The Hindu Business Line : Learning deficit

THE Economist has been publishing a series of articles on various topics for the Copenhagen Consensus project organised by it in co-operation with the Denmark's Environmental Assessment Institute to help draw up a shelf of proposals for advancing global welfare and formulating purposeful public policies.

The issue of April 24 has an overview of "The Learning Deficit" highlighting the inadequacy, and in many areas, the total lack, of facilities for the proper education of children of school-going age in developing countries.

It takes stock of conditions in developing countries which must also be familiar to the observers of the Indian scene as well: Insufficient number of schools in relation to need; classes conducted in the open, or in apologies of weather-beaten shacks, often without roofs, toilets or source of safe drinking water, and even without benches, blackboards and basic teaching aids; wayward teachers who do not turn up or, if and when they do turn up at all, are either indifferent to their duties, or simply incompetent; teaching methods unsuited to evoking interest, maintaining standards and uncovering and maximising the potential of pupils; and ill-written text-books.

Of course, the amount set apart for primary and middle-grade education in developing countries comes nowhere near the optimum either in absolute terms or as a proportion of the national budgets or the GDP. All this may not be in the nature of a dramatic discovery, but still it serves to jolt readers out of their inertia and complacency.

The article quotes the well-meant, if commonplace, advice of Prof Lant Pritchette of the Harvard University: Build more schools; improve the quality of existing school systems, either by expanding budgets across the board or by increasing spending in specific target areas; raise the demand for education, either through interventions that raise living standards generally, or by fostering new opportunities for the better educated, or by reducing the cost to consumers.

India's progress, although slow and strapped, is creditable. In fact, its incorporation of education as a fundamental right in the Constitution, the mid-day meals scheme and other innovative efforts are praise-worthy.

However, the administrative control and supervision of the schools has been seriously affected by a long command structure extending to a distant secretariat. Vesting it in the panchayati raj institutions is a long overdue reform. It will not only enforce discipline among teachers but also ensure the quality of education.