A decisive moment for Assam school education

The NITI Aayog’s latest report on school education in India lays bare some critical gaps in enrolment, dropout in the school cycle, and school infrastructure in Assam. Bridging these gaps remains central to achieving the state’s dream goal of transforming its demographic dividend into a generation equipped with quality education and future skills to unlock its economic opportunities. The report titled ‘School Education System in India: Temporal Analysis and Policy Roadmap for Quality Enhancement’, brought out by the apex policy think tank of the country, provides a roadmap of systemic reforms in school education which the state can adopt to move ahead beyond incremental changes. Data presented in the report paints a grim picture: a very high dropout rate of 17.5% at the secondary level despite significant progress in enrolment and retention at the primary level. The figures reflect the national trend, as the report states that secondary education continues to record the highest dropout rate among all stages of schooling, and one in ten students still leaves the system at this level. “The persistence of relatively high attrition underscores the vulnerability of this stage, where economic pressures, early entry into the labour market, and weak institutional support converge to limit participation,” adds NITI Aayog’s report. The participation of girls in higher education remains deficient and below 50% and calls for more effort to ensure equitable access and bridging the gender gap. Nevertheless, the state has recorded significant improvement in school infrastructure, especially in providing functional girls’ toilets, which play a crucial role in improving attendance and preventing dropout. A key takeaway from the report is equipping digital infrastructure at the core of school education as a foundational element and not an ancillary provision. Its emphasis on every school having functional computing facilities, reliable internet connectivity and digital teaching-learning tools to build 21st-century competencies and system-wide efficiency requires schools to be equipped with not just hardware but also with the required ecosystem with trained teachers and integration of technology into regular classroom practice. The state can leverage the artificial intelligence training for rural school teachers across India imparted by the IIT Madras Pravartak Technologies Foundation in partnership with the Education Ministry, which is being offered at no cost to the participants. Under this ‘AI for Educators – K12 Teachers’ (Classes I to XII) Certification Course, IIT Madras equips educators with essential skills to integrate AI into classroom teaching and learning. As the training programme has been designed to help teachers confidently adopt AI tools and methodologies to enhance learning outcomes while ensuring inclusive and responsible use of technology in schools and colleges, prioritising such courses alongside the provision of digital infrastructure is necessary to preparing students to be future-ready. Since government schools continue to account for more than two-thirds of the total number of schools in the country, the primary responsibility to scale the progress in digital infrastructure and teaching-learning environment primarily rests on the governments. Identifying and prioritising schools lacking computers or internet; provisioning of at least one functional digital classroom per secondary school with internet access, a display device, and charging infrastructure in the short term; and ensuring convergence with BharatNet and PM Gati Shakti to deliver broadband access to all secondary and higher secondary schools as short-term measures and expanding digital access within classrooms, including Wi-Fi connectivity and smart boards in the medium term, as recommended in the report, will be essential to transforming the classrooms into knowledge hubs. The schools receiving adequate grants must ensure functionality of devices, power backup, and hardware maintenance so that digital equipment does not lie idle due to underutilisation or dearth of funds for meeting recurring expenses. The report insists the smart classrooms help schools to move beyond traditional chalk-and-talk methods and prepare students for the demands of the digital economy and 21st-century learning. The smart classrooms, by integrating teaching-learning space with tools like projectors, whiteboards, audio-visual content and access to online educational resources, transform the classroom into a creative thinking zone through an interactive learning process. The state has a long way to go to equipping every school with a smart classroom. Provision of smart learning at a foundational level reduces the need for investing in basic digital skill training for youth, allowing resources to be redirected toward advanced digital skill training and artificial intelligence courses for youth. The fast adoption of digital technology and AI by industries leading to massive job cuts has alerted all state governments to the need for continued progress in school education, regardless of past improvements. The NITI Aayog’s report recommends a clear pathway for the transformation of school education to equip students with strong foundational learning and acquire future-ready skills with ease. Assam’s school education stands at a decisive moment, and the urgency of advancing the call for action is unmistakable.