Answer: The government has undertaken various initiatives such as the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Right To Education Act, 2009, Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao scheme, Swachh Vidyalaya campaign, Swayam Prabha TV channel, Mid-Day Meal scheme, Samagra Shiksha programme etc. These initiatives have led to the attainment of various goals in the education sector, including:

• Universal enrolment has been achieved at the primary level.
• The annual average dropout rate at the primary level has come down from 9.11% in 2009-10 to only 1.5% in 2019-2020.
• The number of out-of-school children has shown significant reduction in the 6-14 years age group, from 134.6 lakh in 2005 to 35 lakh approximately in 2021.
• As of 2019-20, 97.5% of schools in India had established facilities for safe drinking water on the school premises, a substantial increase from 59% in 2017-18.
• About 95% of schools have functional toilet facilities on the premises.
• A remarkable improvement is seen from only 54.6% of schools with electricity in 2012-13 to 83.4% in 2019-20.
• Nearly 85% of schools have designated rooms for libraries and readings.

However, the education sector is still reeling from learning poverty. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, about 53% of children were not able to read a simple text by the age of 10, unfortunately, due to the pandemic, this has shot up to 70%. Further, there are persisting inequalities in the education system. For example, students from SC/ST backgrounds have had a higher dropout rate, the percentage of women who have completed at least ten or more years of schooling remains abysmally low at 41% as against 50.2% for men and only around 38.5% of schools in India having functional computers with mere 22.18% having internet access despite steep improvements. Thus, interventions are required to tackle the various issues plaguing the education sector in India: Learning poverty:

• Ensure clear goals and measures for literacy: National goals should be set with an understanding of how students are currently doing, and accordingly, achievable goals and interventions should be developed.
• Ensure effective teaching for literacy: Teachers need to be supported with learning materials and guides that have a step-wise plan, which strongly emphasize practicing specific-classroom skills.
• Teach children first in their local language: Students who are taught in their mother tongue in the early years have higher comprehension skills, thereby improving learning abilities in the future.
• Improve monitoring and accountability: State governments should develop and formulate robust mechanisms to enforce regulations on teachers’ qualifications, teacher absenteeism and learning outcomes.
• Individualized tracking: An electronic national educational registry for tracking each child’s learning outcomes will help monitor students requiring remediation, special attention as well as those who drop out after the elementary education level.

Persisting inequalities:

• Micro-planning by targeting an area: Contextualized strategies to promote distance learning are needed to ensure that the most marginalized children do not drop out.
• Adopting Minimum Levels of Learning (MLoL) framework: This will involve setting MLoL for all students with clear guidelines on the role of the teachers and the curriculum.
• Sensitisation and training of teachers: These are required as their attitude and competence directly determine the school experience of students, especially those from the marginalized sections.
• Reducing the digital divide: There should be an increase in access to technology through free or subsidized data for educational purposes and existing learning applications should be customized to work on slower internet connections.

Accessible and affordable education should be the priority of the government, since education directly impacts other issues such as poverty, inequality, low economic growth etc.