Sorry state of education |
Addressing the Sixth Ramnath Goenka Lecture on 17 November 2025, Prime Minister Narendra Modi slammed Macaulay’s 1835 education policy for instilling a ‘slavery mentality’ in India. The PM set a ten-year deadline to exorcize Macaulay’s ghost ~ in the 200th year of publication Macaulay’s Minute on Education. The PM’s speech triggered a debate on Macaulay and his education policy, which was enthusiastically joined by politicians of all hues.
Sadly, few of the debaters, if any, chose to discuss, even in passing, the current state of education in India ~ which would have been much more relevant ~ because much is wrong with our present education system. According to the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2024, a survey of 6.5 lakh children revealed that 76 per cent of Class 3 students, 55.2 per cent of Class 5 students, 32.5 per cent of Class 8 students still cannot read Class 2 level texts, and over 66 per cent of Class 3 and Class 5 students, struggle with simple maths. Also none of our 1,338 universities figured in the top 100 of the QS World University Rankings, 2025.
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Aiming at a Gross Enrolment Ratio of 100 per cent by 2030, and a current 88.4 per cent pass rate in twelfth board examinations, with 1.1 lakh students scoring above 90 per cent in CBSE alone, secondary education appears to be doing better. This façade is ripped away at engineering and medical examinations; the qualifying score was 20.56 per cent at the JEE Advanced Examination, and 18.75 per cent, in NEET. Probably, it would be unfair to blame Macaulay for this sad state of affairs, 166 years after his death, or the British, seventy-eight years after their exit from India.
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The neglect of education by successive Governments can be gauged from the fact that till today, Government schools established by the British, more than a century ago, are the backbone of our education system. Due to neglect over the years, most Government schools are now floundering, with falling buildings, and a huge shortage of teachers, affecting education of the majority of students in the country. A viral video from Bihar showed five primary Government schools operating from a single room, with five teachers writing on a single blackboard, to a roomful of bemused children. Obviously, education imparted in such schools would be of an abysmal standard, yet, despite pontifications at the highest levels, no efforts are visible........