of those initial 97% enrollment numbers (3). This can be seen
through Figure 2 below.
The statistics show that
primary schools do indeed
have a positive increase in
attendance, but the
discrepancy of upper
primary and
secondary/highersecondary is pretty
dramatic. These numbers
are also increasing but still show a large gap in the attendance past primary schools.
This gap may be due in part to the tremendous teacher shortage happening across the country.
More resources are being diverted to the primary
schools for higher attendance, that the attention
has slipped from upper grades. This is shown in
the image below (Figure 3) of the teacher ratio in
India. Much like the problem happening in the
United States, it is hard to give students a quality
education without first providing quality teachers.

The last priority for Indias schools is to foster global citizenship (1). This is important from a
sustainability standpoint. Indias economy has been booming in recent years, they have managed to cut
their poverty levels in half (5). But at the cost of rising pollution and by depleting their natural resources
(5). Although neither of these costs has risen to outweigh the positive changes in India, they will need to
start thinking on a global scale in terms of how sustainable their growth is for their country and for the
planet. This last image (Image 4) looks at air pollution on a global comparison scale, the cities in yellow
are located in India. As a global citizen, these are the kinds of numbers that are important to learn about
and work to change.

Citations:
1. Priorities. (n.d.). Retrieved November 6, 2015, from
http://www.globaleducationfirst.org/priorities.html
2. Kumar, D. (2014, December 7). The Education System in India. Retrieved November 6, 2015,
from http://www.gnu.org/education/edu-system-india.en.html
3. Kumar, N., Kumar, V., & Kumar, N. (2008). Educational Infrastructure in India. Retrieved
November 6, 2015, from http://www.nistads.res.in/indiasnt2008/t1humanresources/t1hr3.htm
4. Dhawan, A. (2015, January 4). India needs to focus on quality of education to accelerate longterm growth. Retrieved November 6, 2015, from http://www.businesstoday.in/magazine/coverstory/focus-school-college-education-for-gdp-growth-ashish-dhawan/story/213470.html
5. Realizing the Global Goals: A clarion call for India's youth. (2015, September 27). Retrieved
November 6, 2015, from https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/realizing-the-global-goals-aclarion-call-for-indi/
6. Stromberg, J. (2014, May 12). China's air pollution may be bad, but India's is much worse.
Retrieved November 6, 2015, from http://www.vox.com/2014/5/12/5700532/chinas-airpollution-may-be-bad-but-indias-is-much-worse