The problem

IT is hardly surprising that accounts and assessments of India’s educational performance, in particular meeting the constitutional mandate to provide ‘free and cumpulsory education to all children upto the age of 14 years,’ remain deeply divided. Even as officials of the Ministry of Human Resources Development underscore the tremendous progress of the last five decades despite the scarcity of resources and the immensity of the task inherited at independence, critics continue to focus on the many gaps and unfinished business, citing among other, the most recent Unesco report. They also remind us that the constitutional commitment, despite being included in the Directive Principles of State Policy and not the Fundamental Rights chapter, came accompanied by a target date, 1960, and how this date has been pushed back every decade, currently standing at 2015.

We are also reminded of the vast number of children who continue to remain out of school, that many who do join drop out, and that significant numbers learn little even after completing the primary cycle. As if this was not sufficiently depressing, detailed research indicates that the picture varies across class, caste, gender and locality with those on the margins faring significantly worse than the better-off. Finally, to under-score the lack of political will among the governing classes and continuing apathy marking the elite, are accounts about the questionable state of the government primary school – the woefully inadequate infrastructure (school buildings, toilets, playgrounds, even drinking water), absence of teaching-learning materials, and the shortage of trained and motivated teachers. Evidently, dozens of reports – from the Radhakrishnan to the Kothari Commission and most recently the National Education Policy – have failed to make quality education for our children a compelling enough priority.

If official statistics are to be taken at face value, this description no longer holds true. The decade of the nineties seems to have witnessed a dramatic increase in literacy levels, school enrolment and retention rates, decline in dropouts, increase in the number of teachers and schools and a major escalation of public funding for education. With the state shedding its earlier unease about external assistance in elementary education, this phase has seen a plethora of donor-assisted programmes, both bilateral and multilateral. In addition, the last few years have also drawn in the corporate sector. This collective endeavour has even nudged the political class into moving a constitutional amendment for declaring education as a fundamental right, incidentally approved by the Rajya Sabha.

So, are we finally on the right track? Is it likely that the lessons from the many researches, experiments and innovations, both in the official system and outside, will finally bear fruit? Such exuberance may, in all likelihood, be somewhat premature. True, the educational discourse has moved away from the earlier lament about an insufficient demand for schooling and learning, particularly among the poor, socially marginalized and girls. Nevertheless, the disquiet with what children actually learn remains deep. It is also evident that a crucial reason why, despite an eagerness to learn and even a willingness to pay, children drop out of school or attend irregularly is because they find the experience in schools deeply dissatisfying.

Only in part is this due to inadequate infrastructure or the shortage of teachers, particularly women teachers, pushing student-teacher ratios to unacceptably high levels and forcing schools into multi-grade classes. It is equally because the school environment remains iniquitous and discriminatory vis-a-vis both the socially marginal communities and girls. Above all, is our collective failure to engage pedagogically with the child. This despite all educational documents being peppered with politically correct and evocative phrases like joyful and child-centred learning.

There is another problem, inadequately addressed both in research and policy. Today we have a wide variety of schools that have come up not merely as a response to a differentiated market demand, but policy. Forget for a moment the schools for the elite. For the common citizen we have the government primary schools, alternative (shiksha karmi, education guarantee) schools, aided and unaided private schools and so on. The stratification in schools both mirrors and further entrenches social stratification such that different schools, instead of catering to a heterogeneous group are dealing with cohesive groupings defined by income, caste and ethnicity. One implication of this ‘hierarchies of access’ is that the most deprived, and thus the most in need for the best education, usually end up receiving the least attention. A far cry from the common school system recommended both by the Radhakrishnan and Kothari Commissions.

Equally disingenuous has been the obsession with targets and statistics. For years now, the provincial governments responsible for elementary education have remained resource strapped, with well over 90% of their budgets devoted to meeting teacher salaries, and this too haltingly. Innovations and improvements were possible only as a result of central, and of late, external donor assistance. This created not only the problems associated with a donor-driven agenda and policy, but a fracturing of the effort with different funders pushing their favoured solutions. It simultaneously led to increasing pressure to report compliance on targets, most of which incidentally relate to inputs not outcomes. Possibly this is why, despite a multiplication of schemes addressing diverse problems through different agencies, it has proved difficult to focus on the simple and obvious task – that of generating and nurturing an environment which helps the child to learn.

In a vast and diverse country such as ours, it is not difficult to discover positive and success stories. The involvement of non-officials – community groups, NGOs, corporates – and the comparative experience made available through the participation of external donors, has clearly energized the once dispirited government primary school system. The introduction of bridge courses and rapid learning programmes designed specifically for dropouts and the never-enrolled children have undoubtedly helped, as have new and better textbooks and workbooks. Regions with active involvement of panchayats and community groups (parent-teacher associations, mother’s groups) have increased participation with school management, improving accountability and performance – be it midday meal schemes, school repair and building programmes or arranging supplementary learning and extra-curricular activities for children. Examples can be multiplied. The concern is whether our system(s) are willing and able to draw upon these lessons and translate the many but scattered efforts into better quality education.

Basic education is a necessity, not just instrumentally, but in itself. It can, and must be, fun, a joy. It would indeed be tragic if once again we let time slip by or let decision-makers off the hook. This issue of Seminar debates what is involved.