Reflections on International Literacy Day

On International Literacy Day (8^th September) comes news of the latest UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report calculating that India will be delayed by half a century in reaching her educational goals.  Universal primary education (grade 5) will only be achieved by 2050, universal lower secondary education (grade 10) by 2060, and universal upper secondary education (grade 12) by 2085.  A day earlier, newspapers had reported that the cut offs in the IIT Joint Entrance Exam in the last two years have fallen from 35 percent in 2014 to 20 percent in 2016; clearly, even as we struggle to provide all children with a school education, the quality of that education is dropping by the day.

A recent World Bank discussion paper on value for money provides even more startling figures.  The most alarming of these is the disclosure that between 2011-12 and 2014-15, the annual per pupil expenditure increased nationally by 253 percent, while aggregate learning outcomes as measured by the National Achievement Surveys declined between 6 and 33 percentage points!  In other words, while we’ve been throwing billions of rupees at the education problem in the hope that it will go away, it is actually becoming worse as time goes by.

Sample this – in Kerala, average annual per pupil expenditure increased during this period by 51.7 percent, while learning outcomes fell by 5.3 percentage points; in Tamil Nadu, the corresponding numbers were 77.3 percent and 6.6 percentage points.  Needless to add, these are among the most educationally advanced States in the country.  The situation in the less “advanced” States is worse – in Madhya Pradesh, UP and Bihar, annual per pupil expenditure increased by 253, 115.4 and 90 percent respectively, while learning outcomes fell by 9.1, 11.9, and 4.4 percentage points each.[1]

Thanks to Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan, 140,000 additional government schools were established in the last nine years, but overall enrolment in the government sector declined by 6.7 million.  On the other hand, the private sector saw an increase in enrolment of 35.5 million during the same period, and the opening of 170,000 new schools.  Falling standards in government schools is triggering a massive movement away from these schools; the poorest parents are unwilling to accept the “free” education doled out here.

Post the 6^th Central Pay Commission, government teachers in India are paid 3 times as much as government teachers in China, and up to 25 times more than the average private school teacher in India.  With the implementation of the 7^th Pay Commission, this disparity looks set to increase.  Purely from an efficiency standpoint, the World Bank paper demonstrates that the cost per unit of learning achievement is Rs 338 in government schools, as compared to Rs 63 in private schools; to put it more bluntly, private schools are five times more efficient in delivering the same results.

Part of the reason for inefficiencies in the government system is the need to address competing demands.  Today there are 100,000 schools in the country that have 20 pupils or less; in an earlier blog (12^th May 2015), I had argued for consolidation of small schools to reduce inefficiency, but these are decisions that are not easy for governments.

More money is clearly not the answer to these problems, so what is?  To start with, perhaps we need to move to a regime of less regulation, not more.  Over the years, regulatory systems in education have become rigid and inflexible, throttling many independent and innovative ventures who have tried to make a difference.  The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act of 2009 prescribed a whole host of input requirements, with no mention of outcomes.  Most of these input requirements were mandatory for private schools, but not for government ones.  Given the picture described above, perhaps we need to consider stipulating desired outcomes for all schools, government or private, especially in terms of learning achievements, instead of only inputs.

A report on the proposed new National Education Policy has been awaiting government action for a few months.  As government moves to finalise it, perhaps it would be useful to consider some of these aspects as well, so that we adopt a national policy that enables rather than hampers those who wish to contribute to children learning well.

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[1] Since the NAS only covers government and government-aided schools, these results exclude results for private schools.

The Reality of Skilling India

Background

In the last few years, India has attempted to put in place policies and mechanisms to take advantage of her apparent demographic dividend, in recognition of the importance of skilling her young people before they reach the job market. The World Youth Skills Day (July 15^th) provides an opportunity to reflect on our current situation and the additional steps we need to take in order to achieve our goals.

The numbers are well known, but bear repetition – India’s strength over the next couple of decades is expected to lie in her demographic dividend, i.e., the 65% of her population that is under the age of 35, who are or will be the next productive generation.  Each month, just over a million young people join the workforce, yet only a minuscule number are formally trained. These young people can potentially fill a requirement for skilled personnel not only in India, but also in other countries across the world that will be dealing with ageing populations during this period.

But this significant demographic dividend brings challenges and opportunities in equal measure; any failure to address its obligations now will have significant consequences in the future, including some that may have an impact on our very social fabric.  Signs of this impact are already visible in daily newspaper headlines, which describe a sharp increase in petty and serious crimes, all too often perpetrated by poorly educated and unemployed youth.  An interesting analysis on this situation by my friend Amitabh Pandey can be found here.

Policy Interventions

On the policy side, the national skill development policy was revised in 2015 in the form of the National Policy on Skill Development and Entrepreneurship 2015.  A National Skill Qualification Framework separately prescribes competencies required at various levels of skill in the form of knowledge, skills and aptitude.  However, the supply side of training and skill delivery needs to be accompanied by expanding opportunities available to youth on the demand side; this implies bringing about an investment climate that encourages the creation of jobs.  FDI norms have recently been eased in 15 sectors, which have the potential to generate some 4 million additional job opportunities, yet much more needs to be done. The 2016-2017 Budget had also proposed steps to supplement the Make in India initiative, reinforcing the need to build capacities of Indian youth, yet one of the contradictions with which policy makers continue to grapple is the fact that while on the one hand there is unemployment, on the other, industries deal with large scale vacancies. Clearly this mismatch between employment seekers and employers is one that needs to be addressed on priority; the question to ask if we're seeing enough action on the ground.

Role of Industry

This process cannot be left to government alone – industry too needs to step up its engagement and accept responsibility as part of its national and social obligations.  There is also a need for stronger industry-academia interaction; we need to see high quality industry engagement with the actual process of skill development.  Creation of industry cells at ITIs and polytechnics to enable exposure to current methodologies and processes is one possible form of engagement.  In today’s world, technology changes rapidly, making it difficult for technical institutes to keep up. This is where industry can step in to complete the learning process and to help training institutes to stay abreast of current developments.  The example of the German dual system is often cited, precisely because it involves such a strong relationship between industry and training, with trainees completing part of their course on the job in their chosen fields.

Situation on the Ground

In a recent study that was carried out on behalf of CII Northern Region, it was found that young people are in general, quite willing to pay in order to acquire skills and skill certification, believing that such certification can lead to better opportunities; this willingness does not however, find immediate reflection among employers, who are not ready to pay a premium for skill training.  This contradiction arises partly from the fact that employers are not fully comfortable with or sure of the reliability and integrity of the assessment and certification processes, which underlines the need to strengthen these systems so that we have in place robust and dependable mechanisms for assessing and certifying the skill levels of employment seekers.  Nothing illustrates the criticality of such mechanisms better than the recent scandal involving exam toppers of the Bihar examination board.  However, the importance of industry recognising skill certification through a wage premium in order to encourage the acquisition of skills cannot be emphasised strongly enough – failure to do so could become one of the most important causes of our eventual failure in this area.

In order to achieve sustainable progress in vocational training and skill-intensive education, these will also need to be seen not as parallel options, but as supplementary streams to mainstream education.  This requires closer integration with the school system, something that the CBSE has recently started with its vocational education courses in grades 9-12.  What we need to see also is greater awareness generation about these options at the school level, not just among students but also among teachers and educational administrators. Skilling cannot be an ad hoc activity; it needs structure and clear targets in order to take up the massive task of skilling 400 million people. Holistic planning that involves all stakeholders thus becomes essential to bridge the demand and supply gap of the workforce.

Conclusion

The state of education in India is well known; systematic neglect over the years, prioritising certain forms of higher education over school education and general literacy, and overall mismanagement have led to a situation where more than half the children in grade 5 cannot read a grade 2 text.  We need to be certain we do not repeat this experience in the skill development sector.  Poor learning levels in school, combined with often questionable skilling courses and a reluctance to pay wage premium are a recipe for disaster.  We have only the next 2-3 years to get the formula right; if we don't, we're staring at a guaranteed demographic meltdown instead.