Indian School Education System

The Indian school education system is one of the largest and most complex in the world. The complexity of the system stems from India’s need to maintain standard and uniformity, while giving scope for its diverse culture and heritage to grow and flourish across the length and breadth of the country. After independence India has worked hard to provide access to almost all its young people, but it has only just begun to focus on aspects of quality and seek to improve learning outcomes.

India, with more than 1.4 million schools and more than 230 million enrolments, is home to one of the largest and complex school education systems in the world along with China. India has made phenomenal progress since independence in the field of education.

 The present education system in India is guided by different objectives and goals but is based around the policies of yesteryears. Immediately after independence, a Department of Education under the Ministry of Human Resource Development was set up on August 29, 1947 with a mandate to expand the educational facilities. After 1960, the focus on access gradually started moving towards quality. With that vision, the National Policy on Education was formulated in 1968. Over subsequent years, several policies have been formulated by the Indian government to ensure that the literacy level is gradually increased with a close monitoring of the quality of education as well. Retention of children in schools was of paramount importance in the years that followed. With several educational reforms, school drop-out rates have registered a decline with the gender gap of education also showing a dipping figure.

The Indian education system has made significant progress in recent years. Public spending on education increased rapidly during the Eleventh Plan period. The bulk of public spending on education is incurred by the State Governments and their spending grew at a robust rate of 19.6 per cent per year during the Eleventh Plan. Central government spending during the same period increased at 25 per cent per year.

The Indian education system is structured as follows:

• Pre-school: Education at this level is not compulsory. The Montessori system is especially popular at the pre-school level 
• Private play schools: Catering for children between the ages of 18 months and three years. 
• Kindergarten: This is divided into lower kindergarten (for three- to four-year-olds) and upper kindergarten (for four- to five year-olds)
• Primary school: First to fifth standard/class/ grade (for six- to ten-year-olds) 
• Middle school/Upper Primary school: Sixth to eighth standard/class/grade (for 11- to 14-year-olds) 
• Secondary school: Ninth and tenth standard/ class/grade (for 14- to 16-year-olds) 
• Higher secondary or pre-university: 11th and 12th standard/class/grade (for 16- to 18-year olds).