The Hindu Business Line : Making education inclusive

To reach education to the poor, and not restrict it to the politically privileged, the government must think of bussing rural children to well-equipped schools, give gifted children the choice of going to private schools and invoke the public-private partnership framework for vocational education, says P. V. INDIRESAN.

The previous article highlighted eight issues that emanate from the Planning Commission's Eleventh Plan Approach Paper. To recapitulate, they are: (1) Should we insist on quality even if that means that every hamlet will not have its own school? (2) Is it politically feasible to discipline government schools and expect them to accept outside evaluation? (3) Should we encourage Public-Private Partnership in education? (4) Should school education be academic or should it be job oriented? (5) Should we have special institutions for gifted students? (6) Should educational institutions be brought under consumer courts? (7) Should we have globally competitive standards of education? (8) Should inclusion be restricted to select castes?

In each of these cases, it is possible to argue both ways. For the present discussion, let us make the following assumptions, which hopefully, will be widely acceptable: (a) multiple choices are needed even at the school level, from job oriented vocational training at one extreme and global academic standards at the other; (b) Public-Private Partnership is necessary; (c) All children however poor should get good education.

Different Baggage

Unfortunately, the Planning Commission is weighed down by ideological baggage. The words ideological and logical are different.

To the extent they refer, what is ideological is not logical. Ideological refers to fixed ideas, which may (or may not) be correct. The Planning Commission is brutally frank in highlighting the flaws in the prevailing education system. Yet, it does not have the courage to accept that this sad state of affairs can only be due to faulty ideology. It seeks to merely expand the existing system, not to transform it.

For instance, the Approach Paper says, "often the need for children of poorer families to work also drives them away from school" and on that premise, recommends adding more schools so that no hamlet is without one. All over the world (including India) children happily travel long distances every day to get to school. In truth, it is bad schools (and bad teachers) that drive away children, not distant schools.

Hence, I expand a proposal I have made earlier: Combine the single-teacher schools of adjacent villages to establish one large school with minimum ten teachers. Offer a bus as compensation for each village that surrenders a school on condition it transports its children to the centrally located school. Rest of the time, the village can operate the bus for any commercial purpose. The government can even go to the extent of insisting that the village pays for the cost of transporting the children out of the profits of commercial use of the bus.

Assuming that a bus costs Rs 15 lakh and has a life of 15 years, the government will then have to allocate Rs 1 lakh per village per year. That is the cost of hiring a teacher and better than hiring an incompetent teacher who may or may not attend, and even if he (or she) attends, may not be teaching.

Weak on Education PPP

Although the Plan emphasises Public-Private Partnership, the section on education is particularly weak on that topic. The main reference is to scholarships about which the Approach Paper says: "Scholarships for poor children who complete primary schooling in public schools that would also be valid in unaided private secondary schools which agree to a common fee structure for the scholarship holders." Using the teeth of the 104th Amendment of the Constitution, the Government may force this idea on unaided schools. That is not partnership but an imposition. A partnership should provide mutual benefit.

For that reason, my suggestion is to offer academic autonomy to reputed schools that are willing to provide affordable education to poor students. We could go so far as to institute "autonomous schools" on the lines of autonomous colleges. They will not be constrained by any school board and be free to organise their academic programme independently. Then, the country will enjoy many new experiments and benefit from the innovation and the enterprise such autonomous schools can bring to the education scene. Incidentally, it is easier to enforce accountability in autonomous institutions — they will have no excuses to offer.

Politicians, administrators, educators and courts too are obsessed with fees. The best scheme is the one operated by Harvard University: Admissions are made by a need-blind mechanism. After the selections are made, students are admitted in such a manner that no student pays more than what the family can afford and, further, the total merit of the students admitted is the maximum. Then, a minimum number of rich students are admitted but only for the purpose of maximising the merit level of the whole class.

Harvard has shown that the system is workable and produces high levels of merit.

The Planning Commission (and the UPA Government) has Narcissist fascination with its Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. That is no different from (in the Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambarm's words) increasing the pressure in a leaky pipe. To build a knowledge economy, the country needs a different approach altogether, a Uttama Shiksha Abhiyan, a scheme for superior education for brilliant students.

Better Decentralised

Brilliant students are everywhere but only those in the larger cities get noticed. As the poet said "full many a gem of the purest ray serene, the dark unfathomed caves of the ocean bear". For that reason, this scheme should not operate nationally as such schemes tend to do, the way the National Talent Search scheme operates. It should be totally decentralised. Selections should be made districtwise, even thehsilwise to ensure a proper chance for poor children in poor localities.

The government and the educators suffer from yet another ideological hang up: They think ten years of schooling is essential for every child. What use is learning trigonometry and algebra, the names of capitals of distant countries and the like for a child who is utterly poor, and not clever enough to earn a scholarship? Such children are better off acquiring vocational skills that will provide them with a respectable livelihood.

According to the Approach Paper, India's vocational schools cater to 40 trades; in China, the number is 4000. China is realistic. However carefully chosen (they are not), the 40 trades will not meet the diverse needs of a modern economy. On the other hand, we cannot find enough instructors for 4000 trades. Even if they are found, it will be virtually impossible to support them with up to date equipment, and with materials to offer hands-on experience.

Vocational Training

These problems can be overcome if vocational education is split into two — an academic part teaching measurement and analysis, and a work experience part letting the students learn how to operate machines. The first part can be handled by a school but the second can be managed only in the workplace. Hence, effective vocational education should be a sandwich programme with students alternating between practical training in the workplace and basic instruction in a school.

In brief, the Planning Commission should consider (a) bussing rural children to well- equipped schools; (b) organising a special programme for gifted children and give them free choice to go to private schools; (c) giving autonomy from school boards to outstanding schools (whether private or public) provided they maximise admission to gifted children and accept accountability, and (d) invoking Public-Private Partnership for vocational education.

In the matter of education, inclusion should be for the poor, not restricted to the politically privileged.

(The author is a former Director of IIT-Madras. Response may be sent to: indiresan@gmail.com)

(This is 199th in the Vision 2020 series. The previous article was published on April 16.)

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