HERE’S EVERYTHING WRONG WITH THE INDIAN EDUCATION SYSTEM

For the average Indian middle class family, for generations, education has been a sure shot way to achieve success and stability in life. But is that really true? This video is our humble take at what we think is clearly not working in the Indian education system, and some potential ways to fix that. But first, let's talk about you. You are either a current or a former student, if you've had the privilege of formal education at all. Back in those sweaty classrooms with one teacher and 50 students, did you ever feel, If you did, that feeling is probably proof that you too are a victim of a failed system. The Indian education system that pulls children and their families in, promises them success if they conform and stay disciplined, and spits out literal fish out of water. So where did it all go wrong? Let's start at the bottom. First question, are there enough teachers in Indian schools? Let's look at UDISC Plus, the government's own data. So does that mean India has a teacher shortage? No, it doesn't. That same dataset shows thousands of schools with fully paid, sanctioned staff, and zero students enrolled. This is not a funding crisis, it's a management collapse. Teachers sitting idle in one pin code, while 40 km away, one teacher drowns in a room of 80 children. So what can be done? One possible solution would be a live public teacher deployment map, updated quarterly with mandatory redeployment You cannot fix a crisis the administration chooses not to look at. Our literacy rate is 80.9%, sounds respectable. Except, do you know how India defines literate? Write your own name, read one sentence, in any language, and congratulations, you're counted. No comprehension tests, no proof you understand anything. Now look at ASER, India's largest independent learning assessment. When they tested class 3 students across rural India, only 23.4% could read a simple class 2 paragraph. 3 out of 4 class 3 students can't process English from class 2. Which number do you believe? The 80.9% that makes press releases look good, or the 23% that tells the actual truth? Now speaking of what should be done, well for starters, stop celebrating literacy we haven't earned. Replace self-reported literacy with mandatory, nationwide reading and comprehension assessments. If we don't measure whether children can actually read, we'll keep congratulating ourselves while millions are left behind. The 60,000 crore tuition industry. When public institutions fail, private enterprise monetizes that desperation. Welcome to India's 60,000 crore coaching industry, built on one premise. Your school is just not good enough. Middle class parents pay income tax, private school fees, and then drain savings or take loans for coaching. Why? Because regular school guarantees failure at the real game. Every year, roughly 15-16 lakh students sit down for JEE mains. Seats across all IITs combined, roughly 19,000. An acceptance rate under 1.5%. Quota isn't the villain, quota is the symptom. Create artificial scarcity like this, and parents will sell land and gold to give their children a negligible advantage. Coaching centres don't sell education, they sell access. Based on the data, our recommendation is this. Stop designing a system where a student's future depends on mastering tricks that school never taught. Entrance exams should reward what students learn in school, not what they learn in coaching. At the same time, India needs far more high-quality engineering and science institutions, so opportunity isn't concentrated in just a handful of campuses. Because as long as quality education remains artificially scarce, someone will find a way to sell access to it. The vacant faculty at IITs and IIMs. Say you did it, survived school, survived quota, cleared JEE, NEET or CAT. You reached an IIT, IIM or AIIMS. Secured, right? Wrong. As per the government data presented in Parliament, 38.3% of teaching posts are vacant across IITs, 31% across IIMs, 42% in newer AIIMS campuses. You beat a 98% rejection rate to land in an institute running on almost half its faculty missing. We brag about graduates becoming global CEOs, while our flagship institutions run on ghost staff. Here's what we would recommend. Legally cap faculty vacancies at 10% across IITs, IIMs, NITs, AIIMS and every other premier government institute. The moment an institute crosses that limit, it should be publicly flagged. No RTIs, no paperwork, no digging through Parliament replies. Put faculty vacancies on a public dashboard, updated every semester, right next to the placement statistics everyone loves to brag about. So, what comes to mind now when you hear the phrase, the Indian education system? Is it still that sweaty classroom? 60 students, one overworked teacher? Hopefully now, it is also the numbers. An 80.9 literacy rate that measures paperwork instead of learning. 16 lakh children fighting over 19,000 seats. And premier universities proudly advertising their 100% placements while operating with 40% of their faculty missing. But let me tell you, the great Indian dream was never a lie. The belief that education can lift a family out of poverty by a home and change the trajectory of generations, that belief is real. It has transformed millions of lives, including perhaps yours or mine. The dream isn't broken, the system is. A teacher idle in an empty classroom while another handles five grades. A literacy test that asks if you can sign your name. Starving our best universities of faculty. These are all logistics problems, data problems, accountability problems. The day we stop saying, And start demanding, That's the day the system begins to heal. Because that thought you had years ago, staring at the blackboard, That was the first time you correctly diagnosed the problem.