{"id":1314,"date":"2015-03-07T02:38:17","date_gmt":"2015-03-07T02:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/developmentdebate.in\/2015\/03\/07\/not-good-sign-for-resurgent-india\/"},"modified":"2025-07-15T08:27:27","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T08:27:27","slug":"not-good-sign-for-resurgent-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/developmentdebate.in\/?p=1314","title":{"rendered":"Not a good sign for \u2018resurgent\u2019 India"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Declining trends in
\nquality of learning in elementary schools of rural India<\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
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Zakaria Siddiqui<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/b> <\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
In hustle bustle of \u2018big\u2019 political dramas like Budget,
\nElections, and the rise of communally motivated attacks we often forget our
\nfuture generation. Every year during this time Annual Status of Education
\nReport (ASER) Centre reminds us about status of education of our children. <\/span>ASER 2014 released in January 2015<\/span><\/a><\/a>
\nhighlights that
\ninfrastructure gaps in schools have been closing successfully and India has
\nachieved near universal enrollment (96%). This is a good news as it took many
\nyears for us to eventually reach that stage and now attention can now more fully
\nbe given to quality of learning.\u00a0 <\/span>ASER\u2019s
\nreport once again highlights that children are not learning well in schools. In
\nfact quality of learning has dwindled over time. <\/span><\/div>\n
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Reading ability in fact has seen a dip over time. Share of
\nstandard II students in rural government schools who cannot recognize even
\nletters have risen from 13.4% to alarming level of 32.5% against the norm that
\nchildren should able to read simple sentence by the end of standard II. Percentage
\nof standard V children who can read standard II level text has continually
\ndeclined though marginally since 2008 for both government and private schools.
\nOf course this share is higher for private school but trend is very similar.At
\nthe exit point of elementary and compulsory education i.e. in standard VIII a
\nquarter of all enrolled children still have difficulty in reading text that is
\nappropriate for standard II \u00a0<\/span>level. <\/span><\/div>\n
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Arithmetic ability is also experiencing a declining trend in
\nRural India. Share of standard II kids who can recognize numbers 1-9 have
\nfallen from 86.6% in 2010 to 74.9% in 2014 in rural government schools. Private
\nschools also show declining trend \u2212from 94% to 91.8% for the same period.
\nPercentage of standard V students in government schools who can do division
\nsuccessfully has declined 33.9% to 20.7% during above mentioned period. At exit
\npoint of elementary education also we see similar trend \u2013 percentage of
\nstandard VIII children who could do division fell from 68% (approx) to 44.1%.<\/span><\/div>\n
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I have had the opportunity work with testing tools which ASER
\nuses in order to validate ASER results after properly training the surveyors. I
\nwould say that their results and our research results were not very different.
\nGiven that we accept the results from ASER it is quite depressing situation for
\nrural India. Now who has to be blamed for this result?<\/span><\/div>\n
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There are various reasons for this. Teachers work in an
\nincentive system where attending school or any official duty is enough. There
\nare hundreds of excuses that a teacher can make when asked about declining
\nlearning outcomes. They will argue with concrete evidence that they were left
\nwith little time to teach as they had allocate their duty hours to BPL survey,
\nCensus, election duty etc. in addition to various school related data generation
\nlike Mid-Day Meal scheme and financial supports for students. It would not be
\nmisleading to claim that elementary school teachers are considered as extended
\ndepartment of government for various kinds of data collection and reporting. The
\ntraining(s) that these teachers receive may be good but one has no way of sticking
\nthe responsibility on them as they can always argue that there was no time left
\nto do required amount of the teaching. When you give too much of responsibility
\nto an individual you are basically telling him\/her that you can get away with
\ndoing nothing. Just like Government ministers cannot be held responsible, it is
\nalways the secretaries who are caught for doing something wrong.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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Given my argument earlier quality of training would not matter
\nmuch in these circumstances. What is interesting here is that governments’
\neffort is dedicated to tick all possible boxes to get out of monitoring radar.
\nAll protocols are executed to make sure that there is no legal issue with
\nregards right to Education Act. Content is hardly an issue for the government. In
\nfact it is the demander (parents) not the supplier (government) who has to
\nevaluate the content of education that their children are receiving, as
\nsuppliers have every incentive to spend as little effort as possible.
\nGovernment has no incentive in controlling the content of teaching given the
\nlength of electoral terms. It is the clients or their representatives who have
\nto continuously evaluate the content of education. Now the issue is that not
\nevery parent can be competent in doing this. Eventually, this responsibility falls
\non the shoulders of educated parents to take the lead in this direction. The
\nreality is that they indeed monitor the content very carefully and owing to
\nthis they take their children out of the government schooling system and
\neducate them in the private system instead. \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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The policy problem at this level is that educated parents are
\nalso economically better-off which makes private schooling or at least private
\ntuition affordable for them. If such educated parents did not have the choice
\nof sending their children to private school\/tutors they would have definitely
\nraised the voice against the poor content of teaching and there would have been
\nsome response to solve this issue initially from teachers and eventually from governments.<\/span><\/div>\n
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So what we should do? Few years ago my immediate response to
\nthis problem was, banning the private schooling is a good idea. Now I think
\ndifferently, private schooling can actually be an instrument of competition in
\nthe system. Any additional competition is good for the system. Achievements of
\nstudents in private schools can be used as benchmarks for government schools
\nand will keep aspiration levels high. In order for private schools to work as
\ncompetitive force in the system we need some\u00a0visible hands<\/i>\u00a0in
\nthe system. These visible hands<\/i> would
\nessentially work for parents who are unable to monitor the content in the
\ngovernment schools. They should work as information agents in the system who
\nwould highlight the treatments that government school students are getting. To
\ncertain extent such visible hands<\/i> are
\nalready at work. NGOs like ASER Centre and Pratham are great examples but they
\nare not sufficient in quantum. Additionally, these organizations are working
\nobjectively on specific issues of evaluation and training but there is a need
\nfor organizations that will work towards translating quality of education into
\na political issue which will obviously feed on the information produced by objective
\norganizations like ASER and Pratham. Another essential component of this visible hand<\/i> is funding opportunities
\nwhich are rather tight and highly opposed to idea of politicizing the quality
\nof education issue. <\/span><\/div>\n
\nPhoto curtsey: http:\/\/www.stockpicturesforeveryone.com\/<\/div>\n<\/div>\n