Revolutionary reforms required in education system

The Indian education system needs a major revamp
and publishers need to take up their responsibilities as educationists,
conveys Ved Chawla, MD/CEO of Dreamland Publications.

India, with more than 15.5 lakh schools and 30 crores of students below 16 years, stands at 177th position in literacy and education.

The education system woes…

Ved Chawla, MD/CEO, Dreamland Publications has been collecting various newspaper clippings about the flaws in the education system for the past 23 years. Scanned and neatly produced in the form of a booklet, one can easily ascertain the status of the Indian education system as reported from time to time in various media vehicles. “It is very important to know the present scenario of education and schools in India,” he says. “Some of the books used in schools are below quality – not just in terms of production but also the content is not suitable for the age group they mention on their books. Infact, appropriate textbooks for students at early age are missing and as such they are forced to take costly tuitions and help books. Even after that they remain frustrated and feel helpless for their education. Teachers too, at times, are unable to understand the contents of unskilled authors and they too depend on low quality help books available in the market. This is a major challenge and it needs to be looked into,” he says. Perhaps the educational material has not changed with the times. “In this fast age, when games, videos, apps, etc are updated so often, there is not much change in the study material for children. A revolution in education is the need of the day,” says the visionary educationist, popularly known in the industry as Vedji. Though there are books from international publishers available in the Indian market, he feels that most of them do not contain Indian flavour, characters, figures, etc. “Hence, students cannot associate themselves directly with them,” he adds.

Talking about the employment scenario after higher education, Ved feels that students get placed because of their skills and not just for the course that they have passed.

Looking beyond…

Talking about the Chinese education system, Ved informed that China recently allocated a budget of 250 billion dollars every year for education. China has some 1,80,000 printing plants, employing 3,400 million workers. Besides, 65-70 percent world’s printing is done in China. “India is a vast country too and has the capability to deliver quality printing job as well. But, unfortunately has not caught the attention of the top big-wigs in the country,” Ved conveys with a sorry figure.

The solution…

But, Ved has charted out a solution. “The Indian education market is huge. Indian entrepreneurs need to come forward and quality study material can be created right here in India. I have an innovative idea dedicated to ill effects of education system of India. It is a multi billion rupees project, which if taken up by a corporate, can change the education system in India, apart from creating huge revenues for the promoters. The facility would have all processes of printing, publishing and distribution as a one-stop process like Random House, Dia Nippon, Amazon thereby giving employment to plenty,” he says.

Ved wants to offer his expertise and experience to corporates that can visualize and feel the need for this project. He himself has 40 years of experience in optimum utilization of machinery for each and every hour. “I think every printing machine is a currency printing machine if utilized properly,” he chuckles. This state-of-the-art facility would not be a mere printing and publishing venture but would be a main spring and uplifter for the Indian publishing industry as well as the entire educational process on most modern lines. “This project would be dedicated to school-going children and book lovers of all ages,” he adds.

This project will definitely abolish the undue donation system for admission from nursery schools to any professional educational institute. “Besides, it will yield huge returns by supplying world-class books and stationery to government literacy programmes where as at present inferior quality meaningless books are being supplied by unhealthy practices,” he shares.

A regular participant at various international book fairs for the last 23 years, Ved has grasped a lot of knowledge from these fairs, which he now wants to apply in India. “I wish to take up 35,000 different titles in this project. It will be a big brand of knowledge and literary,” Ved concludes. Ved Chawla can be contacted at dreamland@vsnl.com