Barriers to Quality Education

Barriers to Quality Education

Quality is at the core of education. It determines what students learn, how well they learn and what benefits they draw from their education. These issues have pushed the countries to have on their agenda the mission to ensure students’ optimum learning outcomes that help them play a positive role in creating a civil society. While it is difficult to define the quality of education operationally due to its complex nature, it is believed that it may be viewed in terms of the quality of various components of input, process and out-put dimensions. Some of these components may be: need-based curriculum, appropriate physical facilities, use of modern approaches to teaching, scholastic performance of students, professional preparation of teachers, and linking education to life skills and world of work. Higher Education has a great role to play to meet the aspirations of all the sections of society. In order to meet the challenges of the 21st Century, only the knowledge based Education can contribute significantly. Unfortunately scenario of higher education in India does not match with the global Quality standards thereby raising enough justification for an increased assessment of the Quality of the country’s educational institutions. Traditionally, these institutions assumed that Quality could be determined by their internal resources, viz., faculty with an impressive set of degrees and experience detailed at the end of the institute’s admission brochure, number of books and journals in the library, an ultra-modern campus, etc., or by its definable and assessable outputs, viz., efficient use of resources, producing uniquely educated graduates. This view of determining Quality in higher education does not measure the competencies students develop through the courses offered. The competencies are recall, understanding, and problem solving. “Recall” amounts to a competency of gaining knowledge by way of reading, viewing, listening, assimilating, and demonstrating it when required. In nut-shell we can say that the function of Quality Education is at least four-fold:-
1) Preparation of an adult to a role of a good citizen.
2) Development of personality, especially inter-personal skills.
3) Training to fit for an occupation.
4) Conversion to employed from unemployed status of considerable and ever-increasing proportion of the population.
In order to achieve these four-fold objectives we have to remove the following barriers which pose a great threat to Quality education in the country. The barriers are as follows:

Teacher competence and institution efficiency
The first important barrier to quality education is the teacher. Success or failure of teaching always revolves around the teacher. Though it’s very difficult to measure the quality of teacher however the efficient is one who has the capacity to transmit the curriculum to student effectively. Teachers’ presence in the classroom represents the starting point. Many teachers face transportation and housing obstacles that hinder them from getting to institution on time and staying until institution hours are over. Many teachers must hold second jobs, which may detract from the time and energy they expend in the classroom. Teachers may miss institution altogether. A study in China, Guinea, India and Mexico found that nearly half the teachers interviewed reported being absent at some point during the previous month (Carron & Chau, 1996), requiring other teachers to compensate for them or leaving students without instruction for the day.
Next, when teachers are present, learning occurs when teachers engage students in instructional activities, rather than attending to administrative or other non-instructional processes (Fuller, et al., 1999). As mentioned above, the opportunity to learn and the time on task have been shown in many international studies to be critical for educational quality. Finally, some institutions that have been able to organize their schedules according to children’s work and family obligations have seen greater success in student persistence and achievement. “The quality of a institution and the quality of teaching of the individual teacher is [sic] higher in institutions that are able (and willing) to make more efficient use of the available time of its teachers and its pupils” (Verwimp, 1999).

Paucity of trained teachers
With the rise in number of students year by year, corresponding rise in staff strength is required which is not a fact in this country forcing the department to adopt adhocism thereby further deteriorating the standards of education. Due to paucity of teachers institutes are forced to raise class size sometimes to the tune of 130 or above there by making it difficult for teacher to manage the class.

Lack of Job - oriented curriculum
In most of our institutes the aim is to provide degree to the students without the development of any necessary skill. This is because we are still lingering on the decade’s old traditional curriculum, thereby generating the sense of time pass among the students. The main drawback of our curriculum is that it no where paid any attention for improving communication skills of the students which is most desired skill an employer seeks in his employee. Job-oriented curriculum is the need of hour. Curriculum should be designed in a fashion that students are inclined towards studies with a increased sense of Job security.

Insufficient instructional time
Whether a teacher uses traditional or more current methods of instruction, efficient use of instructional time has a significant impact on student. Insufficient effective instructional time is a major weakness. All the developed countries in the world have introduced yearly calendar of 180-200 days with 25-30 working hours in a week totaling 1100-1200 hours in a years. However it has been observed that we only observer 500-600 working hours in a year .This is a serious lacuna in a teaching process and the issue needs to be addressed at the highest level.

Low Incentives for Teachers
One major barrier in providing quality education is lack of interest in teaching profession. There is a dire need to attract qualified students to become teachers. However, over the years, teaching has become a thankless profession, and few youngsters opt for this career. While one of the primary factors is the low salary, the fact that teaching no longer commands the respect that it did in the past, has also added to the lack of interest in this line of work. Today, a job as an Investment-banker or consultant is the new success mantra. The average salary that a B-institution graduate commands has risen exponentially. Ironically, the teachers who edify these students are paid peanuts in comparison. The average salary of a professor in engineering and management colleges, is less than half of the salary of a fresh graduate. So in order to provide quality education we must create environment conducive for teachers in order to attract best brains.

Non-availability of bilingual methods of teaching
The traditional mode of teaching in majority of Indian school is either regional language or Hindi. After schooling when they enter in college they have poor comprehensive ability in the medium of instruction which in most of the cases is English resulting in hesitation and they never come forward with their problem and suffer a lot in the long run. So non-availability of bi-lingual method of teaching at higher education level is one of the most serious barriers in providing quality Education.

Faulty Evaluation tools
Good teachers are skilled not only in instructional methods but also in evaluation and assessment practices that allow them to gauge individual student learning and adapt activities according to students needs. This process should include both performance assessment and assessment of factual knowledge. Observations in Guainía and India found that teachers are very poorly trained in evaluation techniques and the reality is far from the continuous evaluation procedures recommended by official programme (Carson and Chau,1996).Indeed, many teachers and educational systems continue to rely almost exclusively on traditional paper-and –pencil tests of factual knowledge that tend to promote rot memorization rather than higher order thinking skills (Colby,2000).

Health and Nutrition
Physically and Psychosocially healthy children learn well. McCain and Mustard, in their study ‘On Good health and Nutrition’ (1999), reported that healthy development in early childhood plays an important role in providing the basis for a healthy life and a successful formal institution experience .In developing countries most of the children below 10 years of age suffers from protein retardation, disabilities cannot give children the best chance for healthy development .Thus, thereby reducing the chance of good or better quality education at higher level.

Poverty, Low Parental Education and lack of family support
Parents may not always have the tools and background to support their children’s cognitive and psychological development throughout their learning year’s .Parent’s level of education has a multifaceted impact on children’s ability to learn in institution. In one study, children whose parents had primary schooling or less were more than three times as likely to have low test scores or grade repetition than children whose parents had at least some secondary schooling (willims,2000). Parental education not only influences parent-child interactions related to learning, but also affects parent’s income and need for help in the home or field (Carron and Chau-1996). Parents with little formal education may also be less familiar with the language used in the institution, limiting their ability to support learning and participate in school/college related activities. Successful attempts to increase parental involvement have taken place around the world. One example is the creation of student newspapers in China. Such newspapers exit at different levels of the education system and in urban as well as rural zones. The result is that much more than in other Countries, pupils and parents have the possibility to read, which is of benefit in particular to the otherwise disadvantaged rural families (Carron & Chau,1996).

Infrastructure and other quality dimension
The quality of college buildings may be related to other quality issues ,such as the presence of adequate instructional materials and books ,working conditions for students and teachers, and the ability of teachers to undertake certain instructional approaches such factors as classroom maintenance, space and furniture availability all have an impact on the critical learning factor or time on task .Even when institutions do have adequate infrastructure, parents may reluctant to allow children-especially girls-to attend if they are located too far away from children’s homes .In general ,parents often consider the location and condition of learning environments when assessing college quality and this can influence college participation. To conclude, we may say that it is Quality not quantity that can bring a new dawn to learning process. Quantity will make population literate where as Quality will thrive the nation economically and socially.