Whilst India has made rapid progress in secondary education enrolment- which has doubled in the last decade, can we rest on our laurels? Far from it. The 2017 ASER report alarmingly elucidates that children lack the most basic foundational skills with 27% of grade eight kids not able to read at the level of a grade two child and 57% unable to solve elementary mathematical problems. So, where does Indian education go from here? Our fixation with churning out 20 million graduates every year has got to change to taking a hard look at the quality of our education and how to make it skills-based twenty-first century ready. With only 1 in 10 children from privileged backgrounds making it to higher education we have our work cut out. How did Germany get to achieve the lowest unemployment rate in all of Europe? The answer is its strong vocational education system and what measures can India take to integrate vocational education with mainstream education? Find out.
