Education – Policies and Outcomes

INTRODUCTION #

India has a young population, and consequently, the labour force, which is expected to increase over the next 20 years. Whereas, on the other hand, it is expected to decline in most developed countries and even in China, This ‘demographic dividend’ can add to our growth potential through its impact on the supply of labour as also, via the falling dependency ratio, on the rate of domestic savings. Besides, a young population brings with it the aspirations and the impatience of youth, which in turn can become strong drivers for bringing about change and inno- vation. To reap this demographic dividend we must ensure that our younger citizens come into the labour force with higher levels of education and the skills needed to support rapid growth.

Government’s Policy #

Government’s policy in the sphere of education has been to expand access to education at all three levels – elementary, secondary and post secondary – and also improve the quality of education.

The four main priorities for education policy have been

1. Access to education,
2. Equity in education,
3. Quality education, and
4. Governance.

The 12th Plan will continue to priorities these

four areas, but will place the greatest emphasis on improving learning outcomes at all levels.

POLICY INITATIVES #

In line with the goal of nation building, India has been committed to providing free and compul- sory education to all children. Towards this end, Indian Parliament has enacted a legislation (RTE Act, 2009) making free and compulsory education a Right of every child in the age group 6 to14 years which has come into force from 1st April, 2010. The already running Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) towards universalization of primary education has been integrated with RTE Act.

Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) has been launched recently as a step to universalize secondary education. Simultaneously, efforts are being made to create a robust and vast system of higher and technical education.

Building upon the existing capacities and recog- nizing the immense contribution to nation building that the large network of educational institutions has made in the post independent India; the country has embarked upon a second phase of expansion and establishment of centres of excellence in higher education. To this end government has planned to launch Rashtriya UchChatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) under the 12th Plan.

It is envisioned that strengthening the two ends of the spectrum, namely, elementary education and higher/technical education would help in meeting the

objectives of expansion, inclusion and excellence in education.

Recent years have seen certain important com- mittees and commissions deliberate on education.

• National Knowledge Commission (2006) Report on higher education supports a strong reform agenda through public investment.
  • Recently, the report of the Committee on Renovation and Rejuvenation of Higher Edu- cation (Yashpal Committee) has recommended.

Protecting the intellectual autonomy of educa- tional institutions and the creation of an all Encom- passing National Commission for Higher Education and Research (NCHER) to replace or subsume the existing regulatory bodies.

The report talks about the concept of a univer- sity as a place where research and teaching become two important pillars of the creation of knowledge and should go together. It should provide practical training to the people that should be based on new knowledge and in response to social and personal needs. Most importantly, university should allow for the diverse growth of knowledge and should not lead to fragmentation of knowledge. It is, therefore, recommended that normally, no single discipline or specialized university should be created.

Major interventions by Government #

Although the number of elementary schools has increased to 13.04 lakh, many schools have lacks

0 basic infrastructure facilities required under the RTE Act. For example, the retention of girls in school remains difficult given that over 63% of rural schools have no usable toilet facilities for them. The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has been mandated to monitor the imple- mentation of this historic Right. A special Division within NCPCR will undertake this huge and impor- tant task in the coming months and years. A special toll free helpline to register complaints will be set up by NCPCR for this purpose. NCPCR will work with all stakeholders to build a movement to ensure that every child of this country is in school and enabled to get at least 8 years of quality education.

SSA (Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan) #

It is one of India’s major social sector flagship

programmes, addressing the national resolve of universalizing the elementary education (UEE).

Its objectives are as follows:

• To provide useful and relevant elementary education for all children in the age group of 6 to14 years.
• To bridge the social, regional and gender gaps with active participation of community in the management of schools.
• To encourage enrolment of girls and teacher training.
• Achieve significant enhancement in learning levels of children

Features #

• The programme covers all states and UTs.
• SSA focuses on girl’s education through the NPEGEL (National Programme for Education of Girls at Elementary Level) and KGBVs (Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas).
• SSA targets the geographical areas in districts and blocks with predominance of SC, ST, OBC and Minority population in the matter of allocation of funds and school infrastruc- ture to promote education of those who were deprived of education on account of economic and social backwardness.
• Though there was notable success in expand- ing capacity and enrolments during the 11th Plan period, the challenge of raising quality standards still remains.
• If the envisaged convergence of the MGN- REGS, TSC and Drinking Water Supply (DWS) Mission, materializes some of these infrastructural shortcomings could be miti- gated. While bridging infrastructure gaps may be achievable, it will be far more challenging to bridge learning gaps.

Mid A Day Meal Scheme (MDMS) #

In keeping with the Constitutional provisions to raise the level of nutrition of children and enable them to develop in a healthy manner, the National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education (NPSPE) was launched as a CSS in

1995. Commonly referred to as MDMS, this was expected to enhance enrolment, retention, attendance of children in schools apart from improving their nutritional levels.

Then gradually its scope was extended to upper primary (classes VI to VIII) children in 3,479 EBBs in 2007 and since 2008 it has been universalized at the elementary level to cover all government schools and aided private schools and madrasas etc.

Now it has been integrated with the SSA and supports government’s UEE agenda. It works two ways – while it addresses the problem of malnutri- tion among children, it also promotes enrolment and attendance in schools at elementary level.

Implementation of MDMS rests with states and the central government provides food grains free of cost, transport assistance, financial assistance for construction of kitchen and necessary infrastructure.

MDMS is managed and implemented by School Management Committees/Village Education Com- mittees, PRIs, and SHGs. It is not contractors driven.

There are several concerns in implementation of the MDMS, namely,

• Wide variations in enrolment, attendance and actual coverage of children,
• Mismatch of food grains and cash fund uti- lization,
• Lack of controls over the quantity and quality of meals,
• Irregular and uncertain supply of meals, and
• Poor quality of grains in certain States.

In order to address these concerns, the moni- toring system under MDMS would be made more effective during the 12th Plan.

• Establishing an MIS portal for effective mon- itoring and evaluation.
• An MIS portal for monitoring of the scheme has already been launched. All the States/ UTs are now feeding data into the portal and annual data for 2.7 lakh schools have already been fed into the portal.
• The MIS would be integrated with Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS) to capture

the information on daily basis and monitor the Scheme on real time basis.

• It will also be used as a mechanism for social audit

Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) #

• Making secondary education of good qual- ity available, accessible, and affordable to all young persons in the age group of 15–16 years,
• Removing gender, socio-economic, and dis- ability barriers (i.e. to promote the inclusive agenda),
• Making all secondary schools conform to prescribed norms,
• Achieving a GER (Gross Enrolment Ratio) of 75 % in secondary education in a period of five years, i.e. by 2014,
• Providing universal access to secondary level education by 2017 and
• Universal retention by 2020.

Critical Evaluation #

• The mean years of schooling of the working population (those over 15 years old) increased from 4.19 years in 2000 to 5.12 years in 2010.
• The growth of enrolment in secondary educa- tion accelerated from 4.3 % per year during the 1990s to 6.27 % per year in the decade ending 2009–10.
• Youth literacy increased from 60 % in 1983 to 91 % in 2009–10 and adult literacy improved from 64.8 % in 2001 to 74 % in 2011.
• The gender gap in elementary education has declined with the female/male ratio for years of education and literacy reaching over 90% in 2009–10.

Elementary Education #

The SSA has brought us close to the target of universalization of primary education and the RTE Act, 2009 makes eight years of elementary education a fundamental right for all the children. The MDM Scheme has ensured that retention in schools has improved greatly.

However, the learning outcomes for a majority of children continue to be disappointing. Addressing the quality issue in our schools is critical for the effective development of human capabilities and for achieving the objective of equality of opportunities. The quality of teachers and, even more important, their motivation and accountability will need to be improved. Many of the children who are presently in school are first-generation learners, and these children need supplementary instruction. This is not easy due to shortage of qualified teachers in many schools across the country. New and innovative approaches such as multi grade learning, which has been successfully tried in Tamil Nadu, could be adopted in such cases.

Secondary Education #

The success of the SSA has put pressure on expanding the capacity of secondary schools and the RMSA addresses this issue. Although there is considerable focus on providing secondary school access, the dropout rates between elementary and secondary schools continue to be high, and between the secondary and post secondary stage they are even higher. This is a particularly serious problem for girls, who have to travel longer distances to attend secondary schools.

Curricular and examination reforms in secondary schooling would receive special attention aimed at fostering critical thinking and analytical skills, and preparing students for further education. All this requires innovative approaches, some of which are already in evidence in certain States.

Higher Education #

The last decade has also seen a huge increase in the demand for higher education and this is expected to increase further as more children complete school and more and more jobs are seen to require higher level qualifications. However, our higher education institutions also suffer from problems of quality. Too many of our universities are producing graduates in subjects that are not required by the changing job market, and the quality is also not what it should be.

Issues & Challenges #

Despite many gains during the 11th Plan, edu- cation in India faces several challenges.

• Performance lower than in other emerging economies.
• Steep dropout rate.
• Very low student attendance rates.
• Children from marginalized social categories continue to remain out of school.
• While PTR has improved, there remains imbalance in their deployment.
• Teachers without professional qualifications.
• Schools lacking in necessary infrastructure.
• Very poor learning outcomes.

12th    Plan    Strategy    for    Elementary Education #

1. Shift from a project-based approach of SSA to a unified RTE-based governance system for UEE;
   1. Address residual access and equity gaps in elementary education by adopting special measures to ensure regular attendance of children in schools and devising special strat- egy to tackle the problem of dropping out be- fore completing the full cycle of elementary schooling;
   1. Integrate pre-school education with primary schooling in order to lay a strong foundation for learning during primary school;
   1. Prioritize education quality with a sys- tem-wide focus on learning outcomes that are assessed through classroom-based CCE inde- pendently measured, monitored and reported at the block/district/State levels;
   1. Focus on early grade supplemental instruc- tion to ensure that all children achieve the de- fined age-/class specific learning levels by the end of class 2;
   1. Articulate clear learning goals that have to be achieved by the end of each class or set of classes. These goals should be understood by parents and teachers;
   1. Improve teacher training with an emphasis on effective pedagogy given the realities of Indi- an classrooms such as multiage, multi-grade and multi-level contexts. Also, make teach-

ers’ professional development a needs-driv- en process as opposed to top-down decision wherein curriculum design and delivery is centrally driven;

• Invest in both top-down administrative over- sight and bottom-up community-driven mon- itoring of schools;
  • Focus on strengthening practices of good governance in all schools and related institu- tions that ensure performance based internal and external accountability for teachers and administrators at all levels and also ensure holistic assessment driven development of schools;
  • Invest in strengthening ongoing and continu- ous field-based systems of academic support to schools and teachers and in strengthening district and block-level capacity for better management and leadership;
  • Support States to set learning goals and invest in independent monitoring of outcomes, but provide States with substantial autonomy in how to achieve these goals, and provide ad- ditional results-based financing to States who show the most improvement in educational outcomes;
  • Provide a supportive environment for evalu- ation of innovative practices, and sharing of best practices across States and districts;
  • Support States towards motivation, capacity development and accountability of communi- ty and parents for ensuring regular attendance and quality education; and
  • Ensure convergence with panchayats, CBOs and other sectors at school level.

REFORMS IN EDUCATION SECTOR #

The Government is committed to provide equita- ble access to quality education to all, across all levels from primary to university level, for which reforms are undertaken in the education sector as a contin- uous and ongoing process. The 42nd Constitutional Amendment, 1976 brought about a fundamental change by transferring education from the State List to the Concurrent List recognizing the federal struc- ture of our country and giving equal responsibility to

both the Central and State Governments to promote education. Recognizing the centrality of states both in policy formulation and effective implementation of education reforms, the Ministry of HRD has been regularly convening meetings of the Central Advisory Board on Education (CABE), which is a composite body and is also the highest advisory body on education. All the schemes implemented by the Government of India are in consultation with the States which meet regularly through the meetings of CABE. Similarly, all reform initiatives are also through consensus evolved between the Centre and the States through the CABE.

Presently, various initiatives, such as, the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA), ICT in Schools, Centrally Sponsored Scheme on Teacher Education (CSSTE), Shaala Siddhi, Rash- triya Avishkar Abhiyan are being implemented which envisage significant reforms in the elementary edu- cation and secondary education. In higher education also, Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA), Global Initiative for Academics Network (GIAN), Impacting Research, Innovation & Technology (IMPRINT), Technical Education Quality Improve- ment Programme(TEQIP), Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya National Mission on Teachers and Teaching (PMMMNMTT), Study Webs of Active-Learning for Young Aspiring Minds (SWAYAM), National Digital Library, campus connect programme, Uch- hatar Avishkar Abhiyan, Unnat Bharat Abhiyan are being implemented to improve the quality of higher education in the country. A number of initiatives are also undertaken by UGC and AICTE for qual- ity improvement in higher and technical education. With a view to improving the competitiveness of the higher educational institutions, the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) has been launched.

The recent budget announcements refer to reforms in UGC for promoting greater administrative and academic autonomy and revised framework for outcome based accreditation and credit based pro- grammes; leveraging Information Technology and launching 350 online courses through SWAYAM platform;  and  establishing  a  National  Testing

Agency to conduct all entrance examinations for higher education institutions.

It is to be noted that necessary budgetary alloca- tions are provided both for effective implementation of the schemes and also for the proposed reform initiatives.

Currently, the process of formulating a New Education Policy is underway which may propose several reforms in examinations, governance, regu- lation, school standards, teachers & faculty, literacy & lifelong learning, skills and employability, quality assurance, internationalization, research, curricula, innovation etc. so as to build an education system that promotes equitable access to quality education to all sections of the society.

Recommendations of Subramanian Committee on new education policy #

The T.S.R. Subramanian committee, entrusted with preparing a new education policy for India submitted the report to the government in May suggesting measures that the country must take to improve the sector that caters to over 300 million students in the country.

1. An Indian Education Service (IES) should be established as an all India service with of- ficers being on permanent settlement to the state governments but with the cadre con- trolling authority vesting with the Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry.
2. The outlay on education should be raised to at least 6% of GDP without further loss of time.
3. There should be minimum eligibility con- dition with 50% marks at graduate level for entry to existing B.Ed courses. Teacher En- trance Tests (TET) should be made compul- sory for recruitment of all teachers. The Cen- tre and states should jointly lay down norms and standards for TET.

• Compulsory licensing or certification for teachers in government and private schools should be made mandatory, with provision for renewal every 10 years based on indepen- dent external testing.
• Pre-school education for children in the age group of 4 to 5 years should be declared as a right and a programme for it implemented immediately.
• The no detention policy must be continued for young children until completion of class V when the child will be 11 years old. At the upper primary stage, the system of deten- tion shall be restored subject to the provision of remedial coaching and at least two extra chances being offered to prove his capability to move to a higher class.
• On-demand board exams should be intro- duced to offer flexibility and reduce year end stress of students and parents. A Nation- al Level Test open to every student who has completed class XII from any School Board should be designed.
• The mid-day meal (MDM) program should now be extended to cover students of sec- ondary schools. This is necessary as levels of malnutrition and anaemia continue to be high among adolescents.
• UGC Act must be allowed to lapse once a separate law is created for the management of higher education. The University Grants Commission (UGC) needs to be made leaner and thinner and given the role of disbursal of scholarships and fellowships.
• Top 200 foreign universities should be al- lowed to open campuses in India and give the same degree which is acceptable in the home country of the said university.