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.

Skill Bill

Now that we have a new Minister for Skills Development, this may be a good time to pause and consider the truth of our skills development efforts.  In a country where only about 2 percent of those entering the job market receive any formal training, and where the existing annual capacity to train is just over 3 million persons per annum, the government has a target of skilling 500 million young people by the year 2022.  This is an ambitious goal by any yardstick, both physically and financially, and one that we will need to meet in full measure if we are really to take advantage of the so-called “demographic dividend”.

The trouble though, is that this is not just a quantitative target; success here will depend partly on the numbers, but also on the quality of the skills imparted.  Not getting that piece right could lead us to a demographic disaster instead, with poorly trained or untrained and unemployable young people being let loose on the streets to cause mayhem and chaos.

Some months ago, I took a small vacation, spending a few days in my favourite city, Goa.  For a change this time, I booked myself into a brand new hotel, one that had started operations only a couple of months ago.  Swankily built, the hotel boasted all the mod cons – rain showers, fancy light fittings, a mini bar, 24x7 room service, blah, blah, blah.  From an infrastructural point of view, it is hard to think of anything that could have been added; clearly a great deal of thought and money had been invested in designing and setting up the property.

However, when it came to the staff and their orientation towards guest comfort, a great deal was left to be desired.  As in so many other service industries, the training of staff seemed to have stopped at the point where they had learnt how to smile and wish you ‘good morning’ or ‘good night’.  My request for a softer pillow than the one in my room left them completely flummoxed; this wasn’t a request in their script, and they didn’t know how to deal with it!

In recent years, there’s been a lot of discussion about skills training for young people, and the need to equip them with the ability to take on different types of jobs in the service industry.  Yet in none of these discussions have I once heard anyone talk about the concept of service, and how to help trainees understand it.  This lack of understanding impacts the manner in which customer-facing staff interact with the most important person for the business, the customer.  Since in most cases, this interaction takes place at the lowest level, it becomes the level at which an organisation’s public reputation is made or marred.

 Take for instance, the Indian Railways; notwithstanding the many seasoned and experienced managers in the organisation, its image in the public mind is determined almost solely by the rude (or corrupt) behaviour of the TTE on the train or the ticketing staff at the windows.  Similarly, anyone who has ever had to deal with a call centre at the other end of a phone for banking or mobile services will know exactly what I’m talking about.  Two minutes into the conversation, you’re wondering why you called them in the first place; unless you have a really simple request (that you could probably have executed yourself if you’d really tried), you will leave the conversation deeply frustrated and ready to kill.

Mind you, these are not untrained people; they have been trained quite extensively in what is considered appropriate, but never with the explicit end objective of serving the customer.  They are given a set routine – if A, then B; if B then C, and so on.  No allowances for the fact that the customer may want Z instead, and no scope for deviating from the script, even if they were inclined to be helpful.

Another example – I recently changed phones, and needed a smaller SIM card.  When I went to the service provider’s store, I was asked to provide proof of identity, residence, PAN card, etc, even though I’ve been their customer for more than ten years, and this data should be available on record.  After which, the new SIM card took more than 6 hours to be activated, during which time I had no service.  Contrast this with the process followed in US when I needed a phone during a short trip.  Not only did the retailer not need any paperwork, the phone was activated within a few minutes, well before I left the counter.

Which brings me back to where I began.  The trouble with our skilling programmes lies not in the training or lack of it; it lies in the fact that they are not focused on simplicity and service with the goal of satisfying the customer.  Why was it so easy to buy a working phone in the US as opposed to getting a replacement SIM card in India?  Largely because businesses there emphasise customer satisfaction, and will do whatever is needed to achieve it, unlike here, where we carry forward the old government mindset of “be grateful I’m giving you anything at all”.

Just as the newly launched Swachch Bharat Abhiyan seeks to change the way we look at cleanliness, we need to start stressing a sense of service in our education, skills and training programmes.  Skilling is not just about imparting technical abilities; it must also instil an awareness of customer requirements, and the need to satisfy them.  Not doing so will carry a much higher cost than the additional investment required for this purpose.  As the new Minister draws up plans to establish new training facilities and involve the private sector in delivery, wouldn’t it be great if he paid a little attention to this aspect too?

No Sh*t!!

The Prime Minister has launched, with much fanfare, a programme to clean India over the next five years, just in time for the Mahatma's 150th birth anniversary.  A thoroughly laudable objective, but one that sadly runs the real risk of being reduced to tokenism and forgotten once the cameras have been put away. Already there are snickers in the media and cynical comments about the mess left behind after the inaugural ceremonies, proof if any were needed, that it will be difficult to change public perception in a hurry.

Along with the plans for building toilets in schools and villages, there has also been discussion about IEC programmes - information, education and communication - to create mass awareness about the importance of cleanliness and good sanitation.  And with good cause - nearly 53% Indians still defecate in the open, with 47% finding it "pleasurable and more convenient", and the less said about our cleanliness habits the better.  In many ways, the situation is reminiscent of 1950s America, where more homes then had television sets than bathrooms.  And yet, in the space of a few generations, that picture has changed completely.

In all the public debate resulting from the PM's initiative, it seems to me that an important component of IEC has been missed; or at least, has not found significant mention.  This is of course, the need for a comprehensive Water & Sanitation programme to be run in our schools.  If we are truly serious about ensuring a clean nation, we need to begin young.  And what better place to begin than in our schools?  The present generation may or may not be educatable, but a well designed programme implemented in school over the next five years could change the future of this country.

Many years ago, I used to run a joint Government of India and UN project called Janshala.  In Karnataka, where the project ran in a few blocks, we implemented a Water & Sanitation programme with the help of UNICEF that involved teaching children how to use the school toilets.  This included usage, cleaning and personal hygiene, and helping the children to understand how disease could spread due to poor sanitation habits.  The programme was a great success in improving attendance and retention rates in the schools, particularly of girls who are the most vulnerable to dropping out in the absence of toilets.

More interesting however, was the unintended fall out of the programme.  A longitudinal study taken up at the time showed that as the children got accustomed to using toilets in school, they began to demand them at home.  Over time, this led to the construction of toilets in village homes, and to families of these children also acquiring good sanitation habits.  The school programme ended up having a multiplier effect, impacting not just the children's cleanliness habits, but also their families.  It is precisely this kind of programme that we should be planning for the schools now.

Instead of prescribing Mr Dina Nath Batra's flights of fancy to young minds, wouldn't it be great if State governments worked out and included a WatSan module in the school curriculum?  Combined with the mass construction of toilets in schools by governments and companies undertaking CSR works, this could be the one thing that changes the India we know.