What has been India's progress in education since independence?

BY A STAFF REPORTER: Before independence in India, the British government did not give priority to educating the common people. It is up to the leaders involved in the freedom struggle to address these challenges and find ways to make India a modern, educated and developed nation.

Since independence in 1947, India has made rapid progress in primary education, development of schools and universities, or other education. Women's education was not given much importance at the time of independence. Most people in the country were very reluctant to send their daughters to school. But things have changed. According to the latest data, the number of girls in school education is now higher than that of boys. With this, the literacy rate in India has increased from 18.3 per cent in 1951 to 74.4 per cent in 2018 and the most significant change in female literacy has been seen during this period, rising from 8.9 per cent to 65.8 per cent in the same period. 

Over the years, every government in independent India has focused on making educational facilities more accessible to the common man. The number of schools has increased from 1.4 lakh at the time of independence to 15 lakh in 2020-21. The number of colleges has also increased tremendously. There are now 42,343 colleges in India from 578 in 1950-51 and the number of universities has increased from 27 to 1,043 during the same period.

An important sector that has grown is medical education. The number of medical colleges has increased more than 21 times in the last 70 years. In 1951, this number increased from 28 medical colleges to 612.