Is Education For All still a mirage?

S. S. RAJAGOPALAN

Hindu, July 4, 2006

It provides essential data to review the progress made so far in the
sarvasiksha Abhiyan scheme.

ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN INDIA — Where Do We Stand? State Report Cards
2005: Arun C. Mehta — Editor; National Institute of Educational
Planning and Administration, 17-B, Aurobindo Marg, New Delhi-110006.

Price not stated.

The second in the series of State Report Cards (SRC), this is a
consolidation of the District Report Cards, 2005, reviewed in these
columns on May 9, 2006. The SRCs provide certain essential data to
review the progress made so far in Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) and plan
for the future. In most of States, girls' enrolment is in proportion
to the sex-ratio. Similarly, enrolment of children belonging to the
Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes is not less than — sometimes it
is almost double — their proportion in the population. It is found
that a good lot of teachers at the primary level are highly qualified.

Bihar stands at the bottom of the table in every sphere. The
teacher-pupil ratio exceeds 1:100 in 26 per cent of the schools and 60
per cent of the classes have over 60 pupils. The retention ratio is
abysmally low at 35 per cent. Private participation in primary
education is almost nil. Less than one-sixth of teachers are women.

It is hard to understand why Bihar is so bad when more than half of
the primary teachers are either graduates or with higher
qualifications. Bihar needs special attention, and more than higher
financial outlay, it is some kind of a missionary approach that is
necessary to bring about at least a minimal improvement over the next
decade.

Kerala, with no single-teacher school, is at the other extreme with
the retention rate at 98.66 per cent. The preponderance of private
participation is something special about Kerala, with government
schools accounting for just 35 per cent of the school-age children.

The infrastructure in schools is generally good. Likewise, smaller
States such as Delhi, Chandigarh and Pondicherry have commendable
achievements.

It is strange that Andhra Pradesh, with almost two decades of
internationally assisted intensive primary education projects is found
wanting on several fronts including infrastructure — 35 per cent of
the schools function in single rooms, 75 per cent of the schools do
not have toilets for girls and nearly 22 per cent of the pupils are
outside the age-group 6-11. It shows that money alone cannot bring out
progress.

Neglect of sanitation

Yet another disconcerting feature is the utter neglect of sanitary
facilities, especially for girls in most of the States. Provision of
toilets is not a luxury and should be given top priority. SRC 2005 has
introduced a new indicator, namely, input per graduate, which has been
defined as "the average number of years a system is taking in
producing primary graduate which is based on the Reconstructed Cohort
Method by assuming that no child repeats a grade more than three
times". It varies from 5.9 in Meghalaya to about 16 in Maharashtra and
Jharkhand. Its significance is ununderstandable.

The report is not without errors. For example, there are more students
with Nepalese as medium of instruction than Bengali in West Bengal.
Probably the data for Darjeeling have been given as for the whole
State. With regard to Tamil Nadu, the promotion rate is 103.7 and the
repetition rate is 3.1, making the drop-out ratio minus 6.8. A
negative drop-out ratio is inexplicable.

Lacuna

A big lacuna in SRC is the absence of data regarding the financial and
management inputs. Some information like educational expenditure as a
percentage of State GDP, cost per pupil, teacher-cost, and proportion
of inspecting staff will have enhanced its value.

While National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration
(NIEPA) should be congratulated on bringing out this compilation, the
outcome leaves much to be desired especially in respect of reliability
and validity of the data presented.

A micro-level analysis of randomly selected blocks and villages will
greatly help to identify the real factors responsible for leaving
Education For All still a distant dream, even after six decades of
independence.