Goverment schools' quality, dependence on private players degrade Indian education system: Manish Sisodia

NEW DELHI: Delhi's Education Minister Manish Sisodia on Wednesday spoke about the biggest challenge for the Indian education system.

Sisodia stated that the deteriorating quality of the government schools and the dependence on private entities have degraded the quality of education in the country. 

"The biggest challenge before Delhi, and also India, is that our education system is heavily private dependent. The quality of education in our government schools has deteriorated as we were not able to maintain it," Sisodia said.

Sisodia, who was addressing the media at the Asian Summit on Education and Skills (ASES) said that the situation can be improved by properly training the teachers and improving the trust of people.

"The solution to this will be maintaining the quality of education in government schools and building faith among the public, as the public lacks faith in the system. Teachers` training can also play a major role in this regard as education starts with the teacher and ends with him," he added.

ASES is a global annual meeting of ministers bringing insights of leading education pioneers, policymakers and education experts from Asia. The summit had representatives from 15 countries this year. 

The theme of ASES this year is "Learning for Tomorrow`s World".

"Programmes like these may not make straight changes but help in creating awareness and changing mindsets," Aditya Gupta, CEO, India Didactics Association (IDA), told the media.

Speaking on idea exchange, Sisodia said these platforms play an important role in promoting peer learning among countries and educational institutions.

"There is a great scope of learning from our counterparts such as Thailand, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan in various areas of education and training," Sisodia said.

"We have to find innovative ways to make education fun and less burdensome for students. In Delhi, we have already cut down the curriculum by 25 per cent to reduce the burden on students and introduced happy curriculum," he said.

(With Agency inputs)