Education in India

India is the country in the world with the youngest population. Out of 1.1 billion, almost 500 million Indians are aged under nineteen. 202 million children go to primary school, taught by 5.5 million teachers in a million schools. But all these impressive numbers say nothing about the quality of education. Out of the 202 Million students a third still do not read or write after about five years of education. The result is a dramatic drop in the number of high school students. At the end of grade eight there are only about 25% of students left. After grade twelve there are about 15% left and only about 7% take a higher university degree. The reason for the low education quality and the high dropout of the children is the result of a shortage of well-trained teachers, low budget for education and historical and cultural issues.

India's population is divided into five classes, the so called caste system. Upper classes have the ability to send their children either to private schools or to high quality formal schools, because they have the economical background, which allows them to spend their money on the education of their children. At the same time, by doing so they secure that the highest castes stay at the top of the social hierarchy, because their children are able to study and get a higher level of education and in turn better paid professions than children from the lower classes. Out of all the students who attend school in India, 10% get a higher education in private schools. This number doesn’t seem high, but in contrast to the formal schools these schools have nearly no dropouts. This shows that education in India is dependent on social position. Children of poor families often do not have the chance to receive a good education, because they either have to work to provide food for their family or have to look after their younger siblings. The result of these social differences is that about 50% of the Indian population are illiterate. Getting a higher school education also depends on the place where people live. In the rural areas the schools are badly equipped and the lack of trained teachers is high.

In the last ten years the pressure from below for better education has forced the politicians to act. In 2001, the government started the campaign "Education for All". Another thing they changed was that they increased the budget for education tasks massively. This resulted in the first eight years of school in India being free now.

The school system today follows the 10+2+3 pattern.                                                                                   
The three numbers represent the three different education levels a student has to go through in his/her school life and how long these periods are.

The first ten years in the Indian school system the students learn basic knowledge and are provided undifferentiated general education.  After this, there are two years called “further education”, where the students are divided into two lines, either academic or industrial. After this the students get the chance to take their bachelor in different subjects. A bachelor degree in the case of performing arts normally takes about three years. A  bachelor degree in most professional degrees takes about four years, and in medicine it mostly takes about five years for a degree.

The normal school year starts in June and ends in April or May. 
Before children start school they have the chance to go to nursery school from the age of three and until they are six years old. After this, the pupil starts in primary school from class one to five, at the age of six to eleven. This is followed by secondary school from class six to ten. In these ten years every student has to take three exams in each subject per year. If they fail in more than one subject they have to repeat the year. After the first ten years, students take a national exam, which is very similar to secondary school exams in Europe. Because India was a British colony, Indian education is closely based on the English system.

Sources:

“Education for all”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_For_All