Posted by Ninad on April 12, 2010 under All Posts | 
Mark Twain has popularized this term “Lies, damned lies and statistics”.
With the right to education at primary level becoming a fundamental right, it is interesting to see some statistics connected to primary education in India (source: HRD Ministry). So, read on…
- Total number of children in 6-14 age group in India eligible for primary education: 19 million
- Number of children in the 6-14 age group who do not go to school: 8 million
- Drop out ratios:
- 25% by class V
- 50% by class VIII
- Number of primary schools in India with only one teacher: 120,000
These are staggering numbers. Around 40 per cent of eligible children (8 m) do not go to school.
Here are some more statistics (source: 2008-09 District Information System for Education) of the survey of 1.29 million government and private schools.
- Over 60 per cent did not have electricity
- 46.4 per cent did not have toilets for girls
- 50 per cent did not have boundary walls to ensure safety for students.
So, will the Right to Education change all this?
The gap is so huge that no amount of legislation can change this scenario in a short span of time. It will require consistent commitment from the government and citizens to increase the access and quality of primary education.
Because of the Right to Education law, more funds will certainly get allocated to schools and it will help in raising the capacity.
Posted by Ninad on April 5, 2010 under All Posts |
It’s been a long wait. Nine years!
The Constitution was amended nine years back to make education a fundamental right. On 1st April, 2010, the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act became a law. India has now joined a few countries like Chile and Bangladesh which ensure compulsory education.
“I am what I am today because of education” – this is what Dr, Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India stated in his address to the nation – an unprecedented gesture.
Undoubtedly, it is a historic moment.
However, there are a lot of doubts on how it will be implemented.
Where are the teachers? Despite the bravado, how will the government fund a total spend of Rs. 171,000 crores (approx. USD) 38 bn? Why cover private unaided schools with an obligation of 25 per cent reservation for the underprivileged?
There are many such questions.
However, there is no doubt that education is now in the forefront of the national agenda. There is a law to back it and the Prime Minister himself had addressed the nation on this issue.
If not anything else, this visibility will ensure that Education now takes its rightful centre-stage in all policy decision-making.
Posted by Ninad on November 13, 2009 under All Posts |
Recently, the State Bank of India advertised for 11,000 clerical posts. It received a staggering 3.4 million applications!
With roughly 300 applications for every vacancy, SBI is now planning to conduct exams in 83 centres over 6 sessions. This exercise is estimated to cost around Rs. 560m (approx. USD 13m), which will be recovered from the applicants.
Although the minimum qualification for the job is Class 12, many of the applicants are engineers and MBAs.
There have been many reports which suggest that only one in four graduates from colleges in India is employable. A NASSCOM study also concluded that most of the 400,000 engineers who graduate every year do not have required technical skills or fluency in English.
So, what is the solution?
Clearly, a university graduation in India is not enough to make a student employable. A lot more needs to be done.
A student needs to continually add skills in addition to his university studies. These could be in the form of learning IT skills or even learning communication and presentation skills.
Summer internship with companies will also help students to get the relevant industry experience during their vacations.
In addition, a proper vocational experience will help a student to become truly professional. In the Western countries, more than half the students who graduate have vocational experience. In India, it is in single digits.
Unless and until a student graduating from a University in India gets a holistic experience, he will not become employable. Till such time, we will continue to see millions apply for jobs in State Bank of India, for which they are clearly over-qualified.
Posted by Ninad on October 16, 2009 under All Posts |
Gross Enrollment ratio (GER) at the secondary level in India is 52%, which is far inferior to the GERs in countries like Vietnam (72%), Sri Lanka (83%) and China (91%).
It also varies significantly from State to State – 22% in Bihar and 92% in Kerala.
The drop-out ratio at the secondary level is significantly higher, due to challenges of access and quality. There are also huge disparities of genders, social groups and urban and rural areas. Private schools account for more than 60% of all secondary enrollment and most if the secondary school boys are from more affluent families.
I read an interesting article in the 10th October issue of Hindustan Times, titled “School’s out”.
The author had written about the state of secondary school education in a remote Ghoda village in Parbhani, about 650 kms east of Mumbai.
It gave details of how children were forced to drop out of school in the village as the there was no secondary school in the village. The nearest secondary school was 7 kms away.
There is no transport available from the village to the school and children have to walk to school. Girls have an added fear of security in this long trudge and to add to their woes, there is lack of toilets in the schools.
Result? Girls and boys cannot pursue their secondary education and have to live a life of being a farm help.
The Government has launched a scheme called Rashtriya Shiksha Abhiyan in 2008-09, with the objective to universalize access and improve quality of secondary education.
Clearly, much more needs to be done…
Public-private partnerships for secondary and higher secondary schools need to be encouraged, more teachers need to be hired, double-shifting of schools should be started, financial aid to disadvantaged students need to be offered…. The list can go on and on.
Secondary education plays an important role in a child’s development. Any amount of investment in primary and higher education will not yield the desired results, if secondary education is ignored.
Hopefully, this sector will also get equal attention with the ongoing process of reforms.
Posted by Ninad on October 12, 2009 under All Posts |
The government is laying a lot of emphasis on primary education. Sarva Shiksha Abihyan (SSA) is one of the largest programs of its kind in the world. It aims to enroll all 6-14 year old children in school by 2010 and have them complete eight years of schooling. India has more than 194 children in 1.1 million habitations spread across the country.
This program has made some impact on primary education. Net Enrolment Rate (GER) at primary level has risen from 68% in 1993 to 85% in 2005-06. The gender gap has reduced and there are now 92 girls for every 100 boys in primary school.
This program is complimented by the mid-may meal scheme, where hot cooked food is made available to children who attend school, to incentivize them to attend school. Mid-meal scheme of India is the largest of its kind in the world.
Expenditure on primary education is 53.5 % of the total Education Budget in India (2006-07). Higher education gets 18% and secondary education gets 30 %.
There is a lot of focus on higher education with a large number of institutes and colleges mushrooming across the country.
Caught between primary and higher education, secondary education is suffering. Sam Carlson of the World Bank calls it the “forgotten middle” and has pointed out in a recent report that investment in secondary education has declined.
Posted by Ninad on October 5, 2009 under All Posts |
Last week, I had written a BLOG on the Education Minister’s move to have CBSE schools rated.
National Accreditation Board for Education and Training (NABET) is the country’s first initiative to certify and rate educational institutions. Rating is done on the basis of standards developed by the Quality Council of India, its parent organization.
Quality Council of India is a non-profit, autonomous body set up jointly by the Government Indian Industry, to establish and operate national accreditation structure and to promote quality through nation- wide quality campaign.
Copy of the Accreditation Standard for quality school governance issued by NABET in September 2008 is attached in this BLOG. NABET accredits primary, secondary and higher secondary schools.
One of the first schools to get a certification from NABET is Kendriya Vidyalaya at R.K. Puram, Delhi. NABET has around 40-50 schools in the pipeline for rating.
For government schools, NABET has a program of preparing a program to get them to a minimum standard.
NABET is a pioneer in this field and we will see a lot more school rating agencies in future. Hopefully, this entire process of rating is executed properly and parents get objective information on the quality of a school.
Please go through Accreditation Standards for Quality School Governance
Posted by Ninad on September 22, 2009 under All Posts |
Education is a regulated sector across the world. Most countries do not easily allow foreign universities to operate in their country and if they do allow, it is done with a lot of regulations.
In India, The Foreign Education Providers (Regulation) Bill has been waiting in the wings since 2007.
The Bill seeks to regulate the entry, operation and maintenance of foreign education providers.
It has been reported that Kapil Sibal, Education Minister has cleared the draft of Foreign Education Providers (Regulation) Bill and it will be placed before the Union Cabinet soon.
Once cleared by the Parliament, foreign universities will be able to offer degree programmes independently in India.
Presently, there are many foreign universities offering degree courses in India in partnership with local universities. Once the Bill is passed, foreign universities will be able to offer independent degrees, without the need to tie up with a local university.
The raison d’etre for this bill is that it will save millions of dollars as Indian students will be able to study in foreign universities while staying in India. More than 250,000 students from India are studying in various universities outside India.
Students will still travel abroad to get a holistic education experience –- after all, education is much more than a degree. Hence, it is unlikely to save foreign exchange.
Foreign universities operating in India will allow students who cannot afford to travel abroad to get the same degree in India. To that extent, it will cater to a different category of students.
If foreign universities start operating in India, it will give students a choice and expand higher education offerings in India. There is a huge gap in the demand and supply in higher education and foreign universities will fill some part of this gap. Hopefully, some of these foreign universities will also improve the culture of research in India.
Kapil Sibal has mentioned that some of the best universities in the world are waiting in the wings to set up shop in India. One only hopes that good quality education is provided by foreign universities and India does not become a happy hunting ground for mediocre universities.
We will have to wait for the details of the Bill. However, if it does become a law, it will augur well for the Education sector in India. Students in India will get a far better choice and competitive pressures will also improve the quality of the present education providers in India.
The good old days of getting a degree from Oxford University only in Oxford may be over — it might soon be available in Pune!
Posted by Ninad on August 5, 2009 under All Posts |
One of the ways in which India’s soft power in education can be significantly enhanced is by becoming a global hub for higher education.
The US and the UK realized the importance of this and opened its doors to foreign students in the 20th century. Over the years, many of the universities in these countries have acquired a global reputation attracting students from around the world.
My elder son, Saahil, studies in an undergraduate program in the US. When I first visited the university, I was struck by the size and scale of the University and more importantly, by the diversity of students.
Other countries like Australia and Singapore have realized the importance of this and are trying to emulate the success of the US and the UK.
India has never actively promoted this. There are around 15,000 foreign students enrolled in colleges and universities in India. Malaysia has around 100,000 foreign students and China has set itself a target of 300,000 students by 2020.
India has some natural advantages to attract students.
- Cost: In the US and UK, annual tuition fees in a good university exceeds $30,000 per year. In India, it would be less than $ 10,000 per year. Add to that is the advantage of low cost of living and a student could save a substantial amount of money.
- English: In India, most of the universities teach in English and the entire ecosystem is capable of handling English speaking students
With these advantages, India can attract many students from emerging economies in Africa and Asia.
However, this will not happen easily.
Colleges and Universities will need to upgrade their present infrastructure, improve the quality of teaching, make their course curriculum more contemporary and also take pro-active steps to attract foreign students and make them comfortable on Indian campuses.
India has the potential to become a global education hub and also rival Bollywood with education as a soft power!
Posted by Ninad on July 29, 2009 under All Posts |
I had earlier blogged on the problem of shortage of teachers.
Here are some possible solutions:
- Para teachers: To tackle the problem of both teacher shortage and teacher absenteeism through these para teachers, a project called the ‘Shiksha Karmi Project’ was implemented in Rajasthan. This has been reasonably successful.Para teachers are generally members of the same community in which they teach, and therefore, share many of the experiences and cultural practices of their students, including their primary languages and cultural practices.
- E-learning: The promise of delivering education through eLearning has received a lot of hype. It has really not delivered as much. However, things have changed now. Technology is cheaper, broadband is reaching all the corners of India and PCs are becoming ubiquitous. This medium can never really replace classroom teaching. However, it can supplement it by using eLearning methods for some expert teaching done in a centralized manner.
- Pooling: Schools in the same vicinity need to collaborate more in terms of sharing of best practices and also possible sharing of teacher resources. Pooling of teachers for a group of schools can help those schools where there are temporary deficiencies.
- Youtube: Many teachers in the US record their lectures and make it available for everyone on Youtube. It is truly an economical medium of spreading knowledge. Why not embrace this in India as well?
- IIT for teachers training: Training for school teachers is done in Teachers training Colleges. Many of them do not have adequate infrastructure and have trainers of poor quality. When we can have IITs for engineers and IIMs for MBA students, why can’t we have an institute of a similar caliber to train teachers?
These are some of my thoughts. Do you have any ideas?
Posted by Ninad on July 16, 2009 under All Posts |
US President, Barrack Obama has been quoted in today’s papers as saying that he is laying the foundation of an education system that would help America compete with China and India in the 21st century.
In the same paper, Kapil Sibal, Education Minister of India, has been quoted as making a strong pitch for private investment and foreign universities.
What’s happening? The US wants to emulate India and India wants to emulate the US !!!
Both the countries have different needs. India needs huge funds to sustain higher education and the government cannot fund all these needs. They have to look for the PPP model (private public partnership) and also open up the sector for foreign universities. Once this is opened, it will, hopefully, bridge the huge gap between demand and supply and also ensure that the quality of education available to students improves dramatically. With more providers and more facilities, students will have a choice and everyone will benefit. There is still so much gap between demand and supply that India can easily accommodate some foreign universities provided they are willing to set up shop in India.
In US, there is a different problem. The country simply needs more graduates. President Obama is hoping that the reform plan will ensure that an additional five million Americans earn degrees and certificates in the next decade. If this gap for graduates in US is not filled, graduates from China and India will come to the US and take these jobs. Hence, the strong desire to have Americans pursue graduation.
It is really interesting and coincidental that statements by leaders from both countries have come on the same day which seems conflicting. Actually, they are not. They are two sides of the same coin.
