Academic Stress: study on behavioural factors, policy incentives, implementation and effectiveness

Abstract

India has one of the largest and most complex education systems in the world. India currently has 15,22,3461 schools with 20,34,151 enrollments with a total of 86,91,922 teachers in 2016. The education system is managed by two departments under the Ministry of Human Resources Development ● Department of School Education and Literacy: Takes care of both, formal and informal, primary education ● Department of Higher Education: Takes care of secondary and post-secondary education Both, Central and State governments, through these departments are indulged in providing free and compulsory education to all children upto the age of 14 years and ensuring quality education at secondary and higher levels. The government is constantly introducing policies and amendments to uplift the standard and quality of the Indian education system. The major flaws in the Indian education system are:Adverse student teacher ratio: Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan advises a teacher pupil ratio of 1:30 which is still higher than the global ratio. According to Unified District Information System for Education, the teacher pupil ratio for secondary schools is 1:27 which is better than the standard set. But the averages can be deceiving as the teacher pupil ratio for states like Bihar is as bad as 1:57.Indian education thrives on rat race: The modern education system has uprooted all the man-making elements in the education system and it has been reduced to a mere activity of gaining ‘literacy’. There is rarely any passion in studies - students just read and mug up to score well in the exams without actually understanding or enjoying the studies.Negligence of personality development: The ultimate goal of the process of going through education in India is to get a job and not to learn and develop our personalities accordingly. Therefore, we see that students are more inclined towards academic streams that provide better employment opportunities with good pay rather than the academic streams they are genuinely interested in or are able to perform better in those streams.