It is quite shocking that there isn’t more outrage over how India’s education system is completely messed up because of near-total government control. A friend I met recently talked about the troubles he is having getting his daughter admitted to LKG in Delhi. Of course, in Delhi everyone knows everyone else, and money flows like water. So, in some sense, it is a level-playing field for even the most well-to-do.
Schools have a rate card, with the better ones being able to command “donations” of upto Rs 40 lakh ($90,000). There is little or no transparency in the admissions process. Proximity to the school is no criterion for getting admission; only money talks.
Atanu wrote this in his post on this topic recently, after there was a Wall Street Journal article on the same topic: “The government through its heavy-handed control and ineptitude has brought the Indian education system to this sorry state. The people are clueless about this fact — naturally so since they are largely the product of that same inadequate education system which does not equip them with critical thinking skills. In a different state of the world, the parents would have dragged out the bureaucrats in charge of controlling the education system and given them a sound whipping.”
