India’s inefficiencies start at childhood itself: Look no further than tuitions duplicating what schools are supposed to do

The results of a ten-nation survey revealing that Indian schoolchildren take the most tutorial lessons is a telling commentary of our education system, schools, high levels of competition, parenting and peer pressures. While the survey polled just 4,000-odd students and a similar number of teachers, and is likely to have sampled a disproportionate number of middle class, the findings relating to tutorial classes are likely to apply across the board.

The survey found a whopping 74% students taking extra lessons in Mathematics and this is entirely believable. Many students need individual attention in mathematics because of their inability to keep pace with classrooms of 40 and 50 students, each with different adaptive abilities. For many others it is the pressure to excel, top classes, and enter frontline institutions.

Read: Indian students take maximum tutorial lessons, reveals a ten-nation survey

However, this is also a systemic redundancy and inefficiency — students exhausting their precious childhoods learning the same material in schools and tutorial classes. While government has talked of reducing stress levels, the harsh reality is that academic success is the only window to improving one’s station in life forcing parents to often turn slave drivers.

However, with many jobs likely to disappear in the coming AI wave, the future may be about stoking children’s creativity, stimulating their problem-solving skills, and giving time and leisure for their minds to explore the world. Tutorial classes, homework and constant examinations leave little time for other pursuits.

Image used for representation

There is also our domestic ASER surveys revealing students, mainly in government and budget private schools, who are unable to do basic sums or read texts. We have a problem at multiple levels but the end must be to maximise our human capital. The big question is does our education system achieve this goal at various strata of the education system?