| | 8 NOVEMBER 2019HIGHERReviewAS A CONTINUOUS PRIORITYIN MY VIEWEducation is critical for the future prosperity of India as well as every Indian citizen. India has excess in some parts of the education chain and has scarcity in some parts of the chain. This inconsistency today automatically places the emphasis on the individual and his family to use their own means to ensure they have good education. Good education is dependent on one key variable ­ the quality of teachers!Why is education so important in India? Education has been defined as a basic requirement for any job seeker in India. In India many employees are overqualified for their jobs, in many cases, people have a master's degree or a PhD when the job does not really need it. We as a nation tend to have a higher proclivity to dual degrees. I believe this will not change despite the proliferation of self - employment and entrepreneurship. Any which way, we will need to continuously improve the quality of basic education in India.Let's start with the basic schools. Education in India for children between 6 and 14 is a fundamental right. If we have this as a fundamental right, then we must ensure that we have the best resources allocated to this fundamental right. We have to invest in teachers at every level in the education system. Today, we have one teacher who teaches almost all subjects in a small school. How can we tap the large women pool we have to bring in more teachers? Years ago, the Chief Minister of Tamilnadu hit upon the idea of providing mid- day meal scheme for children in schools. At that time many economists and social scientists ridiculed this. However, in a country where young kids are used as cheap labor, this was an excellent innovation to ensure that children were sent to Today students can research a topic and know more about the topic than the teacher who has been teaching the topic for years. So, the know -how which differentiated the teacher is no longer an advantageBy Shiv Shivakumar, Group Executive President, Aditya Birla Group
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