If you had the opportunity, what actions would you demand of the United Nations Secretary General and why?

1. ACTIONS OF UNITED
NATIONS SECRETARY

2. ENROLLMENT ENHANCEMENT
◦ United Nations Secretary should work towards increasing Enrollment & decreasing drop out
rates
◦ To remove the challenges being faced by the Indian Education sector
◦ To put in place the Education Reforms, in field of Curriculum & Pedagogy, faculty trainings and
legal regulations
◦ To create infrastructure in terms of school and faculty

3. Objectives of Education in India
◦ Equity: To promote equality and democratic participation from all sections of society - SC (Schedule
Caste), ST (Schedule Tribes), Minorities and children with special needs
◦ Access: To provide access to modern infrastructure and facilities for children from all sections of
society
◦ Gender concern - To provide equal opportunity to girl students and ensure fuller development
◦ Centrality of Teachers : To train teachers to innovate and create a healthy teaching environment. To
sensitize them to child psychology
◦ Security - To ensure security of children from all kinds of external and internal threats and create a
secure studying environment. To introduce modern biometric and security systems . To ensure
tracking of each and every child and ensure participation of parents
◦ Nutrition and Development - To ensure fuller development of children through initiatives such as
Mid Day Meal Scheme
◦ Inclusion - To include Madrassas and other schools under the ambit of this national initiative.

4. Pillars of Education Sector

5. Adult Education
◦ To provide education opportunities to those who have lost the opportunity of
studying in primitive age
◦ To undertake projects for Skill Building & Vocational Training through Public Private
Partnerships
◦ To impart functional literacy to children
◦ To promote voluntary aegis for Adult Education and Skill Development
◦ To promote lifelong learning, development of skills and attitudes
◦ To promote adult education, vocational training and self development

6. Linking Education to Vocational Skills
◦ To create vocational skills among the students in secondary schools
◦ To reduce disparity through renewal of curriculum
◦ To emphasize on vocalization and employment oriented education
◦ To reorganize teacher training
◦ To reduce digital divide through classroom teachings and workshops
◦ To undertake capacity building, in terms of teacher training
◦ To provide equal opportunity for all through scholarships and financial
assistance

7. MODULES FOR EDUCATION AND
TRAINING OF TEACHERS
◦ To improve quality of teacher training
◦ To transact pre service and in service teacher training for elementary school teachers
◦ To create infrastructure for teacher training
◦ To create master trainers to implement in service programmes
◦ To create digital mode of teacher training
◦ To establish teacher training institutes
◦ To set up a flexible curriculum
◦ To create special module for Agriculture, Industry & Technological education

8. Education for all
◦ Educational and cultural relations with other countries and increasing promotion of Indian ethos and values.
It includes promoting patronage to the study of ancient Indian culture in general and the study of Sanskrit in
particular; preservation and promotion of national culture inclusive of patronage to national art and
propagation, development and enrichment of Hindi along with special responsibility for the cultural
interests of the minorities;
◦ The clearing house function of collecting and broadcasting ideas and information , coordinating function of
harmonizing the educational activities of the Centre and the States and education in the Union Territories;
◦ Promoting Scientific research; technical education and promotion and coordination of educational research;
◦ Education of the handicapped; taking responsibility for the weaker sections of the people i.e. the Scheduled
Castes and Scheduled Tribes; advancing professional and vocational training; and
◦ Responsibility for strengthening national unity through suitable programmes and particularly through those
of emotional integration, Grant of scholarships in an attempt to scout for talent, especially at the University
stage, maintenance of Central Institutions or agencies for education; and provision of free and compulsory
education up to the age of 14 years.

9. Financing for Education
◦ To introduce Public Private Partnership Models, to promote education for all:
◦ School Voucher System: Government pays monthly vouchers to students to enroll in Private players
school.
◦
Government Aided Schools : In Government Aided Schools, Government pays grant in form of
teachers salaries
◦
Management Services: Government entrusts the management of the existing Government schools
to the Private players
◦
Professional Services: Certain professional like teachers training quality assessment, student
evaluation and supplementary services.
◦
Operational Services: A Government school is operated by a Private Partner and this includes
deployment of its own teaching and non - teaching staff.

10. Curriculum & Pedagogy
◦ To make provision for stipends, scholarships, free uniform, free textbooks, free stationary to
secondary level
◦ To provide enhancement and vocational trainings to eliminate infrastructures losses
◦ Differentiated and standardized curriculum along with uniform assessment system to be
followed across all the states
◦ Deepening linkages between different agencies such as labour markets and ensuring a
collaborative teaching for all
◦ To put in place National Standards for education and put in place an education policy and other
quality assurance standards, greater autonomy, emergence, increased partnership between
several universities.
◦ To create Legal and Regulatory framework, to ensure implementation of Educational Reforms

11. Curriculum & Pedagogy
◦ The combination of low cost, superior performance measures than regular teachers on
attendance and teaching activity, and positive overall impact of adding contract teachers to
schools suggest that expanding the use of contract teachers could be a highly cost effective
way of improving primary education outcomes in India.
◦ Invest in governance especially teacher performance management and management. There are
two ways to improve average teacher quality: the first is to not hire low-quality teachers and to
hire and retain high-quality teachers (the selection margin), the second is design systems that
encourage teachers to exert greater effort in a continuous manner including upgrading their
human capital over the course of their career in ways that improve their teaching ability (the
effort margin).

12. Curriculum & Pedagogy
◦ Moving from monitoring inputs to regulating outcomes: Traditionally, regulatory bodies in
Indian higher education have been focused on monitoring inputs. Universities were assessed on
the size of built-up land, number of books in their library, funds spent on computers and so
on instead of on student learning outcomes, their employment readiness or performance in
standardized tests. A conscious effort to reverse this anomaly has been made over the years by
linking public funding with performance variables. Attempt has also been made to shift the
thrust from consumption of allocated funds to outcomes from utilized funds, effecting, at the
same time, greater autonomy in the use of allocated funds as well as greater
institutional responsibility towards their effective utilization.
◦ A dedicated profile of each child to be prepared and a strategy to be followed for counselling
each Child Tracking System and MIS system to be followed in totality
◦ Restoring policy to retain the students through incentives and additional grades to be
implemented

13. Infrastructure & School Development
◦ Compulsory accreditation: The move towards regulating outcomes has been accompanied by
the introduction of a more sophisticated quality assurance system based on the establishment
of a national accreditation agency for higher education and also several other agencies with a
specialized focus. As a result, claims to quality can no longer be based on internal judgment
by institutions themselves but have to be justified by an external process of peer review and
assessment by quality rating agencies. While the model has been in practice for many years
before India adopted it, what is rather distinctive about the Indian accreditation system is that
each tier of universities has a different rating scale, allowing stakeholders to make comparisons
across like variables. Periodic assessment and review allows institutions to move up or down the
hierarchy of grades within their tier, or even move across tiers. Further, in order to prevent an
oligopolistic scenario from building inadvertently, the accreditation system allows fledgling
institutions to grow and find a foothold before subjecting them to extensive scrutiny.

14. Infrastructure & School Development
◦ Computer Literacy : ICT(Information Communication Technology) in education has introduced
new methods of program delivery. Introduction of technology into education, has lead to newer
education attitudes. There is a need for SMART classroom, training teachers, experts and
curriculum reforms.
◦ Official Languages: One of the major challenges facing the Education Sector in India is use of
English as sole medium of instruction. There is a need for reforming curriculum to allow course
delivery in native and regional languages.
◦ Purging of International Material: Several Governments all over the world, emphasize the
need for purging the International materials from curriculum material. Many times Educational
material is blamed for creating an anti - minority outlook.

15. Assessment of Schooling System
◦ Assessment of Learning: There is lack of a uniform Assessment and Ranking methodology. For
a successful education system, it is extremely important that a proper Ranking and Assessment
model for the purpose of segregation and ranking of the students. It is extremely important to
put in place an Assessment policy for School based assessment on a continuous basis to assess
the readiness levels of the learners, enhancing learning and critical thinking in the classroom and
for assessing learner achievement.

16. Other Factors
◦ Inclusion: Inclusion of marginalized groups, is one of the most pressing needs. It is extremely
important to address the needs of the learners from the diverse backgrounds including
disadvantaged and deprived group. There is a need to address the issue of Gender Parity.
Moreover girls do not have opportunity and access to the schools. When we look through
review view mirror, we look through future. There is an ever growing need to introduce new and
more networked learning systems to include all and reduce the divide. We need to do away with
all metaphors of the past and provide educational opportunities to all.
◦ Environment Building: There is a strong need for a comprehensive Education policy and
regulation to ensure the least restrictive learning environment by contributing to the social
cause and normalizing the lives of children from the deprived groups. It is very important to
create an atmosphere of trust and faith among students and teacher. To equalise the
educational opportunity, schools should ensure that its students are not bullied or looked down
up during the learning process.

17. Other Factors
◦ Progressive Education: Education policy should emphasis progressive learning by making
provision for learning through direct experience and collaboration. There is a need for reforming
curriculum, by emphasising problem solving and critical thinking. Education system should
emphasis on lifelong projects.
◦ Accessibility: Elementary and Secondary Education, enrollment rates are falling. Some including
people live in abject poverty, residents of isolated and northern regions and disabled students
to higher education. There are indications that future accessibility of higher education for many
other individuals are at the risk of economic constraints and restricted education funding.
◦ Efficiency of education: Lopsided education system driven by religious sentiments, definitely
affects the fuller development of the individuals. Gross equalities and societal pressures
definitely affect the upshot of the educational policy. Efficiency, Equality and Liberty are to be
suspended in the dynamic equilibrium. Educational Policy regarding attendance, graduation,
entry requirements and who will teach are to be put in place.

18. Other Factors
◦ Assertion of Power: Besides, this schools are blamed of asserting influence of a particular
religious group. There are several accusations of “saffronisation” of the education.
◦ Politicization of Education: Education has been often used by politicians for politicizing. In
name of educational reforms, Curriculum often used as a tool for politicization and opinion
building.
◦ Lack of employability: Many a times, education is unable to link education to the employment
opportunities. There is huge gender disparity. Here is a snapshot of employability prospects of
Male Vs Females across various sectors.
◦ Challenges of Mass Education: One of the major challenges facing the mass education.
Universal Mass Education has been considered a necessary tool to fill the gap leading to
introduction of the modern warfares

19. Other Factors
◦ Macro economic conditions: Education policy is severely impacted by the macro economic
policy such as inflation, interest rates and credit availability. Lack of financial resources, often
leads to many students not getting an opportunity to study.
◦ Globalization : Globalization is one of the challenges facing the Education sector. In wake of
Globalization is the phenomenon that changes the fundamental of any development strategy.
◦ Competition from other Education Models: There is a huge competition among various
education players. After coming of (MOOCs ) Massive Open Online courses, there is massive
competition amongst the Education players.
◦ Relativistic Outlook: Educational sector is fraught with relativistic outlook. There is a need for
reforming the education sector. Environment has to be more competitive and there has to be
ample scope of for free and equal competition.

20. Other Factors
◦ International Cooperation and International Networking: Another major challenge, facing
the Education sector is need for adaptability to the International environment and increase
cooperation and networking.
◦ Bottleneck to Foreign Direct Investment: Major bottlenecks have been the not for profit
principle and lack of clarity on existing regulations. AICTE(All India Council of Technical
Education) prohibits foreign investment either directly or indirectly in the sponsoring entity.
◦ Democratic Participation : This is one of the major bottlenecks in the Education sector. The
Government must ensure, that there is democratic participation from all.by soliciting views from
the public .
◦ Employability: One of the major issues concerning the education sector, is the employability of
the students. Depending on the roles, employment prospects of the students are affected.

21. Faculty
◦ Lack of education among faculty: There is a lack of proper training amongst the faculty. They
lack proper digital training.
◦ Lack of rewards for teachers : There is a need to develop a strategy to provide rewards to the
teachers for proper teaching

22. Educational Initiatives
◦ Operation Black Board: This project aims at improving the physical and human resources
available in primary schools
◦ Sustaining Life Long Learning: Escalating education needs and ever changing education
environment definitely leads to need for lifelong education. Several educational initiatives are
required to ensure that education is made available anywhere and anytime. ICT in education is
one of the best thing to have happened in this field. Lifelong Learning aims at providing Formal
education that provides all individuals with opportunities and a concrete institutional
governance structure to adapt itself to the changing educational standards.

23. Educational Initiatives
◦ Crisis of Refugee Children : UNICEF has led to development of a new strategy “No Lost Strategy”. The strategy
aims to improve the quality of education and to strengthen the protective environment for the children. It also
aims at capacity building and training the teachers. Another problem is regarding the assessment and enrollment
of the students.
◦ Distribution of Bicycle: Another student input that has been found to have a significant impact on enrollment, but
insignificant impact on learning outcomes is the bicycles that have been provided to girls in several states to
improve secondary school enrollment. Muralidharan and Prakash (2013) study the impact of the Chief Minister’s
Bicycle Program that provided girls in Bihar with a bicycle conditional on enrolling in 9th grade. They use a triple
difference approach (using boys and the neighboring state of Jharkhand as comparison groups) and find that the
program increased girls enrollment in secondary school by 20% (a five percentage point gain on a base enrollment
rate of twenty-five percent) and reduced the gender gap in secondary school enrollment by 25%. They find that
the impact of the program was significantly greater in villages where the nearest secondary school was further
away, suggesting that a key mechanism for program impact was the reduction in the 'distance cost' of school
attendance induced by the bicycle. However, they do not find any significant impact of the cycle program on girls’
learning outcomes as measured by their passing rates in the tenth-standard board exam

24. Educational Initiatives
◦ Saransh : Saransh will enable a school to view its performance in comparison to its
counterparts. The tool will also equip a school with ways to diagnose the scope of improvement
in its students, teachers and subjects and take the necessary decisions to improve the same.
Schools will be rated at a scholastic and co-scholastic-level based on the performance of
students from classes IX to XII. The tool will also provide a comprehensive picture of class X and
XII performances since 2007 and 2009 respectively. "The tool aims to provide data to schools on
a single platform where they can view their performance in comparison with other schools. This
will help schools evaluate themselves and give them an opportunity to identify their weaknesses
and work on them," said a CBSE official. Apart from numbers, the data will be provided in both
charts and graphs to enable schools to understand easily.
◦

25. Recommendations
◦ Access and teaching Methodology: Adopt new pedagogical techniques: blended learning, flipped classroom,
experiential learning and adopt the mentor model to develop research capabilities in Indian institutions. Widen
access through virtual classrooms and MOOCs and leverage Government initiatives in technology such as NKN,
NMEICT
◦ Industry linkages: Strengthen industry-academia linkages across all aspects of the education value chain, from
curricula and faculty to infrastructure, research, and placements. Undertake measures for ‘on-boarding’ of industry
to the new system, and ensure the participation of the industry to provide employment to those opting to exit the
system before completing their degree course
◦ Content Generation: Develop content/pedagogy in accordance with the requirements of the proposed system
◦ Increasing Enrollment: Promote a tenure-based system in Indian higher education institutions, public and private,
to retain the best talent. Increase capacity of the higher education system, targeting specific outcomes by setting
up new institutions and increasing intake of existing ones
◦ Increased emphasis on research: Develop industry and academia collaborations to promote applied research and
encourage corporate and alumni

26. Recommendations
◦ Foreign Collaborations: Incentivize high-quality private and foreign players to enhance quality capacity in the higher
education system. Promote disclosure of information by all higher education institutions to make the system accountable
and transparent and FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) in unregulated and informal sector.
◦ Examination Reforms: Examination Reforms constitute the most important measure to be taken for curricular renewal.
Specific measures include changing the typology of the question paper and include the reasoning and creative abilities and
replace memorization as the basis of evaluation, integration of examinations with classroom life by encouraging
transparency and internal assessment.
◦
Adult Education: There is a need to develop a comprehensive policy on Adult education. Adult Education is important
because it provides a second chance of Formal education to those who have missed on learning during their childhood.
◦
Resistance Management: In wake of the Educational reforms and digital empowerment , there is very high level of
resistance management. There is need for undertaking Change Management, to overcome resistance.
◦
Socialization: Education reforms at increasing the level of socialization among the students . For fuller development. it is
very important that a congenial environment is created through socialization and participative education.