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Social Justice- Education Sector
Education: Private vs Public Sector
Recent data trends from the MHRD suggests a growing privatization in the education sector. Between 2010 and 2015 student enrolment in government schools have fell by 13 million while on the private side it has increased by 17.5 million.
Issues in the Private sector
- Quality: Recently, the World Development Report brought out by the World Bank elucidated that private schools perform better only because they accommodate children from affluent background
- Affordability: Charge exorbitant fees from parents of children and hence are out of reach for a large section of the population. The NSSO recently stated a 175% increase in average annual private expenditure on education.
- Obsolete Curriculum: Lacks excellence and imagination and is non-committed to meeting global standards. As a result, students fare badly in global exams for measuring learning outcomes
- Programme for International Student Assessment Test (PISA)
- Safety and Security: Have been cases where children have suffered from sexual and physical abuse even causing death. Private institutions have not been able to take adequate precautionary measures in preventing the same
- Ryan murder case
- Lack of Transparency and Accountability in its functioning: Private schools are hard to monitor and require large quantum of financial and human resources. The WB’s report opines that it would be more straightforward and expeditious for the government itself to provide quality education
Public Sector Institutions
- Although greater in number, they fail to meet the demands of aspirational families and students of the country
- Accessibility: The proportion of public institutions providing education to private sector institutions is still low compared to other countries
- Segregation: Generally seen as institutions for poor and marginalized sections of society
- Quality: Greatly compromised in terms of infrastructure and teaching expertise leading to low learning outcomes among students. The ASER report by Pratham sites inability to read, write and do arithmetic among students
Way Forward
- Private education should be given more space in lieu of lack of quality public education and the lack of finances available for spending on the same
- Monitoring Framework: Strict regulation and monitoring from responsible authorities to ensure that the current limitations of private education is addressed and it remains accountable to provide affordable quality education in a safe and secure environment for children
- Stepping up spending on Education: India currently spends 4% of its GDP on education and should ideally aim to raise it to 6% that is globally accepted and recommended.
- New Education Policy: India’s NEP that is due in December shall focus on providing Universal, free, safe and quality public education to all its young citizens
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Establishment of National Testing Agency
The Centre has approved the creation of a National Testing Agency which would be an autonomous body registered under Indian Societies Act,1860 with the responsibility of conducting tests for entrance to higher educational institutions.
NTA thus relieves the pressure on CBSE and AITCE from conducting entrance tests and also ensures there is an independent agency that measures merit level of students.
Primary Education
Introduction
The Economic Survey 2017 points out that in a techno-intensive world, India’s primary education output breeds Human Capital Regression that subverts India’s demographic dividend, threatening to be a demographic disaster.
Issues
- Poor learning outcomes: ASER (Annual Status of Education Report) 2018 brought out by Pratam illustrates that there is a learning deficit and poverty of basic reading and arithmetic skills among children
- Gender Disparity: Despite consistent improvement, UNESCO’s Gender Parity report flags concerns that in the backward regions of the country, girls have 42% less chance of receiving primary education
- Teacher Quality and Quantity: The low pupil-teacher ratios and the poor quality of teaching has adverse effect on learning outcomes.
- Obsolete Curriculum: Curriculum in several public schools are not relevant to current ground realities. Hence there is a need to reform the curriculum for holistic development of children with focus on extra-curricular activities as well.
- Infrastructural Gaps: Class rooms, benches, desks, toilet facilities, books
- Employability: The poor learning outcomes offshoot the disability that school education has little utility in job creation. Such an aspect is relevant even at primary education
Reasons for Poor Performance
- Lack of Funding: Public expenditure on education as a percentage of GDP is insufficient to plug existing infrastructural gaps in educational institutions. There is a lack of coordination for need-based infrastructural development and diversion of funds allotted for the same.
The T.S.R report has called on the government to increase its public expenditure on education to 6% of GDP
- Quality of Teachers: There is a serious lack in the quantity and quality of teachers particularly in schools in rural areas that have detrimentally affected reading and arithmetic ability of students.
The T.S.R committee report has mentioned in its report to set a cut off of 50% marks for graduate examination for teachers and to conduct a period-wise examination for teachers to sustain and monitor their quality
- Lack of Regulation: Primary level schools have largely laid ignored by monitoring and regulatory authorities that has led to such a sever depreciation in quality of imparting education
- Obsolete Curriculum: The education curriculum and methods of teaching fail to focus on learning aspects, logical reasoning and innovation among students
Way Forward
- Plug Infrastructural Gaps: The government can increase its public expenditure to 6% of the GDP on education as stated in the TSR Subramanian Committee Report. It can look into collaborations with private organizations and CSOs to plug infrastructural deficiencies
- Ensuring Teacher Quality: As cited in the TSR Subramanian committee’s report, minimum cut off of 50% marks for graduate examination for teachers and to conduct a period-wise examination for teachers to sustain and monitor their quality can enhance teacher quality levels
- Revamping Curriculum: The curriculum can be revamped to provide holistic education to children to focus on learning outcomes and aim to induce their critical thinking and logical reasoning capacity rather than seeking conformity to syllabus
- Atal Innovation Mission seeks to induce innovation in children through play spaces equipped with state of art technologies
- Pre-School Education: Ensuring the right to quality pre-school education can help lay foundations for effective impartation of primary education
- Outcome-based monitoring: Levels of education may be assessed based on learning outcomes of children rather than infrastructural and human resource inputs alone. The National Achievement Survey performed by the NCERT aims to do the same.
- Enhancing Employability of Education: Skill courses currently imparted between classes 9 and 12 may be advanced to class 6 to reduce dropouts in secondary education and incentivize enrolment
- Bettering Regulation: Education administration needs to be liberated from its bureaucratic ailments through performance incentives and a reformed organizational culture
- SMART Classrooms: Technology can be leveraged to make learning more interactive and refreshing for children beyond the scope of text book knowledge
- Use of Google 3-D voyager through the Indian Literacy project to teach historical places and monuments to students
- Operation Digital Board is a good step in this direction
Conclusion
The need of the hour is to shift from input-based assessment of primary education to output based assessment to develop and implement solutions that can ensure quality educational attainment vital to utilizing India’s demographic dividend
Right to Education Act
It put forth a constitutional obligation on states to provide free and compulsory education for all children below 14 years. Thus, elementary education became a fundamental right under Article 21-A of the Indian constitution.
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Features
- Education as fundamental rights- claim of citizen against state
- A minimum infrastructural requirement for schools to function
- No detention policy- scrapped by Parliament in amendment- states are now empowered to hold back students who do not pass the examination
- Private schools to reserve 25% seats for SC/ST, girl students
- Minimum attendance level for teachers and minimum pupil-teacher ratio
- Curriculum standards
- Accessibility within 1km radius for children
Positive Outcomes
- Coverage: Large increase in enrolment ratio owing to increased accessibility and affordability of education. We have been able to achieve close to universal coverage in primary education
- Inclusivity: Implementation of RTE was able to lower gender disparity in literacy levels and also empower the SC/ST communities through providing education
- Constitutional obligation on states
- Reduced Child Labour
Negative Outcomes
- Low Learning outcomes: The no detention policy discouraged learning by providing a free pathway to higher classes. This coupled with infrastructural and human resource gaps in schools have led to low learning outcomes among students
- Shutting Down of Schools: Several schools that were not able to meet standards prescribed by RTE were shut down that decreased accessibility to proximate children
- Commercialization: Lower quality of education in public institutions have led to increased demand for private education. This has subsequently made quality primary education expensive
Right to Education Act (Amendment)
- Abolition of No Detention Policy: The amendment takes away the no detention policy and provides that states shall decide whether to continue with no detention policy or not
- Regular Examination: There shall be regular examination conducted for classes 5 and 8 and a failed child would be given a re-examination opportunity
- Provided an extension for teachers to achieve requisite qualifications
- Teachers can leverage the SWAYAM platform to acquire professional qualifications
Concerns
- Increased dropouts
- Dropouts may push children into child labour under the guise of familial business
- Quality of education both in terms of infrastructure and human resource is lacking and government should focus on improving the same before implementation of no detention policy which puts increased burden on children
- Rural-urban divide
- Girl children might suffer in the aftermath of dropouts, early marriages might increase and parents might be having a disincentive of sending girls to schools
Way Forward
Improving Teacher Quality: – Untrained teachers can gather professional qualifications from NIOS online courses offered through ‘SWAYAM’, an online platform to enhance education in India. NIOS courses can help in upgrading professional competence and information and communication based capacity building for teachers.
About SWAYAM
- SWAYAM seeks to bridge the digital divide for students who have hitherto remained untouched by the digital revolution and hence have separated from the main stream economy
- It is an online IT platform where a host of courses are available from 9th standard to post graduation and anyone from anywhere in India can enrol for these courses
- Three pillars – Education Access, Equity and Quality
Mid-day Meal Scheme (Under NFSA)
Mid-day meal schemes are envisaged to provide quality meals once a day to students during school hours in government owned and aided schools, madrasas. It is mandated for all children below 14 years of age for at least 200 days in an academic year.
Objectives:
- Improve enrolment, retention and attendance
- Enhance nutrition levels of children
Issues with Mid-day meal scheme
- Nutritional Security not met: Mid-day meal scheme is not able to provide a balanced nutrient diet to children although it helps in ensuring sufficient calorie intake. This may cause hidden hunger in children.
- Corruption: Food grains and supplies allocated for mid-day meal provisions are diverted
- Unhygienic Conditions: Cooking of meals in unhygienic conditions affects quality of foods prepared which can render them vulnerable to stomach disorders, diarrhoea, food poisoning
- Teachers turning Cooks: In some schools, the lack of cooking staff has necessitated that teachers take up the job which compensates on the time they devolve to teaching
- Exclusion: Destitute children and migrant children who do not receive education are not covered under the scheme
- Coverage Disparity across states
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Way Forward
- Diversify Nutrition Basket: Nutrition choices can be diversified in mid-day meal scheme to ensure that children can gain a nutrient balanced diet that checks deficiency of micro-nutrients.
- Revamping Administration: The monitoring, implementation and regulation of the mid-day meal scheme may be taken care of by the Parent Teachers Association to minimize corruption and ensure beneficiary participation
- Electronic Databases: Digitization of food grain distribution and usage can minimize avenues for corruption and ensure maximum beneficiary entitlement
- Provision for Social audit
- Cooking Staff: A mandatory requirement for cooking staff to be employed so that teachers time is not spent on cooking