Uncovering 'educational weaknesses'; are Indian kids that bad?

The Times of India came out with a stunning revelation earlier today wherein India stood 72nd out of 73 participating countries in a study carried out by the OECD under the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). PISA began in 2000 to evaluate educational systems worldwide by testing 15 year olds in three distinct areas: Reading, Mathematics and Science.The actual study was carried out in 2009 where in 65 countries participated. 10 more countries/regions including India were added in the coming year and it was called the 2009+ program.

The key results for India from the report are listed below:

One tiny bit of information that most of us miss while reading into statistical data are the innocuous little symbols, " * " and " + ". Most of the data points for India have these symbols and explicitly mention that “School response rate did not meet PISA standards”, “Student sampling did not meet PISA standards” or other statistical inaccuracies. It is highly improbable to gauge the levels of any indicator perfectly for an erratic nation like India but the signs are pretty clear. In spite of the inherent flaws in statistics, the education standard in India is abysmally low. Indians, who’re supposed to be wizards at mathematics, are lagging on this front as well.

This is definitely a potential area wherein the new breed entrepreneurs can create huge waves. Education and healthcare sectors go hand in hand and we’ve been seeing a marginal upswing in both of these areas of late but there’s a lot that remains to be done.

What do you think about this study and the things that can be done to combat this perpetual evil?

-Jubin Mehta