By Kunal Vasudeva
Let’s cut through the noise: India’s education system is a mess—if we’re honest about it. It’s built on outdated ideas and knowledge passed down from school to school through trial and error, not inquiry-based or critical thinking. That’s a problem because education—whether 100 years ago or 50 years from now—should teach people to solve problems, build life skills, tackle job challenges, or navigate business hurdles, and above all, to think critically. It must also align with our national goals: becoming a manufacturing powerhouse, a tech innovation leader, and a services giant. Right now, we’re not even close. I’ve seen the gaps, and I’m here to call them out—with straightforward, realistic fixes that work.
Reality - A System Out of Sync
The way we teach is stuck in the past. Instead of encouraging students to think and question, we’re producing passive learners who can’t tackle real-world problems. Worse still, we’re obsessed with STEM, especially computer science and engineering. India churns out 1.5 million engineering graduates annually, with 40% entering IT (All India Council for Technical Education, 2023). Yet, the National Skill Development Corporation reports we’re only creating 2.5 to 3 lakh new tech jobs each year. That’s a flood of talent with nowhere to go. The result? Underemployed graduates, and industries left scrambling for the right skills.
Then there’s the entrance exam trap. Students spend years—and lakhs of rupees—on coaching classes, only to enter colleges where 70% of the 40 million students graduate without jobs (All India Survey on Higher Education, 2022). The top 50–100 institutions are solid, but the rest? They’re degree mills with no intrinsic value. That’s not education; it’s gambling on our children’s future.
Where We’re Dropping the Ball
The gaps are glaring. Our curricula don’t align with global or national needs, leaving students with qualifications that open few doors. The NEP 2020 is a smart blueprint—promoting skills, flexibility, and industry ties—but it’s gathering dust without execution. Expecting the same undertrained administration and teachers to pull this off is like handing a novice a rocket and expecting a moon landing. We need expertise, not just good intentions.
And the biggest miss? No focus on jobs. Without a clear return on the time students invest, we fail them—and our country’s ambitions.
What’s the Fix?
To make India a “Viksit Bharat” by 2047, we need a 3X transformation: faster, smarter, and digitally driven—like the India Digital Stack. Let’s blend the US’s continuous assessment and the UK's staged flexibility into a national solution, rolled out now:
Unified National Assessment, Not Entrance Chaos: Ditch the coaching trap. Replace entrance exams with a single, digitised Indian Aptitude Test (IAT), modelled after the SAT but tailored to our universal curriculum. Launch by 2026, cutting costs for 10 million students annually and easing college admissions.
Hybrid Continuous Assessment, No More Board Exams: Scrap Class 10 and 12 board exams by 2028. Adopt continuous evaluation, project work, skills testing, and teacher input, blended with milestone checks at Grades 10 and 12 (non-high-stakes, curriculum-light). Digitise this on a national platform to assess all children by 2030.
Curricula Aligned for National Growth: Rework syllabi by 2027 to focus on manufacturing, technology, and services—adopting a 50% apprenticeship model in engineering and vocational courses.
NEP 2020 Execution with Digital Muscle: Train 50,000 educators by 2027 via a digital training hub powered by the ₹50,000 crore NEP budget (Budget 2023). Refocus on employment outcomes by connecting graduates to jobs through a national portal and a real-time employment tracker by 2027.
This hybrid model—built on continuous assessment, a unified test, and digital execution—draws from global best practices but is tailored to India’s scale, ambition, and pressing needs. It’s not a foreign fix; it’s ours, turbocharged for 2047.
India’s Talent Takes Charge
With 600 million people under 25 (UN Population Division, 2023), India has the raw material to lead. But we need an education system that works—one that teaches young people to think, aligns with our manufacturing and tech goals, and ensures jobs. NEP 2020 can take us there, if executed properly, with borrowed expertise if needed, and a laser focus on outcomes.
Picture this: every graduate—engineer, chef, entrepreneur—walking into a career, driving India forward. That’s not just a hope; it’s a promise we can keep. Let’s get it done. We owe it to our great nation.
(Kunal Vasudeva, Co-founder & Managing Director, Indian School of Hospitality.)
Views are personal, and do not represent the stance of this publication.
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