Redefining Access

The debate about school education in India has focused on many things – enrolment, retention, learning outcomes, teacher preparedness, vocational training, etc, but over the last few decades, we seem to have taken one thing for granted.  This is our definition of the term “access”, i.e., the availability of a school to every child.  Since the 1970s, when the 2^nd All India Education Survey took place, this concept has been defined in terms of physical proximity; in other words, the measure of a school’s availability to a child lies in its distance from her home, with the idea being that a school should be provided within the immediate neighbourhood.  Every government policy or law thus prescribes access in such language – a primary school within 1 kilometre of the residence of a child, an upper primary school within 3 kilometres, and a secondary school within 5 kilometres.

In a soon-to-be-published NUEPA/World Bank study on teachers in the Indian education system, Vimala Ramachandran et al[1] analyse DISE data to show that about one-third of all elementary schools have less than 50 children enrolled, while 11 percent of primary and 14 percent of secondary schools have two teachers or less.  At secondary level, only 3.3 percent schools have all the five subject teachers and head teacher prescribed.  Worse, fully a quarter of all government secondary schools operate out of two classrooms or less.

The exponential increase in the number of schools over the last decade as a result of the impact of programmes like Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) and the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, has led to an increase in the number of schools with less than optimal infrastructure or numbers of children and/or teachers.  What the foregoing numbers indicate is that the rapid expansion of the school system in the last few years has not been fully efficient on the ground.

Additionally, learning outcomes continue to remain a matter of concern despite the substantial increase in infrastructure, teacher appointments and enrolment.  Each succeeding ASER[2] report has highlighted the continued decline in learning levels and the increasing shift to private schools in rural areas, notwithstanding the opening of many more State schools.  Worryingly, the number of children in Class 5 unable to read a Class 2 text has actually increased from 47 percent in 2006 to 52 percent in 2014, even though the number of elementary schools increased from 1 million to 1.45 million during the same period!

This single minded expansion of school infrastructure has also contributed directly to the non-availability of enough trained and qualified teachers for all the schools and classes being opened under various programmes.  At the elementary school level alone, there are 500,000 teacher vacancies, with another 500,000 being needed to meet the norms stipulated by the Right to Education Act; existing teacher training colleges are simply unable to produce the required number of graduates.  Subject teachers are increasingly hard to find.  When combined with the well-known issues of teacher absenteeism, sub-contracting, etc, this effectively means that enough skilled teachers are simply not available to children in the classroom.

For the teachers themselves, this unprecedented expansion of the school system has not been without grief.  Apart from the personal difficulties of being posted to remote and inaccessible areas, those posted to single or two-teacher schools find themselves deprived of any opportunity for peer learning and thus, professional and personal growth.  And taking leave, attending training programmes away from school, or being deputed for several miscellaneous government duties, nearly always means leaving students without a teacher, further impacting already poor learning outcomes in the classroom.

All things considered, it appears that in practice the concept of access has been reduced to the ability to access a building instead a fully functional school.  This implies the need to re-examine our fundamental definition of access, and define it instead as the ability to attend a school with appropriate infrastructure and adequate numbers of qualified teachers, and to be enabled to achieve predefined learning outcomes, even if such a school is not within the existing norms for distance. Such a definition would compel us to look beyond availability of mere infrastructure, and focus on all the additional conditions that are essential to improve learning outcomes, thus changing the focus of the debate from mere physical proximity to school provisioning, empowerment of staff and administrators, and learning achievements.

Such a discussion is neither new nor unknown; in a policy brief published in 2009, the DFID-supported Consortium for Research on Education, Access, Transitions and Equity (CREATE) had defined “meaningful access” as “…access (that) requires high attendance rates, progression through grades with little or no repetition, and learning outcomes that confirm that basic skills are being mastered”^[3].  Writing in 2012, Rashmi Diwan of NUEPA pointed out how “…poor connectivity, lack of interaction with peer group of teachers and lack of need-based training to teachers coupled with inadequate and poor quality of school facilities”[4] made teaching in such schools far more complex.

If a new parameter of access is accepted, it would be possible to consolidate scattered existing schools into whole and viable institutions that are fully staffed and infrastructurally complete, yielding economies of scale as well as gains in efficiency.  In cases where the school is located beyond distances as currently understood, transport facilities or transport vouchers could be provided to eliminate associated costs.  Clearly this is not an option that would be appropriate for very young children – it may still be relevant to retain the 1 km norm for primary school.  However for children enrolled in classes 6 onwards, when the need for specialised subject teachers kicks in, it could potentially change the nature of schooling, while significantly impacting learning outcomes.

At the same time, while government accounts for just over three-fourths of all elementary schools, at secondary and higher secondary level, schools under private management are 37 percent and 40 percent respectively.  In other words, there are far more secondary schools available outside the government system, accounting for nearly 40 percent of all students enrolled.  It may also be possible to explore the use of these schools to admit children who would otherwise have accessed ill-equipped government schools, through the use of government-issued vouchers that cover the cost of tuition, books, uniforms, etc.  Some pilots involving such vouchers have been tried in India, notably by the Centre for Civil Society (www.ccsindia.org), with some success.

The ongoing review of the National Education Policy by the Ministry of HRD offers an opportunity to reconsider some of these issues. In a country that aspires to take its place on the world stage, education remains one of the most important sectors and needs immediate attention; we cannot continue to plan on the basis of concepts and philosophies that were relevant four decades ago.

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[1] Vimala Ramachandran, Prerna Goel Chatterjee, Nikhil Mathur, NUEPA; Aparna Ravi, CLPR; Toby Linden, Tara Beteille, Sangeeta Dey, Sangeeta Goel, Chiraag Mehta, The World Bank.

[2] Annual Status of Education Report, brought out by the NGO, Pratham. www.asercentre.org

[3] http://tinyurl.com/oorz25a, accessed 28.04.2015

[4] Diwan, Rashmi (2012), Indian Small Schools -  A Review of Issues and Related Concerns, NUEPA Occasional Paper 40, National University of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi.

Education Challenges for AAP

As the new AAP government looks forward to taking power in Delhi again, this may be a good time to consider some of the challenges the new Chief Minister is likely to face when he turns to the subject of school education.  More than anything else, I pray that he and his team, with the benefit of the overwhelming mandate of the people behind them and a full five year term to serve, will take the time to understand the situation before jumping to conclusions or hasty decisions.

It is heartening to note that unlike most other parties, the AAP manifesto for the Delhi elections made specific mention of education, although I find it hard to understand how much of what was included will actually be implemented.  What is particularly worrisome is the implicit belligerence on display towards private schools - proposals to "monitor private schools fees" for instance, indicate an especially narrow understanding of the issues involved.

One of the first documents I would recommend Mr Kejriwal reads is the magnificent report prepared by the committee set up to review the Delhi School Education Act and Rules, 1973, chaired by the redoubtable Ms Shailaja Chandra, former Chief Secretary of Delhi.  The committee, over a period of eight months in 2011, reviewed the existing situation and related documents, and met with a cross-section of stakeholders in the sector before making some very far reaching recommendations.  These include, among other things, a proposal to remove the dreaded "Essentiality Certificate" that every school management must obtain before it can even think of starting a school, allowing private companies to start schools, and considering the recognition of unrecognised budget schools that perform well.

There are nearly 5000 schools in Delhi, of varying shapes, sizes, and types.  The situation is complicated further by the fact that several agencies are responsible for overseeing their functioning - there are MCD schools, NDMC schools, Cantonment Board schools, and State government schools.  (With the trifurcation of MCD, the erstwhile MCD schools have now been divided between the three new bodies.)  Then there are the Kendriya Vidyalayas, the Pratibha Pathshalas, Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas, and others.  All these are government run; private schools are divided into minority and non-minority categories, and further into aided and unaided schools.  Some schools are run by NGOs and charities, such as the Deepalaya school that has recently been threatened with closure because it cannot meet the yardsticks specified by the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009.  And last, but not least, are the unrecognised budget schools that often run from one or two rooms in someone's house, and certainly meet none of the prescribed norms.

In terms of enrolment, roughly 50-55 percent children in Delhi attend some form of government school, while 40 percent go to private school.  According to an MCD estimate (referred to in the committee report mentioned above), unrecognised schools accounted for about 1.64 lakh children; if correct, this comes to about 4 percent of total enrolments.

Every admission season reinforces that fact that there are not enough good schools available, although it is difficult to believe, as the media and some activists would like you to, that all schools under private management are exploitative, expensive and non-transparent.  The truth is that many of them struggle to comply with very harsh regulations, including having to pay teachers salaries that match the exorbitant ones paid to government school teachers, and still provide a decent education.  And because government schools tend to be a second choice for many parents, the supply of places in private schools is unable to meet the demand.

Unlike other States, government schools in Delhi do relatively well on the education quality front; initiatives taken by the SCERT some years ago have borne fruit, and the general rate of scholastic achievement has been encouraging. However, they too are unable to admit all the children who apply, and often function with overcrowded classrooms and not enough teaching staff.  Infrastructure continues to remain a serious problem; new schools need to be built, while existing ones need immediate investment in facilities like blackboards, furniture, electricity, toilets, water facilities, and the like.

Land of course, remains a scarce resource in Delhi, both for government and private schools, and that makes it harder to plan for new schools, however much they might be needed.  AAP's plan to build 500 new schools is likely to run into this obstacle very soon, which will make it important to come up with some out-of-the-box solutions.  For private schools, the cost of land is so prohibitive that most are unable to consider expansion, so perhaps the new government can consider double shift schools, shorter school hours, etc. for some of the existing schools.

While the requirements of government schools need to be addressed, it is also important to accept that private schools are here to stay, and view them as partners in the process of educating our young.  In addition to increasing and improving infrastructure, and teacher availability, ability and accountability on the government side, there is an equally pressing need to encourage the opening of more private schools to meet demand.  In the new climate of supporting reduction of bureaucracy, it is possible to consider, for example, simplification of the approvals process for schools?  By some estimates, a private school operator needs 27 different clearances from various departments of government before it is possible to begin operation in Delhi - surely there must be some way to reduce those to a more manageable number?

We need innovative and creative ways of looking at the whole school education situation in Delhi.  Business as usual will not do, nor will an antagonistic approach.  The people of Delhi have spoken very clearly - they want change, and they want it across the board, in health, education, security, and employment.  I look forward to seeing that change in the way the new government plans to educate our children.

ASER 2014 - Looking Back Over a Decade

(This piece appears in ASER 2014, which was released earlier today in New Delhi; reproduced here by kind permission of the publishers, ASER Centre.)

Ten years ago, an ambitious and audacious idea was floated – why not have a people’s audit of government expenditure on education and produce a report for the common man?  In a conversation shortly after the 2% Education Cess was  introduced in 2004, I recall Madhav (Chavan, co-founder and CEO of Pratham) first proposing the concept, arguing that the people had a right to know where the Cess was being spent, and how effective it really was.  At the time, I was with the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and grappling with the concept of the Prarambhik Shiksha Kosh (PSK), a non-lapsable fund we were trying to convince the Finance Ministry to create, in order to ensure that Cess revenues remained with MHRD to support elementary education.  In that context, Madhav’s idea seemed like a good one, but I had no inkling then of the scale at which he was proposing to execute it.

When it was finally carried out, the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2005 covered some 490 districts and 3.3 lakh children, who were tested by volunteers from all walks of life, at home, in school, on the streets and in the fields, and just about everywhere in between.  Today the scale and scope of the reports have widened significantly, but for a first time exercise, it was bold and unparalleled in scale; quite simply, nobody had ever attempted anything like it before.  Most striking of all was its intent, captured by the “Preamble” to the report.  “We, people of India, from different states and regions, speaking different languages, sat with our children and looked within, inside our homes, at our villages, into our schools, and prepared this report for ourselves, to build a better India”.[1]  This was what set ASER apart from donor-funded or government surveys – it was a report of the people, by the people, for the people.

In 2004, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), the government’s programme for universalising elementary education, was in its third year of implementation.  Our concerns in MHRD at the time were primarily around provisioning and ensuring that all children were enrolled in school, in order to meet the first goal of the programme, viz., all children in school/EGS centre/bridge course by 2003.  It was already evident that the 2003 enrolment milestone had not been met, and all our efforts were thus concentrated on catching up.   When the findings of ASER 2005 were shared with us, some days before the formal release of the report, it was heartening to learn that the survey had estimated that just over 93% children of the appropriate age group were enrolled in school; this accorded well with the data being reported by the states, and seemed to indicate that SSA was having a successful impact on the ground.

The focus of most of the debate after ASER 2005 was more on the national enrolment figures; learning levels had also been tested, and the results did not fully match either popular perception, or the available NCERT data.  Later reports, treating the question of enrolment as more or less settled, have emphasised learning levels of children, testing among other things, to see where they stand, and exploring the differences, if any, between public and private schools.  These reports have also examined the availability of facilities in schools vis-à-vis those mandated by the Right to Education Act, and collected some basic economic information about households, such as possession of mobiles and TVs, etc.

The numbers coming out of the ASER 2005 survey also validated the results of another study commissioned by government and carried out by IMRB.[2]  The latter study estimated that some 1.34 crore or 6.94% children were then out of school, which approximated the ASER estimates of 1.4 crore or 6.6%.  The importance of the ASER results lay of course, in the fact that unlike the IMRB exercise which had been funded by government, they were an independent and non-partisan estimation.  While the IMRB report could conceivably be questioned as a "government statistic", the results of ASER were not so easily open to multiple interpretations.  Both the IMRB report and ASER 2005 were used extensively by government to provide evidence of the impact and effectiveness of its universalisation programme, at least in terms of improved enrolment figures.

While the enrolment data emerging from ASER has generally been viewed as encouraging, this has not always been the case with figures related to learning.  NCERT and several state governments disputed many of the findings, questioning both the methodology and the process adopted to determine learning outcomes.  In some cases, the hostility extended to actively banning Pratham from working with their schools, a challenge the latter overcame by working directly with village communities instead.

Somewhere around the fifth ASER report, a suggestion was made that perhaps there should be fewer reports; possibly one report every 2-3 years instead of a regular annual publication.  Many others who work in this sector no doubt shared my relief that this was one suggestion Pratham did not accept.  An annual ASER exercise and report have now become an integral part of the education landscape, serving to educate and inform stakeholders in the system and the public at large.

What impact has ASER had on the Indian education environment?  First, just the introduction of the concept of a "people's audit of education" was a game changer in itself; the People's Report on Basic Education (PROBE) was a one-off exercise and had not, at the time, been repeated, nor was it anything like ASER in its scope.  ASER reports have regularly held up a mirror to society, informing us of how much (or how little) our children have gained in terms of improved education levels, access to better schooling, and removal of inequities.  Note that its original purpose has not changed – ASER is still aimed at anyone who has an interest in education, not just policy makers or academics or other standard stakeholders in the system.

Second, the single most significant finding of ASER year after year has been the fact that learning levels across the country, whether in public or private school, have not improved.  Clearly, even after spending crores of rupees on delivering a Right to Education, our efforts have not succeeded as well as they should have; the policy prescription for shifting attention away from inputs to outcomes could not be clearer.

Third, and directly as a result of the above finding, ASER has succeeded in bringing the issue of learning centrestage; from a focus on ensuring that children are enrolled in school and that adequate infrastructural and teaching facilities are provided to them, the debate has now moved to a place where inputs are assumed, but the interest is in outcomes.  For the first time, the 12th Five Year Plan acknowledged that "there is a need for a clear shift in strategy from a focus on inputs and increasing access and enrolment to teaching learning process and its improvement in order to ensure adequate appropriate learning outcomes”,[3] explicitly agreeing that a more-of-the-same approach focused only on provisioning will not necessarily work.  While there will always be discussion around methodological approaches and whether ASER follows this or that method as opposed to others, the fact is that successive ASER reports have compelled us all to sit up and take notice of what is really happening inside schools.

Additionally, ASER has pushed both the central and state governments into commissioning their own assessments and analyses of the status of education in their schools, often in a move to defend policy and/or practice.  In many cases, these assessments do not produce the same results as ASER, partly since they are not comparable in terms of what is measured and who is covered, and there is often much controversy and hand wringing over the discrepancies, yet it is a moot point if such assessments would today be considered so essential if public perception had not been influenced so profoundly by ASER.

Fourth, ASER has been successful in highlighting an important trend in school enrolment – from only 16% children enrolled in private schools when ASER 2005 was carried out, the percentage has increased to nearly 30% in the last report.  Present trends seem to indicate that this number will increase to 50% by the end of the current decade. Given that this increase has taken place in rural areas, where much of the money spent on SSA and other programmes has been concentrated, this is not an encouraging development, and is one that merits serious reflection on the part of policy makers.

What should one now expect after a decade of this exercise?  Ideally, the annual reports should continue to raise the uncomfortable questions that they do today.  Perhaps there is now a case for a somewhat more sophisticated analysis of learning; not necessarily one that substitutes for say, a PISA or TIMSS, but one that develops a more rigorous indigenous model of assessment, feeding even more closely into policy making and thus potentially making a difference to learning in schools.  For there is no doubt that unless we get this piece right, any illusions of benefiting from a "demographic dividend" in the future are unlikely to be realised.

Personally, I would also like to see greater dissemination of the results of the report, not just at the time of its release, but continuously through the year.  Pratham and ASER Centre have of course, been disseminating the results at district and State levels all these years, but what we need in this country is a continuous and sustained debate about the education of our children.  Data from ASER is used regularly by the media to illustrate their reports; perhaps the next question to ask could be around ways to deepen this engagement in order to keep a discussion going.

Whatever direction the report takes in the coming years, ASER can rightly claim the credit for having changed, over the course of the last decade, the manner in which school education is discussed and understood in India; for that one achievement alone, Pratham deserves our thanks.

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[1] Pratham Resource Centre, Mumbai, Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2005 – Rural, 2006.

[2] http://bit.ly/1xCn3RO accessed 31.12.2014

[3] Planning Commission, Government of India, Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012-2017) – Faster, More Inclusive and Sustainable Growth, Vol III, 2012.