Way Beyond The Three Rs : India's Education Challenge In The 21st Century

by Y.S. Rajan, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (Foreword)

The education of their children is of paramount importance to all Indian parents. They spend tens of thousands of crores each year to get their young educated. The country fetes its successful from Class X board toppers and those who crack the IIT JEE to those who clear the civil-services examination. Yet things on the ground are dire. About 70 per cent of all students (in villages, towns and cities) have to make do with inferior schooling. Metropolitan newspapers are full of the difficulty of getting a nursery seat in a good school. And while there is a seat crunch in the better colleges too, only 10 per cent of all students between the ages of 18 and 21 are enrolled in college. Crores of educated India discover too late that they do not have the skills to land a suitable job. Y. S. Rajan examines the gamut of issues involved in India s efforts to educate its young people and the work required to fix schools, vocational training centres, colleges and universities. He argues that Indian education needs reforms on a scale comparable to those which freed the economy of the shackles of the licence-permit raj almost twenty years ago.

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Aryan Prasad · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is perhaps diminished due to due to its age, and now seems more suitable to be a long form article. But the author stuck out his neck and put out many ideas well ahead of his time - liberalization of education sector, allowing campuses of foreign unis in India et cetra. The author have a good style for writing this kind of book, trying to counter as many questions that may be raised in a section at the ed of it.

However, I do not agree with his proposed language policy- English as the main language with just one Indian language on side.

[Max Baruah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is certainly an eye opener for the Indian education system. It gives a holistic view of practical learning that anyone can be entitled to right from his or her childhood, as contrary to the traditional useless teaching system. However the fact still holds true that whatever measures of rectification are given in the book, cannot be fulfilled unless the government approves it and finances it.