India ranks 35th in WEFI 2019

Why in News :- India ranked 35th in the Worldwide Educating for the Future Index (WEFFI) 2019, as per a report published by The Economist Intelligence Unit.

This year, India scored 53 and has jumped five ranks from the 40th rank with an overall score of 41.2 across categories in 2018. Finland topped the index followed by Sweden.

Worldwide Educating for the Future Index :-

• The index and report are commissioned by the Yidan Prize Foundation.
• It was developed to assess the effectiveness of education systems in preparing students for the demands of work and life in a rapidly changing landscape.
• It is the first comprehensive global index to evaluate inputs to education systems rather than outputs such as test scores and concentrates on the 15-24 age band in 35 economies.

Key Points :-

• WEFFI ranks countries based on their abilities to equip students with skill-based education.
• The rankings are based on three categories:
  Policy environment
  Teaching environment.
  Overall socio-economic environment.
• The report analyses the education system from the perspective of skill-based education in areas such as critical thinking, problem-solving, leadership, collaboration, creativity and entrepreneurship as well as digital and technical skills.
• Among the world’s largest economies, the US, UK, France and Russia fell back in the index while China, India and Indonesia took steps forward.

Reasons for the Growth :-

• The report attributes India’s growth to the new national education policy introduced and published in 2019 that mentions future-oriented skills such as critical thinking, communication and entrepreneurship.
• The education policy was highlighted in the Union Budget 2020 and it will come under ‘Aspirational India’ which will focus on skill-based education, a greater inflow of finance to attract talented teachers and innovate and build better labs.
• A degree level full-fledged online education programme along with apprenticeship embedded degree or diploma courses in 150 higher educational institutions is also proposed which will begin by March 2021.

Aspirational India :-

• It is one of the three prominent themes of Union Budget 2020, the other two being economic development (for all) and building a caring society that is humane and compassionate.
• Under the Aspirational India theme, the budget covers rural, water and sanitation, and education.

Challenges :-

• The report highlights the inability of the Indian education system to utilise the opportunity of internationalising the higher education system.
• Another challenge is a decentralised education system according to the report.
• Well-intentioned policy goals relating to future skills development often do not get filtered downward which is a problem in economies like the US and India.

Solutions :-

• India should develop its education system so that it becomes a preferred destination for higher education. For this, under the Study in India Programme, Ind-SAT exam will be held for Asian and African students for scholarships.
• The programme will be used for benchmarking foreign candidates who receive scholarships for studying in Indian higher education centres.

Study in India Programme :- It is a project under the Ministry of Human Resource Development with the primary objective to target foreign students by branding India as an attractive education destination. It offers fee waivers to meritorious foreign students studying in Indian educational institutes.