Indian education system and corruption: UNESCO

India’s education system is mired in corruption and a high rate of teacher absenteeism in the country was a key factor for it according to the new global study. The UNESCO’s International Institute of Educational Planning study on corruption in education released recently says that 25% teacher absenteeism in India is among the highest in the world, second only after Uganda that has a higher rate. The global average of teacher absenteeism is about 20%.

 Teacher absenteeism does not just affect quality of education; it is also a huge drain on resources resulting in the wastage of 22.5% of education funds in India the study said. Politics in teacher appointments and transfers is a major reason for teacher absenteeism according to a professor at National University for Education Planning and Administration.

The study identifies the absence of well established criteria for teacher recruitment a uniform policy on promotion, remuneration and deployment as some of the main reasons identified for teacher absenteeism. However the report found married teachers to be more regular at job than unmarried teachers.

In Bihar two of every five teachers were reported absent the figure in UP was reported to be one-third of the total teachers. However in states like Gujarat and Kerala the figure was lower than 15% the report based on several small studies.

Teachers also believe highly in private tutoring a practice identified by UNESCO as unethical. It does not complement learning at school and leads to corruption the report said. The practice of ghost teachers and involvement of teachers in mismanagement of schools were other gray areas identified in the Indian education system.

Another indictment of the sorry state of Indian education was the view held by students that cheating in examinations is their traditional right. In India universities cheating is now well-established. The fees for manipulating entrance tests ranges between $ 80 to $ 20,000 for popular programmes such as computer science, medicine and engineering the report said...!!!

Noted scientist and educationist Prof Yash Pal has said that there is maximum corruption in the education sector of the country. He expressed concern over the state of education in the country too. He was speaking at a ceremony where he was conferred with Shri Hari Om Ahsram Prerit Dr Vikram Sarabhai Senior Scientist Award - 2010 at the Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad recently.

"Large-scale corruption is prevalent in the education system. Coaching classes are hell, as they are killing the creativity of students," said Prof Pal.

While expressing his opinion on higher education, he said, " Due respect has not been given to the universities in the country. We should be creating good universities but have not done so. IITs should be given total autonomy and given university status and raised to the level of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). I think regulatory agencies like UGC and AICTE should be abolished." 

Apart from this, the Buti Foundation Award in Plasma Science and Technology for the year 2011 was also conferred on Banibrata Mukhopadhyay of the department of physics, at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

Prof UR Rao, veteran scientist and chairman of council of management, PRL, was the chief guest at the function.

In his address Rao expressed, "We are still working with the space technology, which we have already developed. Now we should explore and develop new technologies. There is need for more research in space as we have barely been able to explore five percent of the universe, we still don't know where the energy of the universe originates from," he said.