O.V.: What you like to tell me about the current situation regarding the education in India?
His Excellency Mister Rahul Shrivastava, Ambassador of India to Romania, the Republic of Moldova and Albania: Like in every part of the world, the education in India has also been affected by the COVID-pandemic. When it started my children, were both studying in India. And I am the kind of the person who believes that online education it’s just maybe one third of what you can get in real, on site education. Because education is not just all books, it’s not just about the teacher telling the student what knowledge the teacher has, it is beyond that because you should have physical interaction with the teachers, you should be able to see the environment very well there, you should be able to go and play, interact with your peer groups. That was all missing. That disruption still continues in India, like in Romania. Even the Board Exams got postponed one time during these two years.
I think this is a terrible thing, but the situation is improving and I hope that things would be much better with the pandemic decreasing in intensity in the way we have vaccinations. I hope that we will come back to normal and I am a strong believer of education in schools where children go and learn beyond just curriculum.
O.V.: What are the main challenges of the Indian educational system?
His Excellency Mister Rahul Shrivastava, Ambassador of India to Romania, the Republic of Moldova and Albania: This is the current in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, but in general I would say that the first challenge would be infrastructure, because in India we still have a lot of people living in villages and smaller towns and in these places the government has been trying very hard to improve the infrastructure. It is an ongoing process, but the infrastructure in education is not yet as one would expect from a normal school. If you go to some remote villages you might find that the school does not have maybe proper classrooms and even if it has proper classrooms it might not have proper laboratories, so it’s not a full school. So that is one – infrastructure in some of the schools, mostly the remote ones. If you go to cities they have infrastructure, in big towns there is no problem. But sometimes, in remote villages infrastructure is a problem.
The second challenge is the dropout rate. We have compulsory free education, because the right to education is a fundamental right in the Constitution of India. This means that if the parents don’t want to send their children to school then the government is not going to force them, but if the parents want to send their children to school the government is compelled to provide them the education. This is why is free and compulsory. Despite this fact we have a high drop-out rate, mostly in the rural areas. So children go to the primary school but by the time they are reach higher secondary they start dropping out of school. This is another challenge.
The third challenge is the lack of teachers. Because in the schools, mostly in remote areas, teachers are absent. If you should have 20 teachers, then you have only 10 of them. The absenteeism is also a problem.
Coming to the principle of schooling, this is also changing. We have a new education policy, but I will came back to that later. At the time I grew up the education was very theoretical. It was about knowledge. You would read books and you would gain knowledge. We were very good at theory, but we were lacking other things like vocational training or how to interact with people. Even if we were studying science, we were just scramming without actually understanding what is the reason behind, say Newton’s 1st, 2nd or 3rd law. We would just scram the equations and it was that kind of education. So this is another challenge. For several decades our education was theoretical. How to make it more practical? How to prepare children to face life when they grow up? So these things are issues addressed by the new government.
O.V.: Usually Indian students go to study abroad, but what about foreign students coming to study in Indian universities? I am interested the Indian public policy regarding foreign students because the situation is similar to Romania.
His Excellency Mister Rahul Shrivastava, Ambassador of India to Romania, the Republic of Moldova and Albania: In general the out-flow of students from India exceeds the in-flow. In general Indian students go to United States, UK, Australia or New Zeeland, also to Europe to study. But his is changing. First of all we have a lot un private universities coming up, which we didn’t have earlier. They do not have restrictions and they can get students from wherever they want. Secondly, the public universities have realized that if they have foreign students they would be able to rank among top the universities in the world. For the moment Indian the best Indian universities are ranked 100 in the world and one of the main reasons is that they don’t have foreign students. They realized that they should have foreign students also. One of the criteria to judge the university is by the number of foreign students or foreign collaborations. This is also increasing.
There is a third point to this topic. Indian government offers a lot of scholarships mostly to Asia, Pacific, African countries, Latin American countries, but also to countries in Europe. Romania is also part of that, we offer scholarships for students to study in the best Indian universities undergrad studies, postgrad, doctoral, postdoctoral. Everything is paid by the Indian government, this is also available for Romania. And not just that, foreigners have the possibility to study languages, Hindi languages, music or dance. The present ambassador of Romania in India studied Hindi. Apart from students, the people who are working can enrol in short training programs.
Since last year, there is a new education policy. Before that we had some restrictions on foreign universities opening campuses in India. So that has also been liberalised. All the big foreign universities are keen to have campuses in India and once that happens, they will attract foreign students too.
O.V.: Let’s talk technology in education, how is this developed in India?
His Excellency Mister Rahul Shrivastava, Ambassador of India to Romania, the Republic of Moldova and Albania: In urban schools or city schools access to technology is the same here as in India. But in the rural areas in India, like in rural areas in Romania, people face some difficulties in access to technology. When the pandemic started many people didn’t have tablets, many students didn’t have computers, so that was a problem. In rural Indian, technology hasn’t reach very far, the internet penetration is around 60-70%, there are schools that do not have internet. But in the bigger cities, yes, schools have access to good laboratories, to computers, good internet speed. So all that is there. In the rural area we are lagging behind.
O.V.: What about cultural education?
His Excellency Mister Rahul Shrivastava, Ambassador of India to Romania, the Republic of Moldova and Albania: I would like to give an example about a subject – history. We start with the history of India, from about 5 000 years ago with the Indus Valley culture. So the culture is part of the history. In schools students have cultural programs where they can participate. They also gave in place groups or societies, like dramatic society or cultural society.
But in India I would say the system is a little bit different from what happens in many Western countries. In essence our traditions go back 4-5000 years, apart from schools. The families are big. There is a huge network of religions. From that children get cultural education, apart from getting it from school. All this happens in the society, in the families, among the relatives and the children pick up from there also.
O.V.: Let’s talk about non-formal education, what do children in India learn outside schools?
His Excellency Mister Rahul Shrivastava, Ambassador of India to Romania, the Republic of Moldova and Albania: Like anywhere in the world, in Romania or in India, I see the scope for children to do more of what they like is increasing. In every school, mostly in the cities and big towns you have various groups, associations and societies. For example, if you want to became a diplomat, in India there are many groups and they have competitions, so you can be part of that. If you want to be good in technology then you can also find some group which similar to that. Then also sports is increasing in India. When I was growing up, if you were good in sports, you were a bad student and you were perceived as neglected, but that is changing now. If you are good in sports the school encourages it. All normal schools have good sports infrastructure. So they will encourage you depending on what you like to improve your skills in sports. Spending time outside increases the power to absorb knowledge, so that is also beneficial. When you go out to play sports not only physically, but also mentally you are improving. And then, if you are playing sports, team sports like football you develop that team spirit how to play as a group, how to interact as a team. Sports are also becoming a huge part of our physical activity. Summer camps or camps even during holidays are increasingly happening. Schools in India encourage people to engage in social activities. Beyond the formal education, this is mainly what is happening in Indian schools.
O.V.: What would be something special, something different about Indian learning system?
His Excellency Mister Rahul Shrivastava, Ambassador of India to Romania, the Republic of Moldova and Albania: Indian students are very competitive. That kind of competitiveness maybe arose because of the great number of students. Indians are very good in taking competitive exams, I found that in Koreans and Japanese also. If you tell Indian students that they have to take competitive exams, they will be prepared, because there are lots of coaching classes, good guidebooks, good peer groups. They are not scared of exams. The competition is huge and this is why the students are prepared. If you want to become a senior diplomat, there may be half a million people competing and only 2-300 get selected. Maybe some countries can see how Indians do that.
O.V.: What can you tell us about the future of education?
His Excellency Mister Rahul Shrivastava, Ambassador of India to Romania, the Republic of Moldova and Albania: In the last 40 years since I started learning technology, education in general is improving for two reasons. Number one you have better access to knowledge sources: television, internet, Wikipedia. You can get information very fast, which is good for education. Secondly, the world is now interacting more, I compare myself with my children and they know more about the world and they are more worldly wise than we were at their age because the interaction is huge. A lot of interaction is happening. Education in general improves. A ten year old today knows more than I did when I was ten, because I was coming from a small town and all my knowledge came from that place. Now people access to information from everywhere. But there is one thing which might be lacking which is – people are becoming very cocooned. Besides information there are other human qualities that one should have, like empathy to other people or emotional intelligence. Having a lot of access to technology, maybe these qualities are taking the back seat. And then, it’s a personal thing, I prefer people. Reading a book on paper support is different from reading a book from a screen, it calms me. Maybe I am part of an older generation, but I hope that the new generation, apart from getting all this information from high-technology sources they would also be getting information from paper books. I might be an exception, but I still feel that in many people. When one takes a book, sits in the park and reads it then the mind becomes peaceful and that it is good for the physical and mental health, especially in children. In the future the education will increase, in terms of knowledge, but the human aspects of it I hope that they are able to get it back like they did 30-40 years ago.
O.V.: How do we protect our children then?
His Excellency Mister Rahul Shrivastava, Ambassador of India to Romania, the Republic of Moldova and Albania: It’s not about protection. When my children are staying at home playing guitar or sitting in front of a computer, I tell them to go outside and interact with their friends. We can encourage them to do this, talk to their friends, getting to know about life skills not just from a phone. You can get information but you can’t get the life skills. Sometimes you get the wrong kind of information, for example what is happening with vaccination here. Everyone has become a doctor and they watch fake news and they say vaccination is bad. By talking to real doctors and health experts would help them understand why this information is wrong. We should encourage our children to have more life interactions. I tell my children: go to some place, your brain has to take some rest. So if you go outside in the sun don’t do anything. If you are doing something then there nothing to learn. Look at trees, how the trees are moving, how the leafs are falling, look at the sun, absorb some vitamin D. Even that is education.
O.V.: What about the involvement of the private sector in education?
His Excellency Mister Rahul Shrivastava, Ambassador of India to Romania, the Republic of Moldova and Albania: Yes, and it is increasing. Thirty years ago 70% of the schools were public institutions. And now I think that it is about 50%. In higher education I think it is the other way around. Now 70% is private and only 30% is governmental education.
O.V.: And companies, do they have in place some special programs?
His Excellency Mister Rahul Shrivastava, Ambassador of India to Romania, the Republic of Moldova and Albania: Many of the big companies have their own training centres. Mainly, the IT companies train their employees in the beginning, for three-four months in their own training centres, all the big companies have them.
And companies offers training to employees to upgrade their skills. But the same thing happens with governmental sector. Thirty years ago we didn’t have any programs, but know even at 50 years old I will have to undergo some training, to learn what is the new management about.
O.V.: What would you like to add to our readers?
His Excellency Mister Rahul Shrivastava, Ambassador of India to Romania, the Republic of Moldova and Albania: I hope that more Romanian students are encouraged to go to India. This year we had some restrictions and not many could go to India and I hope that more people could go. The scholarships are fully funded by the government of India, students get to study at the best universities. Indian education is in English) which means the world is open to the students and you they can go wherever they want to after graduation. Romanians are good at English, but still a fully English medium education even better for Romanians. There are available for Romanians even short term courses for music or dance or they can take a gap year to learn a new language like hindi. They will be available for the next academic year.