Does India lack knowledge power, despite having such a large population?

Yes! The statement is veracious.

Recently India overtook China to become the most populous country in the world. With such a dubious designation comes a critical responsibility to handle the human capital that it possesses.

Let’s look into the social indices of our country and the facts that significantly show that knowledge power is deficient in India.

The very first thing I would like to highlight is our education system which lacks creativity and its approach is completely theoretical rather than practical learning. By practical learning, I mean writing research papers and being part of community service and surveys. The majority of students focus to get good grades instead of focusing on the implementation of their knowledge in a better way.

Secondly, India has one of the world’s largest and most ancient education systems. It is often mooted for its not so updated curriculum, insufficient quality, and lack of infrastructure. Our best institutes IIT and IIM fall in the rank of 300-350 among the world’s best education systems.

Third, diversity in knowledge is least seen as most of us are encouraged to become doctors and engineers.

Fourth and the most dreaded issue is that India is losing top talent due to brain drain. Rich Indians flock to foreign universities for better education where they have better jobs or prospects.

The Fifth point that comes into the picture is the literacy rate. Despite 75 years of independence, the Literacy Rate of India is still 74%, if we dive deeper, only 82% of males and 65.5% of females are literate.

Sixth, human capital and economic development go hand in hand. Our GDP is self-explanatory for the same. Almost 1/4^th of the population is extremely poor. So, education is nowhere on their list of needs.

In a nutshell, the country can only flourish when its human capital is harnessed to its potential. Overhauling the current educational system can help it reach its goal.