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THE tenth edition of ASER – Annual Status of Education Report – released in mid-January, does little to lift the spirit of those concerned about improving the learning levels of children in our schools. It appears that, barring a few changes on the margin, outcome indicators in 2015 are no different from those reported in the first such survey in 2005. Evidently, despite a slew of measures – the imposition of a 2% cess to raise additional funds for elementary education; a major hike in plan allocations; new initiatives involving teacher recruitment and management, textbooks and pedagogy, enhance participation of parents and community in schools; and, above all, the enactment of the Right to Education Act – progress on the ground appears depressingly slow. After decades of effort, the proportion of children in school able to acquire grade level competency in basic reading, writing and maths firmly locates India among the worst laggards in international rankings.

It is not as if nothing has changed in the last decade. Enrolment data shows clear improvement, with well over 95% of children in the age group 6-11 years in school. The number and proportion of the ‘not enrolled’ as also dropouts has declined. There is also considerable improvement in school facilities – from pucca buildings to toilets and blackboards. Significantly, the proportion of regular teachers too has gone up; it appears that the ‘questionable’ policy of hiring contract or para-teachers in various states in an effort to reduce the salary burden is being jettisoned. Also that the teacher-student ratio is showing improvement and the incidence of multigrade classrooms is coming down.

What, however, appear far more resistant to change are the learning levels of children in elementary schools. This comes out not just in the ASER surveys, a voluntary initiative, but also the official studies carried out by the NCERT. Close to half the children in grade 5 can barely read a grade 2 text. English reading and comprehension is expectedly worse, with a little over ten per cent of grade 5 children unable to read even capital letters. And the less said about maths the better, with less than a quarter of grade 5 children surveyed capable of handling simple subtraction and division.

There is more. One of the paradoxes of the last decade is the steady increase in private school enrolment despite substantial increases in investment in government schools. It is important to remember that teachers in government schools are much better remunerated, that school infrastructure is much better, and that the students not only are not charged fees but also receive substantial support in terms of textbooks, uniforms, midday meals, and so on. Yet, close to a third of all children are now in private schools, a figure which crosses over 50% in states like Uttar Pradesh. And the trend is accelerating.

In part this is because private schools, unlike government schools, are seen to function a fact reflected in the somewhat higher learning levels of their students. It must, however, be pointed out that analysis which disentangles the effect of other factors from that of private schools on learning outcomes, reduces, for grades 1-5, the learning gap of 8.6 percentage points between government and private schools to a much lower 2.9 percentage points. Clearly, factors other than the school matter far more.

Equally fascinating is the data on the impact of private tuition on learning outcomes. It is often not realized that as many as a quarter of children enrolled at the elementary level (grade 1-8) in rural India receive private tuition, paying on average Rs 170 per month, by no means a small amount for poor parents. Or that in some states the figure of those seeking private tuition is as high as 70 per cent, a stark pointer to the abysmal learning environment in many of our schools. Now, private tuition does have a significant positive impact on learning outcomes, in all likelihood because students are not only spending more time with books but also receiving greater personal supervision.

So far our educational planning has been input focused – improving school infrastructure alongside teacher emoluments, training and cadre management. All this, while essential, is insufficient. As crucial is ensuring that the child is able to spend greater quality time with the teacher and other students in school. Otherwise, it will be difficult to reverse the growing trend towards increasing reliance on private schooling.

Hopefully surveys like ASER, with a focus on outcomes rather than inputs, will help direct attention to the persistent challenge of low learning levels in our rural schools – public or private. Equally, this may spur more research into the impact of different schemes and policy instruments. Otherwise, like in the past, we may continue to re-invent the wheel.

Harsh Sethi