India needs to focus on its school and college education

India has been among the fastest-growing economies in the world in the last decade. However, low-quality education is crippling India's growth as its emerging workforce is unable to cope with the demands of a 21st-century economy.

Countries like Thailand and Mexico that did not invest in education have struggled to maintain their growth, whereas a country like South Korea invested in quality of education to transition into an innovative economy. India too will get trapped in 'middle-income', if we do not act with urgency now to transform the quality of education delivered in our country.

Traditionally, our efforts around education have focused on enrolment and not on children's learning. It is hardly surprising then that despite 97 per cent enrolment in Class 1, only 35 per cent reach Class 12 and less than 20 per cent enroll into higher education. Even for those who do complete graduation it doesn't really get any better - nearly half of our graduates are unemployable in any sector.

In the hope of reaping India's demographic dividend, our governments have prioritised skill development. The UPA government established the National Skill Development Corporation in 2008, with the target of skilling 500 million youth by 2022. The new government is developing a 'Skill India' scheme, which is expected to be launched in March 2015 and move beyond the UPA's target. While we emphasise skilling, it is critical to understand that skilling is about 'repair' and will at best give us some short-term results. To unlock the true potential of our human capital, we must transform our school and higher education system to prepare our students for life and the workplace.

Accountability to student learning and reforms in governance: 

Just as the success of a business cannot be determined by the amount of raw material consumed or the strength of its infrastructure, the success of an education system must not be determined by inputs such as the number of classrooms, the number of books in the library or pupil-teacher ratios.

We must hold our education system accountable to high standards of student achievement. For this, we need to move from monitoring inputs to regulating for outcomes. Schools must be evaluated on outcomes such as college readiness of students, employability of school graduates and student performance on standardised assessments. Higher education institutes, similarly, must be evaluated based on measures such as student selectivity, placements, research papers published/cited in premier academic publications, etc.

Investment in human capital development: 

For our children to receive best-quality education, it is imperative we attract the best and the brightest into the teaching profession. We must have a high bar for entry into the profession, with top-quality institutes for developing their capacities. It is essential to professionalise teaching, such that multiple career tracks and avenues for growth