Re: Discussions so far: Primary Education

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

Just some facts to consider. A bit outlandish, perhaps, and not comparable
with the effect of $600 million on India, but relevant nevertheless:

US expenditure on Education (from Statistical Abstract, 1997), on the web
at: http://www.census.gov/prod/3/97pubs/97statab/educ.pdf

In 1996:
Total expenditure on Education: $514,691 million 
Out of which exp. on Primary + Sec	:	$309,533
		     College + Univ	: 	$205,157

These include all expenses, public and private.

For India, $600 million over 5 years converts into $120 million per year
or a tiny drop in India's ocean. The wealth of Bill Gates fluctuates by
much more than this amount each second during an ordinary trading day.

As Secy, Education, Assam I was involved for a very brief period (before I
left for Mussoorie and then USA) in helping upgrade a very poorly prepared
proposal for the Primary Education Project of the W.Bank for one of the
districts of Assam. These are excellent projects in principle, but
obviously the money we are borrowing is too little. 

With $24 billion in reserves, we can safely borrow ten times this amount
and make a serious dent in our education. With right economic policies,
borrowing even 60 billion dollars should not be difficult. We need to pump
money into this sector in an unprecedented way. No incremental change will
be of any use. 

Sanjeev
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On Sat, 11 Apr 1998, Sanjeev Sabhlok wrote:

> 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. 
> 
> 
>