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
Read Also Agricultural credit in India
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.
Read Also India European Union (EU) Relation
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
Read Also Gig Economy
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
Secondary Education
Issues
- Coverage: Although enrolment ratio has steadily climbed to over 90%, we are yet to achieve universal enrolment as per the RMSA
- Gender Disparity: Secondary education witnesses large number of girl child drop outs due to decreased accessibility, poor quality and utility of education and lack of sanitation facilities
- Low Quality of Teachers
Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA)
The programme focuses on achieving Universal Enrolment in secondary education by 2017 and retention by 2020.
Functions
- Improve access to secondary educational institutions
- Incentivize education for girl child by
- Raising awareness
- Hostel facilities for girls
- Providing adequate sanitation facilities
- Increase number of female teachers
- Inclusive focus to emancipate weaker sections of society
Higher Education Sector
Introduction
In the World University Rankings report, not one of India’s higher educational institutions figures in the top 250. This shows the urgency for reforms in higher educational institutions in India.
Current Scenario
- Accessibility: There is a great regional disparity in higher educational institutions with most institutions situated in urban areas of the country. The North-East for example lacks prestigious institutions
- Affordability: Post liberalization, higher educational institutions have undergone rapid privatization with the commercialization of education being the unintended consequence. This has reduced affordability in higher education
- Gender Disparity: Women are disproportionately higher drop outs as they progress higher up the education ladder. Social stigma, lack of accessibility and commercialization are multiple reasons discouraging higher education for women among families
- Research and Development: India’s higher education system offers little avenue for R&D mainly owing to financial constraints and lack of support from the state
- Quality of Faculty: Teachers in higher educational institutions have waned in quality and quantity which has severely impacted learning outcomes among students
- Obsolete Curriculum: The curriculum of students in higher education are not suited to present-day demands and needs revisiting and revision in order to make it more relevant to the current scenario
- Lack of industry linkages: Lack of employability of education has caused unemployment levels to rise and industries to suffer from the problem of lack of expertise. The mismatch between industry demand and academic supply of skills has nullified India’s demographic dividend
- Faulty Regulatory system: The UGC suffers from multiple problems of maladministration, corruption, lack of transparency, favouritism and overlapping jurisdiction with AICTE
- High demand-supply mismatch: Supply outweighing demand in several professional courses including engineering and management. Hence there is an increased requirement to diversify courses specifically creating inter-disciplinary courses for solution centric skill sets
Way Forward
- Industrial demand-driven education: Adapt higher education to industrial and modern day changes accommodative to demand of aspirational youth and re-orient the courses to enhance employability and establish sufficient industrial linkages through internships
- UAY of the MHRD seeks to establish industry-academia linkages to promote innovation in higher educational institutions
- Increased Accessibility: Open up universities in low educational footprint regions and open up distance education courses to facilitate access to quality higher education. SWAYAM Prabha is a good initiative in this direction
- Incentivizing Research: Enhance public spending on research. A good quantum of these funds can be used to provide financial support to Research and Development projects in higher educational institutions.
- The INSPIRE (Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research) programme of Department of Science and Technology provides research opportunities for young scientists with financial support in terms of salary and funds for research
- Foreign Universities and Faculties: To enhance the level of academia in the country, foreign universities can be permitted to open colleges, offer degrees and faculties can be invited to teach.
- GIAN- Global initiative for Academic Network seeks to bring quality faculty from foreign universities with the Motto ‘Come, Teach in India’
- Incentivizing women education: State can incentivize education of the girl child through social security schemes or financial support which enables the family to provide for her.
- Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana
- UDAAN to enrich science and maths aptitude of girls to increase their enrolment in higher educational institutions
- Cleansing the Regulatory System: The HECI can replace the UGC resolving its conflicting powers and maladministration.
- Enhancing Student Diversity: Greater number of foreign students can help diversify the skill set and enable greater collaboration in research and development besides strengthening relationship between countries
- Study in India Programme: All public and private institutions to accept more foreign students to enhance intake from SAARC, ASEAN and West Asian countries
UGC – Issues in Regulation
Functions of UGC
- Accreditation and Licensing of colleges
- Standardization of courses
- Giving Fellowship to students
- Giving grants to Universities
Issues of UGC
- Overlapping Jurisdiction with AICTE: The Higher Education sector in India has 13 regulators that enlarge scope for contradictions and overlapping. The Yashpal committee has recommended that these overlapping regulators maybe fused into a single regulatory authority
- Funding and Regulatory role: Provisions of funding made by the UGC has been questioned on the grounds of favouritism. The funding role conflicts with its regulatory role and excessively burden the UGC.
- Obsolete methods of administration: No digitization
- Corruption and Favouritism with respect to appointments
- Lack of transparency with respect to decisions regarding fellowships. Often decisions are taken unilaterally without stakeholder consent
Committee Recommendations
- Scrap the UGC and establish a National Commission for Higher Education Fellowship Programme
- Establish Higher Education Commission of India (UGC+ AICTE) that looks into laying down, maintaining and improving academic standards in India’s higher education system. HECI is mandated to improve learning outcomes, monitor academic and teaching standards. Currently a draft bill is tabled for the establishment of HECI
- Streamline administration procedures using technology
- The grant giving functions of the UGC shall be taken over by the MHRD
Autonomy to Universities and Colleges
The Central government through its regulator UGC has provided almost complete autonomy to universities and colleges in a bid to usher in market-oriented skill development that would drive economic growth in the country.
What does Autonomy mean for these Universities?
- No inspection: Top rated universities are freed of UGC inspections
- Freedom of Courses: Universities and colleges can start new courses without prior approval
- Promoting Research: They can set up and open research parks and incubation centres
- Regulation free Foreign Collaboration: Universities and colleges can engage freely with foreign universities and open their doors to foreign faculty. This attains increased importance on the back of VAJRA and GIAN programmes of the government
- Distant Learning: Universities can offer programmes at off-campus centres and open constituent units
Higher Education Commission Bill, 2018
India’s higher education has for long under the watch of UGC suffered from problems of over regulation, favouritism and conflicting roles. The government through the conceptualisation of HECI aims to correct these wrongs and raise academic standards in a country of bustling demographic dividend.
- Establish HECI Replacing UGC: The bill seeks to establish a higher education commission in India tasked with the overall improvement in learning outcomes and academic standards. The mandate of the HECI
- Regulation of universities
- Accreditation of Standards
- Skill Development Curriculum
- Separating the funding and Regulation Role: The bill vests the fund provisioning with the MHRD. This ensures the HECI can focus on regulation alone now that it is liberated of the role of fund provider
- Autonomous Degrees: Any higher educational institution according to the bill can provide for degrees and diplomas without the requirement of it being a university deemed to be so. This could pave the way for several autonomous colleges liberated from the hold of universities
- Open and Distance Learning will remain together and no separate body will be created for the same as suggested by Madhav Menon Committee
Issues with Higher Education Commission of India Bill
- Political Interference: The danger of political interference in running of institutes is visible in the bill that calls for
- Grant giving powers with the MHRD: Lack of Self-reliance in financial matters for Universities
- Removal of the HECI chairman on ground of moral turpitude
The government can look into the creation of an arms length body to disburse funds that is independent in its functioning
- Quantification of Quality: Although the bill proposes to establish HECI to maintain and improve academic standards, it does not empirically define the level of quality that HECI should strive to maintain
- Continued Overlapping Jurisdiction: The bill remains silent on several regulators including the Medical Council of India. This limits the utility of the bill in providing for a single regulator
- No Autonomous Accrediting Agency: The HECI is vested with multiple roles of setting academic standards as well as evaluating This promotes conflicting interests and is antithetical to separation of powers
- Compromise on Quality: The prospect of liberating colleges from universities spells out a danger of free for fall situation. Such an unregulated environment may lead to obsolete or poor quality education handed out by colleges
- Ambiguity in Degree: The bill leaves open the definition of degree, its standards or duration out of HECI control. This could leave to a chaotic situation where industry and academy have varying expectations.
- Unhealthy Competition: The bill extends the present system of affiliation to private and deemed to be universities exacerbating the unhealthy competition for affiliation for commercial reasons alone
Institutes of Eminence
Rationale:
- Building World-Class Universities: India is yet to have a university present in the top 250 of the World University Ranking Reports. The tagging of institutes of eminence aims to catapult India’s most eminent universities into the topmost bracket by providing money and autonomy
- Greater Autonomy: IoEs would have greater autonomy in setting syllabus, deciding courses, choosing faculty and collaborating with foreign universities. Thus, they can emerge as the cradle to nurture India’s bustling demographic dividend
- Funding for Public Institutes: 1000 crore would be provided to the IoE to upscale quality in infrastructure, research and develop and attract talented faculty in a competitive environment
Issues with IoE
- Selective Autonomy: Granting autonomy exclusively to reputed institutes can be thought of as unfair to other universities. These universities if given a chance with autonomy may upscale their quality. In short, autonomy should not be an outcome of quality but should be a pre-requisite
- Increased Disparity within Education: While the IoEs would build a handful of world class universities, it might not facilitate the overall emancipation of the higher education sector further widening the regional disparity
- Commercialization of Education: The tagging of world class raises concerns whether the state can make this high quality education available and inclusive to all sections in society particularly in private institutions
- Greenfield Criteria: Providing the tag to green field institutions over other reputed centres of learning who have proved their mettle can be seen as unfair and unduly harsh on these centres
- Jio Institute over IIT Madras
- Fiscal Burden on State
Way Forward
- Better Autonomy: The government can provide autonomy to institutes beyond those of eminence. This academic freedom can help nurture innovation and capacity building in India’s universities
- Uniform Spending: The government needs to step up spending in higher education sector to achieve results across various regions and academic disciplines
- Widen the Circle of Eminence: The government needs to bring in more and more institutes under the eminence tag so that the regional disparities can be bridged. This would increase accessibility and improve affordability through competition
- Reservation of Seats: The government can provide for reserved seats in private institutions where backward sections can gain the opportunity of world class education
Higher Education Financing Agency (HEFA)
Rationale: India’s higher educational institutions suffer from a lack of advanced infrastructure facilities particularly with regard to R&D. HEFA as a NBFC aims to plug this by providing interest free loans to HEIs. This can serve as a catalyst to drive India’s alma maters to the top in World University Ranking Reports.
Benefits
- Extra Budgetary Allocation: HEFA enables institutes to address needs of critical infrastructure in higher educational institutions
- Self-Sufficiency: Providing the institutes with loan empowers them to be self-reliant on the internal accruals they generate
- Systemic Strengthening using Private Sector: The HEFA provides opportunities for corporates and High Net worth individuals to invest in equity and debt. CSR Funds can also be mobilized
- Interest Free: The government would service the interest of the loans relieving the institutions of interest burden
Challenges
- Mobilizing Capital: Several of the organizations financing the HEFA like the LIC, NABARD and the PFC have raised the inability to raise capital. In the backdrop of the Twin Balance Sheet problem that plagues the economy, the raising of capital appears difficult.
- Indebtedness: The gradual replacement of grants with credits in the long term may lead to indebtedness
- Privatization: HEFA makes higher educational institutions dependent on the financial market for capital. They have to then fund the loan through commercial education services. This entails the loss of public character of institutions.
- Commercialization of Education: The reliance on internal accruals would force institutes to raise fee of education. This would deprive India’s youth of affordable quality education
Conclusion
The HEFA is a good step towards catapulting India’s universities into the top rung of world class research and academic centres. The government needs to ensure that even the highest quality of education is provided inclusively to all.
