Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Education structure of India

India has been a major seat of learning for thousands of years. While some of the country's universities (BITS, IITs, NITs, IISc, ISB, TIFR, ISI, IIMs and AIIMS) are among the world's well-renowned, it is also dealing with challenges in its primary education and strives to reach 100% literacy. Universal Compulsory Primary Education, with its challenges of keeping poor children in school and maintaining quality of education in rural areas, has been difficult to achieve (Kerala is the only Indian state to reach this goal so far). All levels of education, from primary to higher education, are overseen by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (Department of Higher Education (India) and Department of School Education and Literacy), and heavily subsidized by the Indian government, though there is a move to make higher education partially self-financing. Indian Government is considering to allow 100% foreign direct investment in Higher Education.

There are broadly four stages of school education in India, namely primary, upper primary, secondary and higher secondary(or high school). Overall, schooling lasts 12 years, following the "10+2 pattern". However, there are considerable differences between the various states in terms of the organizational patterns within these first 10 years of schooling. The government is committed to ensuring universal elementary education (primary and upper primary) education for all children aged 6-14 years of age. Primary school includes children of ages six to eleven, organized into classes one through five. Upper Primary and Secondary school pupils aged eleven through fifteen are organized into classes six through ten, and higher secondary school students ages sixteen through seventeen are enrolled in classes eleven through twelve. In some places there is a concept called Middle/Upper Primary schools for classes between six to eight. In such cases classes nine to twelve are classified under high school category. Higher Education in India provides an opportunity to specialize in a field and includes technical schools (such as the Indian Institutes of Technology), colleges, and universities.

In India, the main types of schools are those controlled by:
  • The state government boards like SSLC, in which the vast majority of Indian school-children are enrolled,
  • The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) board,
  • The Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) board,
  • National Open School and
  • "International schools." These schools mimic the schools in the West in pattern and syllabi and are considerably more expensive than regular schools. The exams conducted have the syllabus of anyone of the above-mentioned Councils or Boards.

Overall, according to the latest Government Survey undertaken by NUEPA (DISE, 2005-6), there are 1,124,033 schools.

Source : Wikipedia

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The international school examinations do not have the same syllabi as CBSE or NIOS, as you say but in fact they run by the IGCSE, and IB curriculams, which in content may have overlaps with the Indian curriculams. Few of these international schools may offer CICSE. Please cheak your sources and update your article.