Discussions so far: Primary Education

[Sanjeev Sabhlok <sabhlok@almaak.usc.edu>]

SUMMARY OF DISCUSSIONS SO FAR

TOPIC: PRIMARY EDUCATION

Utkarsh:
----------------
Hi Everyone:

Having decided "EDUCATION" as the first topic of a policy statement, I
have started to do some research. I was able to find one good resource. 
Over the last five years, world bank has provided more than $600 M to
increase primary education in India.  They have published a report

Titled:Primary Education in India by World bank. 

I was told by the project co-ordinator that it does outline India's
current policy. It is available through Worldbank Publications.

at http://www.worldbank.org/html/extpb/Publications.html

and can be ordered using instructions from:

http://www.worldbank.org/html/extpb/HowToOrder.html

for $30 and shipping.

Any one interested should order the book. I did order a copy for myself. Please let
us know if any one of you have come across any other resource.

PRESS RELEASE

News Release No. 97/ 1317 SAS 
                                                    
UNIVERSAL PRIMARY SCHOOL EDUCATION OF HIGHER
QUALITY IS WITHIN INDIA'S GRASP

NEW DELHI, April 24, 1997^×India^Òs primary education glass is two-thirds
full, one third empty. Having steadily raised primary enrollment rates
since independence, India today has the world^Òs second largest education
system after China, with 67 million children aged 6-10 attending primary
school. But another 32 million primary school age children are not in
school, and the result is that many of the huge returns to primary
education are lost, the World Bank says in a new study, Primary Education
in India, released today.

According to the report, India^Òs average level of educational attainment
has not yet reached the critical threshold where benefits are greatest
and high economic growth rates are sustainable. Without action, at the
current rate of growth in primary schooling in some of India^Òs largest
states, educational attainment will not reach an average of four to five
years of primary education until the middle of the next century. 

"Primary education leads to better family health, lower fertility, and
slower population growth. It helps workers to take advantage of
technological change, raising their productivity and earnings. 
Increasing the labor force^Òs average primary schooling by even one year
can increase output substantially," says Marlaine Lockheed, a principal
education specialist at the World Bank and main author of the study.

The report is based on a collaborative program of research and studies
conceptualized and carried out in India by the Ministry of Human Resource
Development/Department of Education and major Indian research
institutions and scholars. The report presents new data on primary
education in India and focuses on how to provide primary schooling or its
equivalent for all 105 million children of primary school age in India
and how to improve the quality of the more than 500,000 mostly public
schools serving the rural poor.

Main Findings

Enrollment data and age-specific literacy rates suggest that India has
made great strides in expanding access to education^×in 1993 about 100
million children were enrolled in primary school, up from 85 million in
1987. But reaching full enrollment of the 6-10 age group remains a major
challenge in all states of India and a distant goal in some.

Although there is considerable uncertainty about the reliability of the
available data on India^Òs education system, the report found that: 

^Õ More than 80 percent of six-year old children enroll in school. 

^Õ Enrollment by girls increased by 20 percent between 1986 and 1993. 

^Õ About 65 percent of the 6-10 age group attend school regularly. 

While: 

^Õ Growth in enrollment between 1986 and 1993 has been modest (13.8
percent), and the official gross enrollment rate increased by only 4.2
percentage points to reach 95 percent in 1993-94.

^Õ About 15-20 percent of the children enrolled are overage. 

^Õ About 15-20 percent of the children enrolled do not come to school
regularly.


^Õ Only 35 percent of children who enroll in grade 1 are enrolled in
grade 8 eight years later.

^Õ About 32 million children remained out of school in 1993. 

An important part of India^Òs primary education story is the great
diversity in performance, the report says. Almost all students^×97
percent^×are in the 15 major states. Of these, Kerala, Tamil Nadu,
Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Punjab are providing almost all their
children with a primary education. But national progress will critically
depend on progress of six states^×Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh,
Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal^×which account for seventy-five
percent of the primary schoolage children not in school. The report says
that centrally-sponsored schemes to tackle the challenges of primary
education development such as the District Primary Education Program
(supported by the World Bank) are showing promise in these and other
states.

In addition to disparities between states, vast differences remain within
states^×with some districts faring poorly even in states that are
otherwise doing well, and vice versa. There are also gaps between groups
of children:

^Õ Gender gap^×Since independence, India has reduced disparities between
boys and girls in primary education. During 1981-91 primary enrollment
for girls grew 3.7 percent per year, while for boys it grew 2.5 percent
per year. The male literacy rate for persons age seven and above is
nearly double the female rate. The gender gap in literacy stems largely
from the gender gaps in enrollment and retention, both of which have
narrowed in recent decades.  The main reasons for persisting gender
disparities are economic activity and lack of interest. Also important
are parental attitudes: as survey data show, parents prefer to educate
sons and there is a higher opportunity cost for girls^Ò time in doing
domestic work. 

^Õ Poverty gap^×Children of poor families are less likely to be enrolled
in school than children of better-off families. Because poverty affects
whether children enroll in school, whether they stay in school, and how
much they learn, children from the poorest households are educationally
disadvantaged. In much of rural India, parents cannot afford the direct
and indirect costs of sending their children to school. State and
centrally-sponsored schemes are working to mitigate these effects.

^Õ Varying caste and tribal gaps^×Members of scheduled castes and
scheduled tribes^×meaning those groups which are often both physically
and socially isolated from majority communities and which are
historically disadvantaged socially, economically, and
educationally^×have been targeted under post-independence legislation to
eliminate discrimination. While recent evidence suggests that targeted
programs for scheduled castes, in particular, have been effective in
reducing disadvantage in education, school participation for both
scheduled caste and scheduled tribe children is lower than it is for
other children. 

While few empirical studies of learning achievement at the primary level
have been carried out in India, the available evidence shows that
primary-level learning achievement is low, that it varies according to
the background of the child, and that it varies across schools.

Achieving nearly universal net primary school enrollment by 2005

India has made enormous gains in primary education since independence and
could achieve 95 percent^×nearly universal^×net primary school enrollment
rates by 2005. To make it happen, India still needs to address four
overarching issues in education^×access, efficiency, learning
achievement, and school quality^×as well as specific challenges in
reform, the report says.

Accommodating all of India^Òs children ages 6-10 in primary schools in
the next decade could require building as many as 1.3 million classrooms
and hiring 740,000 new teachers. This can be done. Based on conservative
assumptions about economic growth, the report estimates that 80 percent
of the resources required for universal primary education will be
available a decade from now if past trends continue. However, trends in
revenue deficits in the major states and the falling share of development
expenditures suggest that boosting budgetary resources for education
requires significant changes in the conduct of fiscal policy^×increasing
revenues, restructuring expenditures, and becoming more cost-effective in
the provision of schooling.

There is scope for restructuring to increase education spending: losses
by the state electricity boards, for example, are two and a half times
the total state planned expenditures on education. Building schools using
professionally-supervised community construction and local materials can
be cost-effective. Also required will be temporary measures to
accommodate the primary school participation of overage students who
enroll late and sustained measures to reduce repetition. Local efforts by
village education committees to monitor student enrollment and school
attendance could help to ensure that children who enroll in school
complete their education without repeating grades or dropping out.

Boosting teachers^Ò performance is the most important challenge in
primary education in India. In the next decade, an essential task will be
to improve the preparation, motivation, and deployment of teachers. 
While India^Òs governments have done much to raise the quality of the
teaching corps, teachers^Ò performance falls short of what is needed to
ensure that all children complete primary school with adequate learning.
Teachers^Ò salaries claim by far the largest share of state education
budgets.  Implementing teacher qualification standards, improving the
conditions of teaching and making career advancement performance-based,
shortening pre-service teacher training and shifting the emphasis to
building teaching skills, and continuous school-based in-service training
could have high payoffs. Increasing the share of female teachers and
teachers who speak local languages is especially important to expand
access to girls and students from scheduled tribes.

The report also proposes strategies to improve the quality of textbooks
and the efficiency of their production. This is critical as they are the
main instructional aid in India^Òs primary schools^×they carry the
curriculum for both students and teachers, and for most disadvantaged
students they are the only available reading material.

Another key area for action is strengthening management and institutional
capacity.  Significant steps are recent reforms to pass on responsibility
for primary education to districts and efforts to strengthen state and
district education institution. The report says that the shifts in
responsibility need to be accompanied by careful planning to prevent
administrative weaknesses.

A final area for action is to strengthen the central government^Òs
leadership. The report^Òs analysis found that the central government will
need to expand its role in primary education in the medium-term because
of low levels of funding at the state level, importance of capacity
building in educational administration, and the need for research to
select cost-effective strategies.