by Jhonty Rhodes

Created on: June 04, 2009   Last Updated: June 08, 2009

India is one those exciting countries to follow because of its fast rise on the global scene. Be it outsourcing, movies, technology, world events; it's hard to miss India being mentioned. On top this might make a great success story on how India's youth are coming to the fore and contributing to the nation's development, but it isn't quite so. You have to look at in terms of numbers and proportions. What percentage of youth are employed? Do graduates posses necessary skills? Do schools prepare students to think innovative? These are vital points that must be addressed. And that brings us to India's education system, a great debate for Quality Vs Quantity.

There has never been much doubt as to how capable Indians are; credit them for being the inventors of the arithmetic zero to pioneering Hotmail with other breakthroughs in between. What matters is, are students being triggered in the right ways? A shocking statistic by the Confederation of Indian Industries reveals that about 69% of unemployed Indians are educated but lack skills. This becomes extremely relevant when considering another statistic by 'The Week' which says more than half of college graduates this year haven't found employment. The root cause for this situation is where it all begins - school. India's population being close to 1.2 billion people means that virtually every place imaginable is always crowded. The level of competition to acquire quality education and jobs has constantly been increasing along with the country's population. There is almost always a case of huge demand but very little supply. For instance this year around 400,000 students wrote examinations for admission into India's premier institute for technology which only offers 8,000 seats. Similarly there are 500,000 graduates signed up to write an exam and avail one of the 120 jobs offered by the government's Telecom department.

It's scenarios like these that have made one single factor the all important one - academic grades. The curriculum have also been constantly modified to push up these grades. When a student finishes school and searches for colleges, each college has a fixed 'cut off' mark or the minimum grades that a candidate requires to be considered eligible for admission. It is no surprise then that cut off marks are going through the roof. The system is faulty in the intermediate stages itself. When in lower grades all subjects are split into chapters, with each chapter having a fixed number ofpre defined questions

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