Competency-Based Education in Indian Schools: Realities and Vision for the Future

Abstract

Knowledge is power and education is the foundation of sustainable progress. As Benjamin Franklin once said, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest”. India has reached a unique point in history where its social and economic progress needs to be sustained and sustainable with a proportionate progress of human resource parameters of its populace. Most importantly, education is the one element of human progress and evolution that needs to be looked at more closely. India’s has been a story of mixed success on the educational front: although the country is home to 22% of the world’s population, it is home to 46% of the world’s illiterate population. India is also home to a large number of the world’s out-of-school children, though there have been encouraging signs on the schooling participation front lately. Among the children in schools in India, the critical question has been of quality of education. Has the capacity building exercise of India’s education sector been adequately followed up by the setting of high standards of education? In a country like India, with its massive population, policy-makers can often be obsessed with the quantity and scale of resolution of the issue of literacy. The unfortunate casualty in the process often is the nature and kind of education that could lead to independent thinking, critical reasoning and creativity, besides tools to equip the student to tackle the challenges of life. Standardization of curriculum has led to lesser engagement with subjective experiences and a certain fragmentation of the lives of students. The culture of rote learning and an examination-oriented attitude to resources and concepts has led to a parochial and skewed understanding of subjects and their applications. In this paper, I look at the realities of, and vision for the future for, school education in India, particularly with respect to competency-based learning. I also look at best practices in countries such as Belgium, Brazil and Singapore.