Are grading system in schools and one-nation-one-syllabus the right remedy to alreay falling educational standards?

I will be the first to admit that I am not intimately familiar with the Indian education system.  However, I have been involved in education in several other countries and would like to share what I think to be common mistakes made elsewhere.

1) Regardless of which country or culture, I have observed that once you get beyond the village level, even within the same country, there is a diversity of cultural perspectives...and experience...which tends to get lost when a society decides on a one-syllabus-system, such as the "No Child Left Behind" program in the USA.  If we do not continue to applaud, accommodate, respect and reinforce diversity in our respective societies we will find that all we engender is same-ness, mediocrity and a poverty of spirit.  

2) Likewise, I have observed that as a society "matures"...that is, strives to "modernize" itself, to "develop", to compete and excell...its education system tends to become more and more vocational in nature and less well-rounded in its approach.  Unfortunately, this decision is oftentimes made by default rather than by intention.  There may be legitimate opportunities for training, instruction, and even indoctrination...all of which may tend to serve business, commerce, economic development and so-called "social progress"...BUT if that same society wishes to be sustained ethically, morally, honestly, legally,  artistically, and by good governance, it must maintain a wholistic approach to its education.

3) And finally, across the board in most industrialized and developing nations, I have observed a headlong stampede in the direction of math-science education, typically at the expense of the humanities and social sciences.  Not only are all students not the same and thus not equally suited for math & science, but by de-emphasizing language, history, civics, the arts, soft-science, etc., yes, we end up with an abundance of engineers, doctors and IT specialists, but a society made up of individuals who no longer can communicate effectively, with no real sense of themselves, their country, their government, how each works...or is supposed to work...much less an appreciation for art, their culture or the spiritual aspects of their lives.

In a nutshell, I believe...based on my experience and observation...that societies which try a one-size-fits-all approach to their education system...in a sense are committing the proverbial error of trying to cram round pegs into square holes, and in the long run do irreparable harm to both the "pegs" (i.e., the individuals) and the "holes" (i.e., the block of their society).  Human beings tend to be short-sighted by nature.  I suspect it is a residual effect of our struggle to survive.  BUT this is why mankind invented education to begin with...to pass on the experience of the elders and to better prepare others to deal with all that life may throw at them.  Had early-man sought to become super-specialized as we do today, we probably would not be here to discuss this topic now.    

Let us consider sports :

Over the years , competition in sports has become so fierce that in order to distinguish between the first and the second , we have moved from timing with stop-watches to electronic watches and cameras to snap photo finshes. We have moved from timing in seconds to timing in thousandths of a second.

Just imagine , in a marathon stretching over more than two hours , the difference between the first and the second runner can be a few seconds !

If we carried over this analogy to education , we should have introduced decimal points ! Instead , we are going in the opposite direction.

The simple fact is that the papers are not set intelligently , so that only those who know will do well. Secondly , the correction is also not so thorough , because we do not have enough graders to go through the thousands of papers , and mark the answers fairly.

At the root is the quality of our education system , which does not promote thinking and acquistion of knowledge.

To anyone who thinks is not so , I would request him / her to take a look at our Board XII paper in a subject , and compare it with the corresponding Cambridge / IB paper.

With large business houses entering the educational field, schools have become a serious business preposition. Teachers and students alike are too bogged down with their schedule and to expect them to absorb the proposed changes, and to improve the educational standards surely seems like asking too much. I strongly think that instead of targetting boards & post-grad platforms, the policy makers should target elementary schools and colleges instead.

Are grading system in schools and one-nation-one-syllabus the right remedy to alreay falling educational standards?