Education in India

The Indian education system comprises pre-school, primary school, secondary school, higher secondary school, and higher education (graduation and post-graduation). Although primary school is compulsory, this has been difficult to achieve in practice and India is still struggling to raise its literacy rates.

Through school, students are taught a uniform set of subjects including languages, math, sciences, and social sciences. Higher education in India provides an opportunity to specialize in a field and includes technical schools (such as the Indian Institutes of Technology), colleges, and universities.

Higher education in India has evolved in distinct and divergent streams with each stream monitored by an apex body, indirectly controlled by the Ministry of Human Resource Development and funded by the state governments. The important universities are called Central Universities and these are maintained by the Union Government. The private sector also has a strong presence in Indian higher education. The Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), National Law School, Bangalore; All India Institute of Medical Sciences; Indian School of Business, Hyderabad; and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are renowned for their superior standards of education and compete with the best in the world.