Aristotle said that educating the mind without educating the heart, cannot be considered as real education. There are many factors contributing to the efficiency of education and yet many others that act as pointers to the deterioration of the same. Education, per se, continues to remain the backbone of the society irrespective of the location it is present on the globe. Many countries ensure that their education standards remain at the top at all points of time by focussing on the same in a periodical manner. However, many countries drop down the chart when it comes to quality rankings on a comparative scale. India is a developing country which is losing its hold on higher education gradually. This has lead to heavy competition among students who aspire to pursue their Higher Education in India. Let us look at some details substantiating the same.
Entrance Exam hurdles
The hurdles for most students who desire to pursue their higher education in India starts right at the Entrance Exam stages. Let us look at some such challenges students face when they opt to extend their studies in India.
- Population has been on a constant increase for the past few decades in India and the number of Government Colleges is not in the right proportion. Majority of the population in India belong to the middle and lower middle class. This set of people lead such a conservative monetory life that their affordability levels start and stop with Government Colleges. The limited number of Government colleges across the Country acts as one of the main hurdles for aspiring students who want to pursue their higher education in India.
- Education, in particular Higher Education is being looked at as a money spindling mechanism more than a crucial tool for the Country’s development. This has pulled down the quality levels of the system fostering quota system and influence from many unwanted political quarters. The limitations pertaining to the number of students who can be admitted in Colleges makes the Entrance Exams unrealistically tough. All these deny opportunity to deserving students who want to pursue their higher education in India.
- In order to manage, rather overcome the issue of limited number of Colleges, the toughness of questions asked in the Entrance Exams is high. Even bright students who are confident of clearing the Entrance Exams before attending the same finds it extremely flabbergasting after attending the same. This strategy filters even the best of the talents from pursuing higher education in India
Limited opportunities they have
The limited opportunities available for students post their higher studies in India acts as another major deterrent factor in the education system. Let us look at some instances to understand about this aspect in a detailed manner.
- Out of the thousands of students sieved by IT giants every year during the Campus Recruitment process, less than 25% students are considered employable. This is mainly due to the low levels of attention given to the quality aspects of education and high levels of focus laid on infrastructural arrangements. The interest showed in displaying infrastructural facilities like building, labs and libraries to satisfy the laid requirements does not really reflect in the quality of maintaining the same. For instance, Labs and Libraries just remain buildings but do not focus in procuring state of the art equipments and latest books
- Political environment has paved way for many Engineering and Medical Colleges that focus mainly in making money. This has deteriorated the quality of the education system which is unable to create quality students to compete with the global environment.
- The quantity of qualified Ph.D Scholars produced by the higher education system in India has gone down in a drastic manner during the past few decades. This has led to the appointment of under qualified and insufficiently qualified resources as faculties for higher education. The poor knowledge imparted to students by such non-qualified teaching professionals tends to foster low level education standards.
- The employment opportunities that students get post their higher studies completion in India is absolutely a pathetic state of affairs. This deprives employment to a major chunk of students who opt to drift away to foreign countries in search of better prospects. Many students who stay back in the country settle down in employment that is either commercially low yielding in nature or irrelevant to their field of study. Such things discourage the next set of students from pursuing higher education in India
- Students who experience heavy Entrance Exam structure and lack of opportunities after completion of studies tend to go in for higher education abroad. The highly competitive quality education offered at the global level leverages this lack in the Indian education system to their advantage. They offer subsidies and employment opportunities to students during and post education. This acts as one of the major attractions to intelligent students who strive hard to set the best future for themselves