Education is important for development, but it doesn’t become an election issue | The Indian Express

Education is important for development, but it doesn’t become an election issue | The Indian Express

Written by Krishna Kumar |Updated: March 15, 2019 8:37:52 am

The writer, professor of education at University of Delhi, was director of  NCERT from 2004 to 2010

Education is important for development, but it doesn’t become an election issue

The gains of education are long-term and call for sustained efforts. Outcomes are often illegible to the electorate and too complex for political parties to take credit for them.

Apparently, people don’t expect much change or improvement in education. There is widespread acceptance of the state’s failure on the education front. (Illustration: CR Sasikumar)

Decisions in the field of education are usually quite illegible to the public eye. Some of them look inconsequential. Others look so obviously correct that no one bothers to examine them. Their political consequences, therefore, are rare and insignificant. That is one big reason why education has little value as an election issue.