School Education Outcomes In India: The Urgent Need For Reform To Secure Future Growth And Stability
Our greatest opportunity as a country lies in the demographic dividend: two thirds of our people are in the working age; we will have this advantage for about three decades. If we give our children skills, we can accelerate growth by 2% per annum for decades. Our greatest threat lies in low skills and productivity because of poor school education outcomes. If we do not give our children better education, there is a real danger of undermining political stability, economic growth and social harmony.
Learning outcomes are appallingly bad across states and in private and public schools. While about 90% of children pass grade X, only about 10% in government schools and 20% in private schools have minimum required proficiency in maths, science and languages.
Our enrolment in classes 1 to 8 in schools is over 90% across the country, and the student-teacher ratio in public schools is about 22:1, much better than the norm of 30:1. Our governments are spending vast sums on school education, ranging from Rs 60,000 to Rs 120,000 per child per year in most states.
Our parents are increasingly spending vast sums disproportionate to their incomes on tuition fees in private schools in the hope that their children will have a better future. And yet, the failure of school education across states and in both public and private sectors is striking. Only a small proportion of children, mostly from well-educated middle class families, are learning useful skills.
We need to understand the reasons for this collapse of education; only then can we find ways of improving school outcomes for all children, poor or rich. Five or six decades ago, we spent very little on schools; teachers were few; they were paid low wages; and school access was limited. Yet, a large proportion of children who went to school fulfilled their potential.
What happened since then? The case of one state, Andhra Pradesh (including Telangana), gives clues about the causes of decline. Until 1971, in most parts of the state, school education was monitored and measured systematically: there were annual inspections; sensible examinations were conducted regularly, six tests a year, and students were assessed transparently; local governments were fully involved in school management; and all those with a voice and influence had stakes as their children went mostly to government schools. Most children learned to read, write, do math, and understand basic science and logic.
Then in 1971, the government announced that examinations would not matter; every child is automatically promoted, irrespective of learning levels, except for the board examinations in 7th and 10th grades. Earlier, regular examinations were conducted, children who were falling behind attended special classes to catch up, and only a small number of children whose learning levels were extremely low were detained.
School education is like building a house on foundations and walls. If the foundations are weak, the building will collapse. A child with low learning levels will not benefit in higher classes, as s/he cannot grasp what is taught. As examinations became redundant, there was no measurement of educational outcomes. As Lord Kelvin said, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” Slowly, outcomes declined.
Even as learning levels were low, there was desperation to clear the board examinations in 7th and 10th grades. As a result, repetitive, predictable questions that only required learning by heart answers to question papers of the last three years became the norm. When even rote learning was too burdensome, mass copying in board examinations became the norm. Not surprisingly, inflated marks and high pass percentages coexisted with poor learning outcomes.
Then in 1981, the government removed the local government supervision and monitoring of schools by ‘provincialising’ teachers: salaries were paid directly by the state, and for all practical purposes, schools were controlled directly by the state. In 2006, even the 7th-grade board examination was removed, and every kid, irrespective of learning levels, went up to the 10th grade, and most passed by rote learning or mass copying.
This decline in public education, the lure of English as a medium of instruction, and a modest rise in prosperity drove most middle class children to private schools. As only low income families with little influence sent their children to public schools, education declined further. As private schools that embraced state curriculum were subject to the same dysfunctional assessment and perverse incentives of rote learning and mass copying, their outcomes were only marginally better than in government schools.
What do we do now? First, we need to face the truth of the colossal failure of school education despite vast expenditure. While better infrastructure is welcome, the real challenge lies in altering the incentives, particularly when there is a phenomenal demand for education. Every Indian family, irrespective of caste, region, religion, language and poverty, wants good education for its children.
All we need to do is change the nature of the demand by designing a sensible, stress-free, and concept and skill-based assessment system that measures genuine outcomes. All stake-holders will then alter their behaviour to get better educational outcomes if only the assessment system measures real outcomes and mass copying is curbed.
In most states, we have very favourable teacher-student ratios. We should repurpose 2-3% of teachers for regular inspection and monitoring of all schools, public or private, and guidance, training and improvement. Finally, we need to give parents, reputed teachers, successful alumni, and local governments a voice and role in monitoring and improving school outcomes.
These three mantras—sensible, stress-free, concept and skill-based examinations; regular inspections, monitoring and guidance; and flexibility and accountability in school management at local levels—will transform school education outcomes. There is nothing more important or urgent that needs to be done in today’s India.
The author is the founder of Lok Satta movement and Foundation for Democratic Reforms. Email: drjploksatta@gmail.com / Twitter @jp_loksatta
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