Nationwide lockdown has closed each academic institution, as a consequence of which, learners going from school-going kids to postgraduate college students, are affected. The UNESCO estimates that round 32 crores college students are affected in India, incorporating these in faculties and faculties.
- Inadequate government Funding: The country spent 3% of its total GDP on education in 2018-19 according to the Economic Survey which is very less in comparison to the developed and OECD countries.
- Pandemic impact: Some 23.8 million additional children and youth (from pre-primary to tertiary) may drop out or not have access to school next year.
- As per ASER Report 2020, 5% of rural children are not currently enrolled for the 2020 school year, up from 4% in 2018.
- This difference is the sharpest among the youngest children (6 to 10) where 5.3% of rural children had not yet enrolled in school in 2020, in comparison to just 1.8% in 2018.
- Digital Divide: There is a major digital divide within the country across states, cities and villages, and income groups (National Statistical Organisation Survey on Digital Education Divide). Nearly 4% of rural households and 23% of urban households possessed computers and 24% of the households in the country had internet access.
- Quality of Education: Only 16% of children in Class 1 can read the text at the prescribed level, while almost 40% cannot even recognise letters. only 50 per cent of Grade 5 children being able to read a grade 2 text. (ASER Report findings.
- Lack of infrastructure: Most of the schools are not yet compliant with the complete set of RTE infrastructure. They lack drinking water facilities, a functional common toilet, and do not have separate toilets for girls.
- Inadequate teachers and their training: The 24:1 ratio of India is way lower than Sweden’s 12:1, Britain’s 16:1, Russia’s 10:1 and Canada’s 9:1. Moreover the quality of teachers who are sometimes appointed politically or are not trained adequately is another huge challenge.
- Falling share of Government school enrolment: The proportion of India’s children attending a government school has now declined to 45 per cent; this number is 85 per cent in America, 90 per cent in England, and 95 per cent in Japan.
- Too many schools: We have too many schools and 4 lakh have less than 50 students (70 per cent of schools in Rajasthan, Karnataka, J&K, and Uttarakhand). China has similar total student numbers with 30 per cent of our school numbers.
- Huge dropout numbers: The drop-out rates in schools, especially girls, is very high. Many factors like poverty, patriarchal mindset, lack of toilets in schools, distance to schools and cultural elements lead to children dropping out from education. COVID creates new urgency; reports suggest 25 per cent of Haryana private school students may have dropped out this year due to parental financial challenges.
- Infrastructure deficit:
- Dilapidated structures, single-room schools, lack of drinking water facilities, separate toilets and other educational infrastructure is a grave problem.
- Corruption and leakages:
- The transfer of funds from the central to state to local governments to school leads to involvement of many intermediaries.
- The fund transfer is drastically reduced by the time it reaches the true beneficiaries.
- High rates of corruption and leakages plague the system, undermine its legitimacy and harm the many thousands of honest headmasters and teachers.
- Quality of Teachers:
- Lack of well trained, skilled and knowledgeable teachers which provide the foundation for a high quality education system.
- Teacher shortages and poorly qualified teachers are both a cause and effect of poorly paid and managed teaching cadres.
- Poor salary:
- Teachers are paid miserly salaries which affect their interest and dedication to work. They will look for other avenues like tuitions or coaching centers and coax the students to attend it.
- This has dual effect, firstly the quality of teaching in schools drop and secondly, the poor students are forced to spend money despite constitutional provision of free education.
- Teacher Absenteeism:
- Absence of teachers during school hours is rampant. The lack of accountability and poor governance structures add to the woes.
- Lack of Accountability:
- School Management Committees are largely dysfunctional. Many exist solely on paper.
- Parents are often not aware of their rights and if they are it is difficult for them to make their voice heard.
- School closure:
- Many schools are closed to low student strength, lack of teachers and infrastructure. The competition posed by private schools is also a major challenge to government schools.
- The current approach, mainly academic in nature, recognizes that piecemeal initiatives are unlikely to improve student learning.
- A new systemic approach to reforming education is now emerging in Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Rajasthan.
- It is accompanied with administrative reforms that create an enabling environment for these new practices to take root.
- It involves aligning all stakeholders and orienting their collective efforts towards following a single and “comprehensive transformation road map” towards better learning outcomes.
- Academic interventions involve the adoption of grade competence framework instead of just syllabus completion.
- Effective delivery of remedial education for weaker students like after-school coaching, audio-video based education.
- Administrative reforms that enable and incentivize teachers to perform better through data-driven insights, training, and recognition. Example: Performance based increments in Salary.
- Together with human enablement, a seamless ecosystem or a system enabler (often a technology platform) is also set up.
- This streamlines communication and saves teachers’ valuable time that they might have otherwise spent on administrative tasks, such as leave applications, allowance claims, transfers and service book updates.
- It is also important to track the performance of the schooling system on a regular basis to course correct where needed.
- Therefore, a robust accountability system is required wherein there is a clear articulation of the roles and responsibilities of all relevant stakeholders, and the administration is empowered to act where necessary.
- This involves frequent real-time, data-enabled review meetings at the block, district, and state levels.
- These states have also developed user-friendly dashboards that assist education officials and the state leadership in decision-making.
- A reworking of curriculum and activities is urgently needed for the entire age band from 4 to 8, cutting across all types of preschools and early grades regardless of whether the provision is by government institutions or by private agencies.
- The year 2020 marked the 10th anniversary of the RTE Act. This is the best moment to focus on the youngest cohorts before and during their entry to formal schooling and ensure that 10 years later they complete secondary school as well-equipped and well-rounded citizens of India.
- Increase accessibility: The pandemic has taught us a lot about adjusting to changes in new and creative ways. But taking the weaker sections along is equally necessary.
- There’s a need to explore the possibility of high and low technology solutions to digital learning, on the basis of power supply, digital skills of teachers and students, and internet connectivity.
- Inclusion in distance learning programs, especially for students coming from low-income groups or the presence of disability, etc.
- Governance must shift from control of resources to learning outcomes; learning design, responsiveness, teacher management, community relationships, integrity, fair decision making, and financial sustainability.
- Governance must enable performance management to be substantive.
- Decentralized decisions: For instance, recruitment at the block level will minimise teacher absenteeism and reduce the stakes and payments on the “transfer industry” and school consolidation will reduce teacher shortages.
- Digitization:
- Create a single-window system for infrastructure and mainstream fund-flows: In Bihar, only around 10 percent of the schools fulfils infrastructure norms. A study revealed that files for renovating schools often go on a two-year journey through various departments.
- The same can be applied for teacher salaries and school funds. These can be transferred directly from the State to the teachers and schools. There is no need to involve the District or Block in this process.
- Leveraging the audio-visual edutainment to make education more interesting and easier to understand for the children. This will improve the quality as well as reduce the drop-out rates.
- Implementing bio-metric attendance for teachers and students for every class can help reduce absenteeism.
- Empower School Management Committees by using mobile phones:
- To develop a system that facilitates School Management Committee members by fostering democratic accountability.
- Social audits should also be carried out for effective functioning.
- Better pre-service teacher training coupled with transparent and merit-based recruitments is a lasting solution for teacher quality.
- Improve the quality of teacher education by making teacher training mandatory. Example: National Council for Teacher Education Act amendment bill, Diksha portal to train teachers.
- Increase the public spending on education to 6% of GDP as recommended by NEP.
- Teachers are rarely reprimanded for non-performance, while there are recommendations for removal of non-detention policy. The blame is squarely on the children; such an attitude must be wiped out.
- Education policy in India is focused on inputs rather than learning outcomes; It has a strong elitist bias in favour of higher education as opposed to primary or secondary education. This needs a change by coming out with NEP.
Education is the key to upliftment of people from poverty, inequality and oppression. India’s demographic dividend is dependent on quality education at primary, secondary and high school levels. Focus must be on pedagogy and a safe and stimulating environment where wide range of learning experiences are offered to the children. Only when we align incentives of all stakeholders, and enable them while holding them accountable, can we shorten the distance between the nation’s current state of education and its aspirations.
