Classrooms fail poor, edu deepens poverty trap

Bengaluru: Despite education being globally acknowledged as the most effective tool for poverty alleviation, India continues to face persistent inequalities in access to quality schooling. A recent government survey by PARAKH Rash triya Sarvekshan (earlier the National Achievement Survey) has laid bare the deep learning crisis, particularly among students in government and rural schools.

The implications are sobering: unless structural reforms are enacted, India may remain trapped in a cycle where poverty and inadequate educa tion perpetuate each oth er across generations. The roots of these dis parities lie in a complex interplay of socioeco nomic, institutional and policy-level challenges. Rural schools are often plagued by inadequate in frastructure, untrained or absentee teachers, over crowded classrooms and a lack of digital access – all of which dispropor tionately affect students from low-income house holds.

Language barriers, caste discrimination and social insecurities further compound educational exclusion. Private schooling, increasingly seen as a path way to academic success, remains unaffordable for many rural and urban poor families. This bifur cation between state-run and private institutions has reinforced the rich poor divide in learning out comes.

Although schemes like the Right to Education Act and the National Education Policy 2020 aim to address systemic inequi ties, implementation re mains uneven and under funded. For education to truly become a leveller, policy must go beyond enrolment statistics and address core issues of quality, teacher training, curriculum design and localised needs.