How to modernise secondary education?

On at the Taj Mahal Hotel, experts in education from India, China, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Australia and the USA convened to share ideas about the best practices in modernising secondary education.

The forum— ‘New Skills for a Global Innovation Society’— is being co-hosted by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and Asia Society, in collaboration with the World Bank and the Confederation of Indian Industry, officials said.

“No country has a monopoly in educational excellence,” says Vivien Stewart, vice president of Asia Society.

“Today, the country that is open to new ideas about learning from around the world will be the one that succeeds,” Stewart says.

Presentations at the forum are wide-ranging: from an exploration of Korea’s national online curriculum and tutoring system, to an analysis of China’s success in expanding primary and secondary education, participants say they hope to learn from each other’s experiences.

In India, 57 million students are not enrolled in secondary schools. “Access is still a major problem,” says CBSE Chairman Ashok Ganguly. “An important area to look at in addressing the shortage of schools is public-private partnership,” he says.

Topmost on India’s reform agenda is improving the curriculum in its secondary schools, while simultaneously strengthening the teaching profession—a characteristic deemed common to the world’s most successful education systems, officials said.

“This could be achieved through professional development support, salary modification, and enhancing the prestige of teaching, for instance,” says Stewart.