A Review on "Education in India: Problems and their Solutions"

A Review on “Education in India: Problems and their Solutions”

Education is the process of facilitating learning, or the acquisition of knowledge, skills, values, beliefs, and habits. Educational methods include teaching, training, storytelling, discussion and directed research. Since the country's independence in 1947, the Indian government sponsored a variety of programmes to address the problems of illiteracy in both rural and urban India. India is a rapidly changing country in which inclusive, high-quality education is of utmost importance for its future prosperity. 

It is not that the solutions haven’t been offered before. There are various boards and committees set who kind of rule the education system of India. There is a lack of awareness amongst the students about how can they pursue more knowledge and less of cramming. There is a rat race amongst all of us and it started when the Britishers introduced this method of Education in India which had clerks and accountants working on a daily basis and then there was no change in the system.

In 1961, the Union government formed the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) as an autonomous organisation that would advise both the Union and state governments on formulating and implementing education policies.

As per the National Policy on Education (1968), the aim of education is “to promote national progress, a sense of common citizenship and culture and to strengthen national integration”. A proper and good education is very important for all of us. It facilitates quality learning all through the life among people of any age group, caste, creed, religion and region. It is the process of achieving knowledge, values, skills, beliefs, and moral habits.

Based on the report and recommendations of the Kothari Commission (1964–1966), the government of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi announced the first National Policy on Education in 1968, which called for a "radical restructuring" and equalise educational opportunities in order to achieve national integration and greater cultural and economic development. The policy called for fulfilling compulsory education for all children up to the age of 14, as stipulated by the Constitution of India, and the better training and qualification of teachers.

Having announced that a new policy was in development in January 1985, the government of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi introduced a new National Policy on Education in May, 1986. The new policy called for "special emphasis on the removal of disparities and to equalise educational opportunity," especially for Indian women, Scheduled Tribes (ST) and the Scheduled Caste (SC) communities. To achieve such a social integration, the policy called for expanding scholarships, adult education, recruiting more teachers from the SCs, incentives for poor families to send their children to school regularly, development of new institutions and providing housing and services.

The 1986 National Policy on Education was modified in 1992 by the P.V. Narasimha Rao government. In 2005, Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh adopted a new policy based on the "Common Minimum Programme" of his United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. Programme of Action (PoA), 1992 under the National Policy on Education (NPE), 1986 envisaged conduct of a common entrance examination on all India basis for admission to professional and technical programmes in the country. 

Student mobility trends in India are of great interest to university admissions personnel in the U.S., Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and increasingly in countries like Germany or China. India is currently the second-largest sending country of international students worldwide after China, and outbound student flows are surging. The number of Indian international students enrolled in degree programs abroad doubled from 134,880 students in 2004 to 278,383 in 2017, as per UNESCO.

In 2019, the Ministry of Human Resource Development released a Draft New Education Policy 2019, which was followed by a number of public consultations. The Draft NEP discusses reducing curriculum content to enhance essential learning, critical thinking and more holistic experiential, discussion-based and analysis-based learning. It also talks about a revision of the curriculum and pedagogical structure from a 10+2 system to a 5+3+3+4 system design in an effort to optimise learning for students based on the cognitive development of children.

The Draft National Education Policy, 2019 is out in the public domain.

Salient features of NEP 2019:

• The policy aims to universalize the pre-primary education by 2025 and provide foundational literacy/numeracy for all by 2025
• It proposes new Curricular and Pedagogical Structure, with 5+3+3+4 design covering the children in the age group 3-18 years. Under this, Pre-Primary & Grades 1-2 is considered as foundational Stage; Grades 3-5 as Preparatory Stage; Grades 6-8 as Middle Stage and Grades 9-12 as Secondary Stage. This is an academic restructuring only; there will be no physical restructuring of schools.
• Children learn languages, most quickly between 2-8 years, and multilingualism has great cognitive benefits for students. Therefore a three-language formula has been proposed
• It proposes the teaching of other classical languages and literature, including Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Odia, Pali, Persian, and Prakrit in schools
• It aims to consolidate 800 universities & 40,000 colleges into around 15,000 large, multidisciplinary institutions
• The policy proposes three types of Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs): Research Universities, Teaching Universities and Autonomous degree-granting colleges
• It aims to provide autonomy to all higher education institutions. Higher education institutions to be governed by Independent Boards with complete academic and administrative autonomy
• An autonomous body called the National Research Foundation (NRF) to be set up through an Act of Parliament
• Rashtriya Shiksha Aayog or the National Education Commission - apex body - to be constituted. It will be chaired by the Prime Minister and will comprise eminent educationists, researchers, Union Ministers, representation of Chief Ministers of States, eminent professionals from various fields
• MHRD to be re-designated as the Ministry of Education (MoE)

Education gives us a knowledge of the world around us and changes it into something better. It develops in us a perspective of looking at life. It helps us build opinions and have points of view on things in life. ... But then again, information cannot be converted into knowledge without education.

However, to our utter dismay, currently, the Indian education system faces a number of setbacks, the primary one being lack of standardisation in both school and university/college level. To understand the situation better, we should first enlist the problems that circumscribe the Education Sector in India.

The main aim of education is to make the people better and to let them develop the various skills that they need for their life. This process should be carried out by an educational system that is able to produce people who can handle in various aspects of life. Such jobs still continue and effect our thinking of getting settled in something where we might not be interested but are ready to work to secure ourselves and our families. The teaching method should also undergo a major change where the students are not pressurized but are taught the morals and practicality of life. The reservation system is also one of the major issues which need to be taken care of.

The lack of sufficient funds is the main problem in the development of education. The outlay for education in Five Year Plans has been decreasing. Due to insufficient funds, most educational institutions lack infrastructure, science equipment and libraries etc.

Many schools are still non-compliant with the Right to Education infrastructure criteria laid down and the problem is more serious in rural areas. Common amenities like safe drinking water, toilets need to be provided. Weak infrastructure in schools that are working on getting a bullet train is a bit ironic.

The Government of India is well aware of the problems in the Indian education system but has been slow in responding to them. School infrastructure is in a poor state and many school teachers are not properly qualified, with 31% of them not having a degree. ... Consequently, the state of learning is very poor

Various problems in the education system are as:

• Lack of infrastructure. …
• Teacher selection criteria …
• Shortage of training ….
• Poor global ranking of institutes. ...
• Gap between education provided and industry required education. ...
• Gender issues. …
• No emphasis on creativity…
• Costly higher education. ...
• Inadequate government Funding. ...
• Adoption of technology.

Teacher selection criteria– in most of our schools the teacher's selection & recruitment process is non-merit based. They are selected as per the choice of selectors. Lack of proper academic qualifications and competency in pedagogy is another challenge. Poor Teacher-student ratio – Huge no. While quantitatively India is inching closer to universal education, the quality of its education has been questioned particularly in its government-run school system. ... Some of the reasons for the poor quality include an absence of around 25% of teachers every day.

Education in Indian high school, and even college, broadly, is tougher than most places in the world. ... Also, if you are not familiar with the high school system in America, you can take the classes you want at the difficulty level you wish. India's improved education system is often cited as one of the main contributors to its economic development. ... At the primary and secondary level, India has a large private school system complementing the government-run schools, with 29% of students receiving private education in the 6 to 14 age group.

Lack of Motivation: Our education system has a terrible job of inspiring or motivating kids to learn. People are motivated in different ways, some want money, some want the position, some want comfort, some want stress free job, some want to become athletes. Teachers who not only teach but also inspire students to learn and fuel creativity in students are very rare. Similarly, most of the students lack the motivation to learn beyond the curriculum or are forced into the rat race in silent ways. The problem is further aggravated with parents who want nothing more than their child to get a safe and secure job

Inadequate, Improper distribution of Funds or Lack of it – Funds are the major reasons for the Education problem in India. If funds are available, they are not being used effectively. At times, the lack of funds hampers education and many times, the funds are just inadequate to solve the issue.

The sole emphasis in education is on getting high scores and clearing exams. In all this creativity and personality development takes a back seat. There is a serious lack of support for innovation which is shown in the absence of interest for research and students primarily look for getting a job. Character building is something most teachers are not even aware of and are neither prepared to put any effort in the direction.

Indian education system offers world-class education and provides students with knowledge of every subject. Indian Education system has helped to change the Indian society to a great extent. India education system does not provide practical knowledge, which is a demerit of any education system. The Indian education system is not the only one that needs change, but also the mentality of teachers, students and parents need a serious upgrade. To truly reform we need to take examples from countries which have established a mark in their education systems. One of the best advantageous points of the Indian education system is its inexpensiveness. Unlike other developed countries in the world, knowledge is clubbed with the economy here and any student willing to explore the abundantly spread resources of education in the country can do so without spending exorbitantly.

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Research and its importance/purpose?

Research and its importance/purpose?

Research is "creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of humans, culture and society, and the use of this stock of knowledge to devise new applications." It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of information to increase our understanding of a topic or issue. Research is work that involves studying something and trying to discover facts about it.

The different types of research help build creativity, leadership, reading, analysis, problem-solving, and cognitive abilities in a person. It is marked as an important tool for success for any business organization or firm. With the help of research, you can find new opportunities and methods to help you succeed in life.

What is purpose of Research ?

Research is basically done for two purposes: to understand the world around us or why things or process work the way they do and to understand the applications of these processes. In other words, either pure research is carried out or applied research is carried out.

Research has been defined in a number of different ways, and while there are similarities, there does not appear to be a single, all-encompassing definition that is embraced by all who engage in it. Research is considered to be a systematic and comprehensive process that involves studying about a particular topic or subject to gain in-depth knowledge regarding it. 

Original research, also called primary research, is research that is not exclusively based on a summary, review, or synthesis of earlier publications on the subject of research. This material is of a primary source character. The purpose of the original research is to produce new knowledge, rather than to present the existing knowledge in a new form (e.g., summarized or classified). 

The term Quality Research and quality evidence are related concepts that have been at the centre of much debate in academic, professional, and public policy circles.

The objective of Research?

• To gain familiarity with a phenomenon or to achieve new insights into it ( studies with this object in view are termed as exploratory or formulate research studies).
• To portray accurately the characteristics of a particular individual, situation or a group (studies with this object in view are known as descriptive research studies).
• To determine the frequency with which something occurs or with which it is associated with something else (Studies with this object in view are known as diagnostic research studies)
• To test a hypothesis of a causal relationship between variables ( such studies are known as hypothesis-testing research studies)

What is Motivation in Research? What makes people understand the research ? 

This is a question of fundamental importance. The possible motives for doing research may be either one or more of the following:

• Desire to get a research degree along with its consequential benefits:
• Desire to face the challenge in solving the unsolved problems, i.e. concern over practical problems initiates research.
• Desire to get the intellectual joy of doing some creative work.
• Desire to be of service to society.
• Desire to get respectability.

Generally, students are confused on various points, they used to ask various questions ? when they joined the research program in any university. We tried to clarify various questions of students. 

What is the difference between Qualitative Research and Quantitative research?

Qualitative research is an inquiry process that enables in-depth knowledge of the problems and Quantitative research is a structured way of collecting data and analyzing it to draw conclusions.

What is the difference between Primary Research and Secondary  Research?

Primary research is designed to meet your unique and specific needs. 

Primary research is information gathered through self-conducted research methods, while secondary research is information gathered from previously conducted studies. Secondary research is usually where most research begins. Secondary research is worthwhile because it is generally more cost-effective than primary research and it provides a foundation for any project.

What is the difference between Pure Research and Applied Research?

Pure research involves developing and testing theories and hypothesis that are intellectually challenging to the researcher but may or may not have a practical application at the present time or in the future. Thus such work often involves the testing of hypotheses containing very abstract and specialised concepts.   

Applied research focuses on analyzing and solving real-life problems. This type refers to the study that helps solve practical problems using scientific methods.

To understand the characteristic of research design using research purpose here is a comparative analysis:

	Exploratory Research	Descriptive Research	Explanatory Research
Research approach used	Unstructured	Structured	Highly structured
Research conducted through	Asking research questions	Asking research questions	By using research hypotheses.
When is it conducted?	Early stages of decision making	Later stages of decision making	Later stages of decision making

Exploratory research is conducted to explore a group of questions. The answers and analytics may not offer a final conclusion to the perceived problem. Descriptive studies are used to describe the behavior of a sample population. In a descriptive study, only one variable is required to conduct the study. Explanatory research or causal research is conducted to understand the impact of certain changes in existing standard procedures.

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Fundamentals of Software Testing

Fundamentals of Software Testing

Software testing is the practice of evaluating a system or its component(s) through the aim to locate whether it satisfies the specified software requirements or not. In other words, testing is executing a system in order to recognize any gaps, errors, or missing software requirements in contrary to the actual requirements. It depends on the process and the associated stakeholders of the project(s). In the Information Technology (IT) industry, large companies have a software team with responsibilities to assess the developed software in the context of the specified requirements. Furthermore, software developers also perform testing which is called unit testing.

An early commence to software testing reduces the cost and time to modify and develop an error-free software product that is delivered to the customer. However, in the software development life cycle (SDLC), software testing can be underway from the requirements gathering and specification phase and sustained until the deployment of the software product. It also depends on the software development model that is being used. For example: in the waterfall model, formal testing is conducted in the software testing phase but in the incremental model, testing is performed at the finish of every iteration or increment and the entire application is tested at the finish.

Software testing is done in diverse forms at every phase of SDLC:

• - During the requirement gathering and specification phase, the analysis and verification of requirements are also considered as testing.
• - Reviewing the design in the design phase with the purpose to advance the design is also considered as testing.
• -  Testing performed by a developer on the achievement of the software code is also considered as testing.

Software Testing Life Cycle (STLC) consists of a series of activities agreed out by testers methodologically to test software product. Though STLC uses the term testing it does not occupy just testers, at several instances, they have to engage developers as well. In STLC test cases are executed.

Fundamentally there are manual and automated software testing. Manual testing is performed by an individual sitting in the face of a computer carefully executing the test steps. Manual testing is a type of software testing where software testers manually execute test cases without using any automation tools. Manual testing is mainly primitive of all testing types and helps find bugs in the software system. Any new function must be manually tested before its testing can be automated. Manual testing requires additional effort but is compulsory to check automation feasibility. Manual testing does not necessitate knowledge of any testing tool. One of the software testing fundamental is 100% automation is not achievable. This makes manual testing very important. In fact, any type of software testing can be executed both manually as well using an automation tool.

Automation testing uses an automation tool to execute a test case suite. The automation software can also go through test data into the system under test, evaluate expected and actual results, and produce detailed test reports. Test automation loads significant investments in cost and resources. Successive development cycles will necessitate the execution of similar test suite continually. Using a test automation tool, it’s likely to record this test suite and replay it as mandatory. Once the test suite is automated, no individual involvement is required. This improved return of investment (ROI) of test automation. The goal of automation is to decrease the number of test cases to be run manually and not to reduce manual testing altogether.

There are two basics of software testing: black-box testing and white box testing. Black box testing is a testing technique that ignores the internal means of the system and focuses on the output generated by input and execution of the system. It is also called functional testing. White box testing is a testing technique that takes into account the internal means of a system. It is also called structural testing and glass box testing. Black box testing is frequently used for validation and white box testing is regularly used for verification.

System testing is the testing of an entire and completely integrated software product. Generally, the software is simply one element of a larger computer-based system. Eventually, the software is interfaced through other software or hardware systems. System testing is truly a series of diverse tests whose only purpose is to implement the complete computer-based system. System test falls in the black box testing category of software testing. Acceptance testing is a beta testing of the software product completed by the genuine end users. In integration testing, individual software modules are incorporated logically and tested as a set. A typical software project consists of numerous software modules, coded by diverse programmers. Integration testing focuses on assessment data communication between these modules. Hence it is also termed as I & T (Integration and Testing), string testing and occasionally thread testing.

There are various types of testing such as:

*Unit Testing

*Integration Testing

*System Testing

*Functional Testing*Acceptance Testing*Stress Testing

*Performance Testing

*Usability Testing

*Regression Testing

*Beta Testing

Unit testing is the testing of a person unit or group of related units. It falls under the category of white box testing. It is regularly done by the software programmer to test that the unit implemented and is producing accepted output against specified input.

Integration testing is testing in which a group of components are combined to generate output. Also the communication between software and hardware is tested in integration testing if software and hardware components have some relation. It may fall under both white box testing and black box testing.

System testing is the testing to certify that by putting the software in different environments (operating systems) it still works. System testing is finished with complete system implementation and environment. It falls under the category of black-box testing.

Functional testing is the testing to ensure that the particular functionality required in the system requirements works. It falls under the category of black-box testing.

Acceptance testing is repeatedly done by the user to guarantee that the delivered product meets the software requirements and works as the user expected. It falls under the category of black-box testing.

Stress testing is testing to assess how the system behaves under critical conditions. Testing is conducted at beyond limits of the software specifications. It falls under the category of black-box testing.

Performance testing is the testing to measure the speed and effectiveness of the system and to make sure it is generating results within a specific time as in performance requirements. It falls under the category of black-box testing.

Usability testing is performed to the perception of the user, to calculate how the GUI is user-friendly? How effortlessly can the user learn? After learning how to use? how expertly can the user perform? How enjoyable is it to use its design? This falls under the category of black-box testing.

Regression testing is the testing after modification of a component, system, or a group of related units to certify that the modification is working accurately and is not damaging or striking other modules to create unexpected results. It falls under the category of black-box testing.

Beta testing is the testing which is completed by end-users, a software team outside development, or publicly releasing full pre-version of the software product which is known as a beta version. The objective of beta testing is to wrap unexpected bugs and errors. It falls under the category of black-box testing. 

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