The Hindu Business Line : Ensuring equal opportunity

It is high time India launched a national school-building and teacher recruitment programme. Standard designs for school buildings and faculty recruitment procedures need to be set in order to deliver quality education and maximise opportunity, says Bhanoji Rao.

Schools of excellent quality with good infrastructure would turn out students of high calibre that the country needs.

"I wish to maximise and equalise opportunities for Singaporeans to improve themselves. ... I want to give everyone the same chance for good start in life."

— Tribute to Goh Chok Tong, Prime Minister of Singapore 1990-2004, edited by Prof Arthur Lim, Singapore: Lim Siew Ming (P) Ltd., 2004

A VERY important and significant mechanism Singapore has used to equalise opportunities is the school system. A few decades ago it was easy to spot one, or at the most two, reputed and sought after schools that trained students to achieve the best results at 10th and 12th grade (O and A levels). The situation has changed since. Today, there are many schools that are equally good, thanks to the equal distribution of physical and human infrastructure across schools. They include excellent laboratories, libraries and computer centres, plus well-paid and qualified faculty.

Practically every child who is a Singapore citizen and a permanent resident attends government or government-aided independent schools. There are a good number of private foreign schools, but they are mostly for the foreigners.

sThe US has gone a bit farther than Singapore. Students in the public (government) schools enjoy, in addition to the requisite physical and academic infrastructure, free transport and free books (returned to the school at the end of the academic year) as well as subsidised/free lunch.

Singapore, the US and many industrial and emerging countries, consider education the most important vehicle to equalise opportunities. It is essentially a strategy to achieve equality in the process even if process equality does not necessarily guarantee equality in outcomes (income and status, for instance).

Unlike the nations that have done well in achieving high levels of equality in educational opportunities, India is still grappling with the problem of getting all the country's children to attend school, a target that should have been achieved by 2003 according to the Tenth Plan. One of the Plan's goals is also that all children should complete five years of schooling by 2007.

The Mid-Term Appraisal (MTA) of the Tenth Plan recently released by the Planning Commission has precious little to show for both targets. The MTA points out that an estimated 8.1 million children in the 6-14 age group were still out of school in 2004, and hence the target of full enrolment would now be moved to 2005, with consequential revisions in targets for retention and completion.

Schemes and funds are in no way lacking. For instance, against the Tenth Plan provision of Rs 30,000 crore in the Central sector, a little more than Rs 31, 600 crore was spent in four years. There were five major centrally sponsored schemes for elementary education: Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA); Mid-Day Meals Scheme; Teachers Education; Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) and Mahila Samakhya.

While inadequate enrolment growth is one side of the story, the dropout rate in the region of 30 per cent or more is the other side. The MTA notes: "The poor quality of education is one of the reasons for high dropout rates. Improving the quality of education is, therefore, a high priority item for SSA."

Why are children not attending school or if they are why are they not completing their schooling, despite the huge funds marked out for the purpose? The ground realities are available in a 2004 report by the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration — Elementary Education in India.

The report is based on data from over 8.5 lakh schools in 461 districts across 18 States. Of the total, 87 per cent schools are located in the rural areas. The vast majority of the schools are under the management of government agencies: The Department of Education (61.1 per cent), Local Bodies (20.6) and the Tribal Welfare Department (4.4). Schools without a building make up 6.3 per cent of the total. As much as 30 per cent of the schools have no proper permanent buildings.

Those without a classroom make up 12 per cent while those with less than three classrooms add up to two-thirds of the total. Just about 42 per cent of the schools have a playground. Less than 16 per cent have proper sanitation facilities.

Close to 9 per cent of the primary schools have more than 100 students per teacher. Only 36 per cent of the schools have more than three teachers. Less than half the teachers in the country are trained teachers. A little more than half of the regular teachers have only higher secondary or lower qualifications. Government-managed schools have an average of 2.5 teachers per school, while those under private management average 4.9 teachers.

Kerala is a case in point. `God's own country' has an average of six teachers in government schools and close to seven in private schools. Nationally, only 34 per cent of school-teachers are women in contrast to 70 per cent in Kerala and 66 per cent in Tamil Nadu.

It is high time India launched a national school-building programme and teacher recruitment programme. Standard designs for school buildings and faculty recruitment procedures need to be set.

Schools of excellent quality with good infrastructure (including dining halls for mid-day meals) would attract students with least goading. It should be mandatory for all primary schools to provide free books to the pupils.

With regard to teaching staff, the national programme should ensure a respectable pay, free housing near the school and no compromise on qualifications.

In regard to educational administration, it is best that all government schools are under the State Education Department, thus leaving agencies such as tribal welfare and local bodies to focus on their core activities.

As soon as the new primary school buildings are in place, attention should be focused on building secondary schools catering to grades 6 to 12, under one roof. Slowly and steadily, the system will pave the way for an India with over a thousand public and private universities, which will expose students to high-calibre research and infrastructure.

If the UPA Government, with the its socialist credentials, is unable or unwilling to deliver excellent schools with qualified teachers, India's children will have a long wait, just as the Republic waited for four decades to see the beginnings of unfettering of the economy and close to five decades to see the introduction of four-lane highways.

(The author, formerly with the National University of Singapore and the World Bank, is Professor Emeritus, GITAM Institute of Foreign Trade, Visakhapatnam. He can be reached at bhanoji@gmail.com.)

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