The Routledge Handbook of Education in India: Debates, Practices, and Policies

351 Pages·2021·8.695 MB·English

by  Krishna Kumar (editor)

The Routledge Handbook of
Education in India
This comprehensive handbook introduces the reader to the education system in India in terms
of its structural features, its relations with society and culture, and the debates that have shaped
the present-day policy ethos.
The book provides an overview of major debates that have shaped India’s education systems,
as well as the significant issues within higher and school education, education studies, and poli-
cies. Expert scholars provide a lucid analysis of complex themes such as the equity, access, and
the quality of education. The volume also examines legal provisions and policies shaping the
distribution structure and curricular issues in major areas of knowledge, as well as the provision
of schools for the marginalised, economically weak, and people with disabilities. This new edi-
tion includes an analysis of the private sector’s participation in higher education and the techni-
cal and vocational education and training systems in India.
This handbook will serve as a valuable resource and guide to educators and public policy
practitioners seeking information about India’s contemporary educational challenges. It will also
be useful to scholars and researchers of education, public policy and administration, sociology,
and political studies, as well as think-tanks, the media, policy-makers, and NGOs.
Krishna Kumar is Honorary Professor of Education at Panjab University, former Professor of
Education, University of Delhi, and former Director, National Council of Educational Research
and Training (NCERT), India.

The Routledge Handbook
of Education in India
Debates, Practices, and Policies
Second Edition
Edited by Krishna Kumar
Second edition published 2022
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 selection and editorial matter, Krishna Kumar; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Krishna Kumar to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the
authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or
by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are
used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
First edition published by Routledge 2018
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-0-367-46677-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-04279-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-03036-2 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003030362
Typeset in Bembo
by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)
Contents
List of figures viii
List of tables ix
Notes on contributors xi
Preface xv
Introduction to the second edition 1
Krishna Kumar
PART I
Logic of access 11
1 Compulsion to educate 13
Archana Mehendale
2 Education in urban areas 26
Nalini Juneja
3 Institutional diversity and quality 42
Padma M. Sarangapani
4 Examination for elimination: celebrating fear and penalising failure 63
Disha Nawani
PART II
Curriculum and teaching 79
5 Mind the (language-medium) gap 81
Chaise LaDousa
6 Science and mathematics teaching in schools and colleges 97
Shobhit Mahajan
v
Contents
7 The teaching of social sciences in schools and colleges in India 116
Hari Vasudevan
8 The uses and teaching of history 131
Kumkum Roy
9 An experiment in rural education: the revival of Anand Niketan 143
Nidhi Gaur
PART III
Training for professions 153
10 The making of India as an engineering society 155
Milind Sohoni
11 Discourse of teacher education in India 175
Latika Gupta
12 Management education in India: how far have we come? 189
Pankaj Chandra
13 Technical and vocational education and training in India:
lacking vision, strategy and coherence 203
Santosh Mehrotra
PART IV
Universities and society 217
14 Indian higher education: twenty-first-century challenges 219
Philip G. Altbach
15 Gendered access and participation: unequal subject choices
in Indian higher education 231
Karuna Chanana
16 Caste quotas and formal inclusion in Indian higher education 243
Satish Deshpande
17 Tribes and higher education in India 265
Virginius Xaxa
vi
Contents
18 Private participation in higher education in India: issues
and implications on access, equity and quality 276
Furqan Qamar
PART V
Underbelly 293
19 Active partners: rethinking the educated unemployed in India 295
Craig Jeffrey and Jane Dyson
20 Access, success, and excess: debating shadow education in India 305
Manabi Majumdar
21 Understanding Vyapam 317
Krishna Kumar
Index 324
vii
Figures
2.1 Government primary school enrolment trends in cities 33
2.2 Children from municipal primary schools in Delhi and Mumbai
in the lowest grade of state-provided secondary schools 34
2.3 (a) Showing difference between populations of district, district urban,
urban agglomeration, and municipal corporation areas. (b) Diagrammatical
representation of Indore District Urban comprising 11 towns 38
3.1 Sketch of Block A 44
5.1 Varanasi municipal corporation school signboard 90
5.2 Career Point tutorial service advertisement 91
5.3 Three tutorial service advertisements 92
6.1 Change in GER for higher education with time 100
11.1 Three curricular components of teacher education programmes 178
11.2 Discourse of pedagogy courses 180
13.1 Distribution of the workforce by their level of education and training in India 204
viii
Tables
2.1 Elementary education: urban schools and enrolment 2014–15 27
2.2 Population Indore 2011 37
3.1 Schools surveyed 45
3.2 Types of management 48
3.3 School clientele 52
3.4 Aims of education 55
3.5 Pedagogic types in relation to clientele type and management type 59
4.1 Result of BSEs (2009–11): Class X 67
4.2 Result of senior secondary boards of examination (2009–11): Class XII 67
4.3 Result of secondary examination of different boards (2009–11):
pass percentage – Class X 68
4.4 Result of senior secondary examination of different boards (2009–11):
pass percentage – Class XII 69
6.1 Number of institutions of higher education 99
6.2 Number of schools 99
6.3 Gross enrolment ratio at various levels 100
6.4 Percentage enrolment in various courses 101
8.1 Details of sections in chapter 1 of India and the Contemporary World, part 1 133
8.2 Distribution of long answer type questions from Golden Social Science 136
10.1 Starting jobs by sectors for IIT Bombay graduates in 2013 170
10.2 Average household spending on education by families having
one studying member 171
10.3 Number of papers published with at least one Indian author,
by word appearing in title of the paper: novel areas of research 172
10.4 Number of papers published with at least one Indian author, by word
appearing in title of the paper: research in engineering services 172
10.5 Statistics of students appearing for and qualifying for entrance
to the IITs by gender 172
10.6 Statistics of students appearing for and qualifying for entrance
to the IITs by place of passing the XII standard 172
15.1 Subject enrolment of women and men at undergraduate level 239
16.1 Dropout rates and pass percentages in school, 2005–06 245
16.2 Graduate degree-holders by caste and community, urban India, 1999–2000 247
16.3 Group shares in school graduates and those currently enrolled
in higher education: age group 17–25, urban India, 1999–2000 247
ix