One of the reasons I get so burnt up when I see the harm which well-funded Edutech companies like Byju’s cause is because I can’t bear to see the waste of human capital this is causing. India is frittering away the advantage of its a demographic sweet spot by not educating its children properly . By not making them future-ready, we are giving them a raw deal .
My OT assistant is extremely meticulous and skilled, and I am sure he would have been able to operate far better than the new breed of junior doctors who are passing out from private medical colleges, who don’t have any clinical experience . However, because the poor guy never got an education beyond the seventh grade because of financial constraints , his entire life has been spent as an OT assistant. This is so unfair !
Such a wasted opportunity – not only for him, but for the country as well. He could have become so much more , if he had got a chance at getting a better education , and it bothers me that it’s now it’s been over 70 years after independence, but we are still stuck in the same rut.
It’s all very well to talk about Promoting Entrepreneurship and becoming atmanirbhar, but how will we ever become a world power unless we fix the problem at at its root cause level . Unless we make sure that all children ( and not just our own !) get a good education , this problem will just keep on festering.
Since it’s a systemic problem, then why am I blaming Byju’s ? After all, they didn’t create this system. Yes, that’s true, but as a market leader, they had the opportunity to reinvent the way our children learn. Sadly, instead of doing this, they have sold out, and frittered way this golden opportunity. Yes, you might say there’s no reason to expect Byju’s to prioritise social impact , but if edutech entrepreneurs don’t reinvent education, then who will ? Isn’t this part of their responsibility to society ?
If anything, they have made a bad problem far worse, by institutionalising digital tuition classes and making our children intellectually dependent on pre-digested material !
It’s because we have wasted our human capital that China will beat us !
Dear Sir,
Few observations on our education system:
Huge quality difference within the school level, when I was school student, government were used to provide aids. Now most of the schools are running like a private companies. We need to change this…How?
Increase parents and community service in school, reduce running cost of school, create Book bank, same books can be used for multiple years.
Why we need CBSE, ICSE, IB, etc number of boards, there must be only one CBSE board with state level local subjects as additional. Only NCERT books why we need private books for cbse/ NCERT syllabus…
Why we have streets, any student must allowed to study any combination of subjects…after all we have entrance exams to clear than is that really matters which subjects we study in schools….
Our institute/colleges are not capable to establish labs and libraries than to overcome this we required TOWN HALL Library and Labs where everyone can study and do practicals.
I have an even more democratic solution – help parents and grandparents to teach their children at home !
I have an even easier and cheaper solution – create free educational content to help parents and grandparents to teach their children at home !
Dear Doc,
While your points on the drawbacks of the Indian Education System and 70 years gone by is absolutely valid and fair, I think linking it in isolation to Byju’s seems to be somewhere personally connected. I also have enough concerns on Byju’s as a business model, employee fairness, content, training, etc. but I can’t link every folly of the Indian Edu System to a single brand. Sir, you are also the product of this education system. You have created employment for many at your place of work. I see compassion in your words. You are an investor too. What stops you to create ad-tech based Edu-tech company and impart education to the Indian students for free or discounted.
Happy to have a conversation on this and understand if I am missing a point. I am a learner, please be my teacher.
Yes, and this is a work in progress ! And what makes you think I criticise only Byju – I am an equal opportunity critic ! I criticise anyone who I feel deserves it – and praise those who do as well !
If you have a solution, please pitch to me !