Monday, March 11, 2013

What is stopping India from Quality Mass Education?


            Given that India is so vast and diverse, it is just not possible for any individual to summaries its highly complex problems. Nonetheless, I shall attempt to touch upon some of the overall factors that hinder improvement in quality of mass-education.
·         Lack of clarity of measurable objectives of education at all administrative levels (from central government to individual classrooms): At any level of administration, there is no consensus on what kind of future citizens do we want. I understand some objectives may differ depending on the social context. However, objectives in India differ depending on who is responding to the question even at school-level. Therefore, educators and administrators often do not see any unified purpose of their actions. In addition, the idealistic goals that various governments declare often find little policy support and are hardly ever systematically evaluated.


·         Cycle of Deteriorating Teacher Quality as explained in figure below:
Note: There can always be exceptions. Teacher in elite-private schools are much better off.

·         Highly Hierarchical Centralized Structure: Curriculum, school calendar, text books, school fees, all physical resources are usually decided by state governments. System is based on lack of trust and assumption seems to be that people will abuse their power if granted to them. Furthermore, the hierarchy descends in order of Ministers → State administrators → district administrators → cluster coordinators → principals → teachers (full time senior, junior, contract teachers). Generally, person at lower-level is “supposed” to be an obedient servant of the higher authority. It is highly unlikely that a teacher expresses displeasure regarding policy decision to a district or state administrator face to face in Indian system.
·         Low accountability of teachers, principals, educational administrators at all levels in public education: Government jobs in India are often considered as the most secured jobs. Educational administrators at any level and teachers/ principals in government schools may get fired only in rarest of the rare cases. In their study Kremer and colleagues found that during unannounced visits 25% of teachers were absent from school, and only about half were involved in teaching activity (Kremer, Muralidharan, Chaudhury, Rogers, & Hammer, 2005). This study surveyed nationally representative sample of more than 3700 schools during three unannounced visits. Results suggested that a 10% increase in teacher absence was associated with 1.8% lower student attendance, as well as with a 0.02 standard deviation reduction in test scores of 4th-grade children. One good thing is that inefficiency of teachers is at least being studied systematically. There is no research done to examine how efficient the principals or educational administrators at district or state-level are. Nonetheless, India does not have any effective mechanism to tackle irresponsible behaviour of her public servants.  
·         Memory-based assessment: Research shows that the teaching methodology of teachers and the learning methods of students greatly depend on the type and quality of questions asked in educational assessments. Thus, if the majority of Indian students are choosing rote memorization and superficial learning strategies to crack the scholastic examinations, something must be wrong with the assessment system. Most educational assessments focus excessively on knowledge and understanding levels of cognition (as per Bloom’s Taxonomy). The students rarely get opportunity to exhibit their in-depth learning. In addition, replication of the text of the textbooks is often considered as an “ideal” answer and is well rewarded by the examiners. Thus, persistence of this trend and high proportion of knowledge-level questions have basically converted educational assessment into memory-tests.
·         Poor understanding of Educational Science: Education as a field of study is often narrowly understood as “teacher training”. India has not developed educational infrastructure for producing curriculum designers, educational administrators and school leaders, school psychologists, educational policymakers, psychometricians and so on. In addition, educational researchers have hardly ever found significant voice in national or state-level policy making. Also, educational researchers have shied away from both electronic and print media and there has not been informed public debate on various educational issues. I would be surprised if any Indian, except an educational researcher him/herself, would be able to name even three Indian educationists.

I hope this article helps address the last point at the very least.

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Education in India: The Big Picture

[NOTE: A version of this article was published in Fair Observer magazine on 19th April 2013.]
School Education

Indias school system has witnessed a huge expansion since 1950 when the country began to develop a mass education system, which was earlier elite oriented during the times of British colonial rulers. The basic education system, which consisted of around 200,000 schools in 1950, has expanded to more than 1.1 million in 2010.

The growth has been particularly impressive since 1990. During this period, enrolment increased from mere 22.3 million (Govinda, & Josephine, 2004) to more than 193 million in 2010-11 (Mehta, 2012). According to an estimate 95% of the rural population has a primary school within 1 km and about 85% population have an upper primary school within 3 km (Govinda & Josephine, 2004).

             Though the enrolment rates are close to universal in the current scenario, the quality of education is a big concern. Education Initiatives (2010) conducted a large scale study across 1Indian states (N=160000). Students of class 4, 6 and 8 were sampled from 2399 government schools  and  wertested  ilanguage  and  mathematics  through  common-test  paperin  13 language  versions.  Itheir  executive  summary,  researcherreported  –learning  levels  are extremely low. Many other large studies on nationally representative sample have suggested similar conclusions (for e.g., ASER 2005-12; and NCERT, 2008). Such results point out at the fact that Indian policy makers have failed to look beyond the enrolment-rates and the literacy-rate, which stands at just above 74% as per India Census 2011. Fortunately, there is some recognition of this poor quality of education among the policymakers and politicians. In his address to the teachers and educators on the Teachers Day, the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh said (News track India, 2012)

as we move ahead, we need a clear shift in our strategy from a focus on inputs, access and enrolment to what goes on in the classroom and the school.
We need to set up transparent and reliable systems for tracking attendance of children in a truly  meaningful  way.  At  the  same  time,  we  need  to  put  in  place  a  system  of  continuous assessment of the benefit our children are getting from their education. Participation of the community and parents would be essential in this process, so that they can be satisfied with the quality of teaching."


Though there is a lot of rhetoric on all round development of children” in policy discussions, Indian policymakers have remained reluctant in expanding their definition of schooling (i.e., enrolment and literacy rates as described above). Even today, the mass-education system gives hardly any encouragement to inquiry and higher order learning; classroom participation and discussions; sports, music and other art forms.

Furthermore, there has been little attention paid to the children with special needs. Overall, most educational boards across Indian states define disability as blindness, hearing and/or speech impairment, mental retardation and physical disability.
  
There is no consideration of the entire gamut of psychological conditions in children (for e.g., learning-disability, emotional disturbance, autism spectrum, schizophrenia, anxiety and depressive symptoms etc.). As a result, concept of school psychology and access to psychological services have mostly remained absent from the educational policies and Indias educational infrastructure.
  
Higher Education

Like basic school education, the higher education system has undergone a rapid expansion in past six decades. When India got Independence, there were only 20 universities and 496 colleges across the nation (UGC, 2008). But, as of 2012, there are nearly 621 universities an27468 colleges in India (MHRD, 2012). However, the access to higher education has a very narrow base, as only 12.4 % of students (MHRD, 2011) go for it as compared to nearly 18% in China (Young, 2012) and 41% in the US (The Washington Post, 2011).
  
In order to increase that figure of 12.4% to 30%, India would require another 800 - 1000 universities and over 40,000 colleges by the next decade (Gupta & Gupta, 2012). It is worth mentioning that the vocational education track is extremely underdeveloped in India, unlike Germany or Finland. According to the Ministry of Human Resource Development report, only about 5% of students opt for vocational education route.


In addition to the problem of access, there is a deep crisis of the quality of higher education. Let alone the mass higher education institutions, a few of the premier institutions (e.g., IIMs & IITs) that the policymakers usually boast of rarely ever appear on the list of worlds top five hundred institutions. Agarwal (2006) summarizes this crisis aptly in his abstract as follows:
  
The standards of academic research are low and declining. Some of the problems of the Indian higher education, such as the unwieldy affiliating system, inflexible academic structure, uneven capacity across various subjects, eroding autonomy of academic institutions, and the low level of public funding are well known.

Many other concerns relating to the dysfunctional regulatory environment, the accreditation system that has low coverage and no consequences, absence of incentives for performing well, and the unjust public funding policies are not well recognised. Driven by populism and in the absence of good data, there is little informed public debate on higher education in India” (p.g. IV).
India, having a median age of 27years, is a nation of young people. It has 672 million people in the age-group 15 to 59 years, which is often considered the working age population. It is also being predicted that the dependency ratio (i.e., proportion of non-working population to total population) will be on a decline over the next 30 years, which will constitute a major opportunity odemographic dividend’ for India.

On the other hand, most of the developed countries are growing old and are likely to face increasing economic crunch as their dependency ratio is on the rise. If India can develop a skilled workforce through dramatic expansion of vocational and higher education system quantitatively as well as qualitatively, she will not just serve her self-interest but the interest of many other parts of the world. Whether India suffers demographic disaster with millions unskilled and unemployed or achieves demographic dividend” by generating skilled human resource that take her to prosperity, only the time will tell that. Without a doubt, Indian educational policy makers have one of the toughest jobs of the 21st century.

 References
Agarwal, P. (2006). Higher education in India: The need for change. Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations; Retrieved from: http://www.icrier.org/pdf/icrier_wp180__higher_education_in_india_.pdf
ASER Centre (2005-12). Main Findings ASER 2005-11. New Delhi, India. Retrieved from:     http://www.asercentre.org/ngo-education-india.php?p=ASER+KEY+DOCUMENTS
Education  Initiatives.  (2009).  Student  learning  study:  An  India  report.  Retrieved  from: http://www.ei-india.com/student-learning-study-an-india-report/
Govinda, R, and Y Josephine. (2004). Para-Teachers in India: A Review, National Institute oEducational Planning and Administration, New Delhi.
Gupta, D. and Gupta, N. (2012). Higher Education in India: Structure, Statistics and ChallengesJournal of Education and Practice, 3(2), 17-24.
Mehta, Arun C. (2012). Elementary Education in India: Progress towards UEE: Analytical Repor2010-11.NUEPA, New Delhi. Retrieved from (11/12/2012)http://www.dise.in/Downloads/Publications/Publications%202010-11/AR%202010-11/DISE-analytical-tables-provisional-2010-11.pdf
MHRD. (2012). Provisional report on All India Survey on Higher Education 2010-11. New DelhiRetrieved from: http://mhrd.gov.in/statistics_data?tid_2=239
MHRD. (2011). Annual Report on Higher Education in India- 2009-2010. New Delhi. Retrieved from: http://mhrd.gov.in/statistics_data?tid_2=158
NCERT. (2008). Learning Achievement of Students at the end of Class V: Executive SummarySarva  Shiksha  Abhiyan.   Retrieved  from:  http://ssa.nic.in/quality-of-education/learning- achievement-of-students-at-the-end-of-class-v
News track India. (2012). PM Manmohan Singh emphasizes on need to improve education qualityRetrieved  from:  http://www.newstrackindia.com/newsdetails/2012/9/4/285-PM-Manmohan- Singh-emphasizes-on-need-to-improve-education-quality.html
The   Washington   Post (2011) Playing   Catch   U wit the   College.   Retrieved   from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/playing-catch-up-in-college- completion/2011/09/12/gIQAegt6NK_graphic.html
UGC. (2008). Higher Education in India: Issues related to expansion, inclusiveness, quality and finance. New Delhi.
Young,    E.    (2012).    Global    education    shifts.    Inside    Higher    Ed.    Retrieved    from: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/07/12/china-and-india-producing-larger-share- global-college-graduates