The Hindu Business Line : Access to education: Yet to make the grade

EDUCATION is the best investment. A country's economic and social progress is determined by the quality of its human resource. It is not higher education alone that is important but raising literacy levels among the population that makes for improvement. Even 57 years after Independence, only 67 per cent of the population is literate. Further, wide variations are noticed in literacy levels from region to region and State to State.

Kerala, for example, has 100 per cent literacy level while Bihar, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan report literacy levels as low as 30-40 per cent. This explains, in significant part, the relative under-development of these States.

Low literacy levels are characteristically found in rural areas, in particular among women. . It is not as though no progress has been made in this field. The number of out-of-school children between the ages of 6 and 14 has come down from 39 million in 1999 to 25 million in 2003. However, a recent study by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) has notes that childhood care is neglected in high population countries, including India.

Along with universal education, investment and effort have to go into childhood care. The Government has promised to lay more emphasis on education by making it compulsory for every child to receive at least eight years of schooling. The proposal to levy a 2 per cent cess on all central taxes to yield Rs 6,000 crore in a full year is expected to give some financial boost to school education. Yet, much more needs to be done at the local level.

Absence of infrastructure and poverty have been the main reasons for children being out of school or even for poor attention at the pre-school stage.

As a first condition, therefore, for every child out of work but in school, the government should guarantee some economic incentive in the form of grain or other sustenance inputs. Industry can be asked to help in creating infrastructure facilities wherever feasible. Local community, primarily women and non-governmental organisations (NGO) should be involved in management of the institutions to guarantee success. In his Independence Day message, the President, Dr Abdul Kalam, called for raising expenditure on education from 4 per cent to 6 per cent of GDP and encouraging self employment through entrepreneurship skills imparted at school level and tieing up with bank finance. This is a good suggestion which needs to be properly implemented.

India has the world's second largest school education system after China, with 108 million children aged 6-10 attending primary school.

Two of the five students who reach the primary school level fail to clear it (with wide state variation). Further, the learning achievement of graduating is low. As compared to China, the coefficient of efficiency in school level (defined as ideal years to graduate as percentage of actual years) is 94.2 per cent in the case of China as compared to 66.6 per cent in the case of India. This indicates better student pass out ratio in China. Student enrolment at primary level and secondary level is also higher in China compared to India.

Those from poor families are specially disadvantaged. The drop-out rate is four times higher in poor families compared to relatively better-off ones. There are large gaps in access to education, quality of education, and learning, according to gender, social class and location. Girls are particularly missing out educational opportunity. A collaborative model project between the Government of India and the World Bank to improve the quality of primary education, aimed to expand enrolment levels and reduce drop out rates, while raising the student's academic performance. The project laid special emphasis on the development of girl child. There are seven projects which are being undertaken by the Ministry of HRD. Two more projects in the state of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh are being financed by International Development Associate (IDA), a World Bank concessionary. Improved class performance, strengthening community participation and building institutional and management capacity are the key elements. After nearly a decade in Uttar Pradesh, there has been marked improvement in enrolment of students in primary as well as upper-primary levels. At the primary level, the increase noticed was of 66.5 per cent and at the upper primary level by 64.07 per cent.

Girls enrolment increased in project districts in Uttar Pradesh; it was double at 66.79 per cent compared to non-project districts. Significant learning improvement was also noticed in language and computational skills. Classroom activities reflected more variety with teachers constructing and using teaching aids.

The project has also encouraged the establishment of a State Institute of Educational Management and Training, to serve as a training and resource institution. An analysis of results in 40 districts shows that the average number of years taken to complete five years of primary education has dropped from 7.9 to 6.4 with gender gap in learning achievement reduced by less than 5 percentage points.

Students who pass out from the colleges and get university degree do not possess the necessary skills to get jobs. Therefore, a project was started with the assistance of IDA Credit to address this area of concern. The objective was to improve the quality of craftsman through training, expand the scope and relevance of advanced skills training programs, and strengthen the capacity of planning and management of vocational training at central and state levels. The project also aimed to increase the women's training on the job. But this project was closed in December 1998 at the end of financial commitment. About 550 industrial training institutes in 28 States/Union Territories and 20 centrally administered institutions were identified under the project to carry on the work.

The project covered Bihar, Gujarat, MP, Orissa and UP and supported ten-year technician education investment programme by expanding capacity and improving quality and efficiency. It helped to provide the industrial sector with better qualified engineers and technicians in new areas of technology.

Female enrolment in technician courses increased from 11 per cent to 50 per cent. Some facilities were also created for technical training of the handicapped. In view of the emphasis placed by the Government to this area of training, it may be worthwhile reviving the project and replicating it in other States as well. A major problem in India is child labour. There has been some effort in reducing it under a joint project of the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Labour with the help of the International Labour Organisation.

Children working in the hazardous situations will be withdrawn from work and provided meaningful transitional education in centres set up under the project. The project aimed at:

Investing in improvements in infrastructure including computer facilities, quality of education, development of community monitoring systems to complement existing systems, and provide access to education to all children in the target areas.

Supporting activities, including community mobilisation, attendance and supply of free text-books and note books to all children studying in the target areas.

Supporting and improving institutional reforms, including the development and effective implementation of District Elementary Education plan.

Strengthening both non-formal (transitional) and formal education through joint workshops and training activities.

The project simultaneously addressed related aspects of child labour problem such as vocational training opportunities for adolescent, providing decent income for adults in families of child labour and creating a positive environment for prevention of hazardous child labour through public awareness campaigns.

There is, thus, enough experience of community participation and institutional catalytic support to reform primary and elementary education in India. The success rate is high if there is community involvement and credible NGOs with the support of Government of India. The Government should review the results achieved so far in this field and evolve a suitable model to achieve the goal of universalisation of education.

(The author is a Delhi-based freelance writer.)

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