Back in the 90s, getting 60 percent on your boards meant having a party in the whole neighborhood; it was a celebration. Today, even 95 percent is not enough to secure your admission in the college and course of your choice. So, what changed during all these years? Not the NCERTs for sure.

India is fast becoming a country where education is just another commodity. With everyone obsessing over education and paying any amount of money to get the best, the real essence of education has been devalued. It is no longer a noble cause; it is a mere means for people to earn a profit, to scam others into paying for a basic necessity.

To educate someone means to impart that person the knowledge so that he or she can survive in society. But the commercialization of education has turned almost every institution into a business or a money-making factory, charging huge amounts for all the facilities that they provide. And the sad part of it all is that these facilities aren’t even required most of the time.

Today, every nook and corner has a new coaching institute being run by someone who is not even a professional of the field they are teaching or tutoring students in. As a result, most of the students going from schools to colleges are not using any prior knowledge from their formative years. Furthermore, the students passing out of colleges are not ready to be employed right away. Yet they are being employed, many even as teachers. A teacher is a pillar of a child’s future, but what will happen if the teacher himself fails to build a strong foundation for his student’s life?

Another important parameter for quality education is having the right infrastructure. The environment of the place where you send your child to study matters a lot. As a student, it is important to keep in mind that nurture plays a huge role in the development of our minds and the correct environment is the first step towards nurturing the feeling of learning in our minds. Schools and colleges are spending way more on advertising their institutions and finding prospective customers in the name of students rather than spending that same money on improving the infrastructure and the facilities available for the students. The parents are falling prey to these lucrative ads, readily paying a huge amount of money to get their ward into the said institution, without even realizing that their hard-earned money will be used to catch other prey. Basically, they are being cheated in the name of education.

Instead of being the solution to a problem, education itself is becoming more of a problem. Even though the education industry is rising, it is lagging behind in fulfilling its social responsibility towards the society.

The education system has to improve, thereby improving the meaning of education. Providing education should no longer equate to just paying the fees. The youth has to be provided with quality education and the whole society has to work together to convey this message to the world.

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