The recent Health Ministry directive reducing the cut-off qualifying percentile for National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET )-Post Graduate (PG) 2023, from fifty to “zero” across all categories, exposes the sorry state of medical education because the affected students, who had scored ‘zero’ or had negative marks, had ‘earned’ an MBBS degree after five years of academic and practical instruction. Should these students clear their post-graduate examination in the same way they had graduated, which is more than likely, the country will be burdened by medical specialists of zero competence. Eminent doctors, and professional medical bodies, like the Federation of All India Medical Association came out against the Government’s decision, but to no avail. To put things in proper perspective, NEET-PG 2023 had 200 multiple choice questions each with four options; a correct answer would get the candidate four marks while one mark would be deducted for a wrong answer. A candidate who chose a certain option, say option (a), for all questions would get a net of 50 marks (50 correct answers fetching 200 marks and 150 wrong answers resulting in deduction of 150 marks). Thus, examinees getting less than 50 marks were neither professionally competent nor were blessed with basic intelligence, and therefore, did not deserve to be admitted to a professional postgraduate course. The NEET-PG 2023 imbroglio, is not an isolated instance; education, at all levels, is floundering in India. The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), 2022 found glaring shortcomings in the learning of schoolgoing children, of the kind that only 42.8 per cent of class five students could read a class two text ~ down from 50.2 per cent in 2018. Apparently, the Covid19 pandemic that had forced all educational institutions to close down for two years, worsened the already poor standard of education. Significantly, since 2009, when we were ranked 73rd out of 74 countries, the Government of India has consistently refused to participate in OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which measures 15-year-olds’ ability to use their reading, mathematics and science knowledge and skills to meet real-life challenges. Examining Boards, throughout India, have tried to mask the fall in educational standards; more students were declared passed in Board examinations of 2022 than in earlier years despite most examinees not attending classes for a single day. Also, Board examinations saw a record number of students who scored more than 90 per cent marks. Anomalously, the cut-off marks for JEE-Advanced 2022 were kept at a mere 15 per cent, so that available seats could be filled up. It would appear that educational standards were deliberately lowered to conceal the rot in the educational system. Such blatant window dressing fools no one, but puts a question mark on the credibility of Board results. The most significant cause for the rot in the education system is insufficient funding by the Government. Till today, Government schools established by the British more than a century ago, are the backbone of our education system. Most of these schools are now floundering, with falling buildings and a huge shortage of teachers, affecting the learning of the majority of students in the country. A viral video from Bihar shows five primary Government schools operating from a single room, with five teachers writing on a single blackboard, to a roomful of bemused children. Obviously, education imparted in such schools would be of an abysmal standard, yet no efforts are visible for the improvement of Government schools. The condition of higher education is even worse, with hardly any employment opportunities for young men with traditional education, i.e., ordinary BA and BSc degrees. Resultantly, the great universities of yesteryears, like Calcutta University, have a large number of vacant seats at undergraduate level. Even engineering courses in run-of-the-mill institutions have no value in the job market. Not surprisingly, hardly half the seats for undergraduate engineering courses could be filled up across India. Non-professional college degrees are losing their importance worldwide. Two years after the 2008-09 meltdown, half of the college graduates in the US became unemployed or underemployed. Slowly, after the effects of the recession wore down, college degrees regained their importance, but the percentage of high school graduates enrolling in college came down; from 70 per cent in 2009 to 61.8 per cent in 2021. After the Covid-19 pandemic, when the job market became unusually tight, the college degree again lost its relevance because while hiring for ordinary jobs, potential employers stopped asking for college degrees. According to a Harvard Business Review and the Burning Glass Institute estimate for the US, in the next five years, college degrees would not be required for 14 lakh jobs. However, students still vie for quality college education, because it develops essential skills like analytical thinking, active learning, and complex problem solving, which results in brighter college graduates with the right skillset, being paid more, and being employed at higher levels. This would explain why eight lakh students appear for the 16,000 IIT seats, and admissions to some Delhi colleges require 100 per cent marks in Twelfth Board, or why private universities, which charge a bomb for their courses, are burgeoning ~ the bottom line being that students graduating from these institutions can easily land a good job. The icing on the cake is that a talented alumnus of IIT/IIM can, one day, aspire to become the CEO of some top US corporate. However, outside this charmed circle, a student of ordinary means faces a cruel dilemma. After completing his school education, he has little capital, skill or experience to strike out on his own. If he goes to a second-grade college, he can only hope that he will get some small-time employment ~ after wasting his parent’s money and several years of his own life. The obvious solution is to link education to jobs, which would entail providing the wherewithal to colleges to offer vocational education to interested students. This is not an untried idea; one-half to nearly two-thirds of students pursue vocational education in countries like Germany and Switzerland. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 rightly aims to introduce vocational education at all levels by integrating vocational education into mainstream education, in all educational institutions, by 2030. NEP also proposes to remove the ‘hard separation’ between the vocational and academic streams and overcome the stigma attached to vocational education. Further, NEP aims to ensure universal access to quality holistic education ~ including vocational education ~ from pre-school to Grade XII and every child would learn at least one vocation and be exposed to several more. However, implementation of NEP 2020, seems to be running far behind schedule; NEP had envisaged that by 2025, at least half of the students would have vocational exposure through school and higher education. The problem in implementation of NEP appears to be of finance and resolve; the NEP document requires that 6 per cent of GDP be spent on education, while we are spending only half of that. Further, changeover to NEP would require teacher re-education, new infrastructure and a complete overhaul of the education system ~ which is easier said than achieved. An obvious first step to popularize vocational education would be to stop lionizing higher education, and running down its alternatives. The Government can also help by developing online courses on the pattern of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), as an alternative to college enrolment, which would provide an affordable and flexible way for students to learn the latest skills, supplement their learning, and advance their career. The popularity of Coursera in the US, which has 118 million registered learners, and which adds about 5 million new learners every quarter, is a pointer to the usefulness of good online courses. The Government can also rethink about its Institutes of Eminence (IoE) initiative, which has hit a roadblock, with only 12 institutes, out of a possible 20, being granted the IoE tag, and funding of Rs.3,200 crore, out of a budget of Rs.10,000 crore, being utilized. Currently, the Empowered Expert Committee for IoE, has been defunct for more than two years, making any action on IoE unlikely. Probably, the unutilized funds of Rs.6,800 crore of IoE can be used to establish good vocational colleges in all districts, and thereby kickstart vocational education. Finally, learning requires great effort from students. As Mahatma Gandhi had said: “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
(The writer is a retired Principal Chief Commissioner of Income-Tax)