India’s Inconsistent Education Records

India’s Inconsistent Education Records

Swaniti Initiative | January 9, 2015 | The Swaniti Blog

Source: DISE 2013-14 Reports on Primary and Secondary Education, EDI Ranks out of 28 States including erstwhile United Andhra

Jigyasa visualization: http://jigyasa.swaniti.in/data-analytics-2/sector-report?sector=GER

Contextualizing the Thesis: PM Modi’s Teacher’s Day speech deserves a terrific amount of attention not just because it has been a mandated viewing in government schools but also because the speech carries the hope of a consistent goal in delivering program. Since independence, India’s national policy has been on ensuring availability of primary education. In 2009 the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Yojana was launched anticipating the need for better higher education.

· However if we were to assess patterns more closely it can be seen that state/party performance across regions is inconsistent as basic accomplishments on primary and secondary level school completion are spread across the spectrum.

Almost half of all Indian States have either poor primary or secondary education programs and there is no consistent party program that is led by NDA and/or UPA.

Hypothesis I: Inconsistency in State Performance

· States with the highest performing gross enrollment rates from 2012-13 at the primary level loose steam in higher secondary education. For example if we look at the chart below we will notice that Sikkim has the highest primary level enrollment and yet only 45 of the 100 children enrolled after class 10 th.

Upper Primary (VI-VIII)

Secondary Education

(IX-X)

Higher Secondary Education (XI-XII)

State

EDI Rank on Upper Primary education*

GER

NER

GER

NER

GER

NER

Sikkim (Sikkim Democratic Front)

1

138.84

59.9

98.37

26.14

62.62

16.32

Gujarat (BJP)

2

90.86

68.39

74.5

44.88

48.51

28.42

Karnataka

(BJP)

3

91.81

82.89

77.49

54.01

18.39

11.99

Punjab

(SAD)

4

95.34

70.13

86.39

47.48

71.79

37.86

Kerala (INC)

5

98.34

82.26

102.51

73.79

87.58

57.51

Himachal Pradesh (INC)

6

101.79

78.44

120.31

68.07

96.13

52.21

Tamil Nadu (AIADMK)

7

98.27

76.66

92.5

61.59

75.87

51.31

· Historically, the Northeastern states have had the highest level of primary school enrollment rates (under UPA and alliance parties), yet these are also the states that have had the poorest secondary enrollment rates (please see excel sheet that is attached)

· But if you look at states like Andhra and Punjab and Haryana from 2005-2010 you will notice that these states poor primary education but strong secondary education rates.

· Interestingly the government states has explicitly stated it’s priorities for ensuring primary education through an allocation of 28635 Crore INR in the Sarv Siksha Abhiyan as opposed to the 4966 Crore INR allocated to 17 percent Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhigyaan, 17 percent of it’s total cost. However this is not reflected in almost half of all Indian States.

Hypothesis II: Inconsistency in Party Stances

· Education, more than other issues like health or livelihood, is a state level issue. However when Swaniti correlated the parties in power to the leading Education performers for 2012-13, it was noted amongst the top 7 performing states, 3 were from regional parties, 2 were BJP led States and 2 were Congress led states. Thus party affiliation has not affected the educational performance.

· When we looked at data for states from 2005-2010 it continued to be evident that there was no correlation between a political party and their performance. Regional and national parties continued to suffer despite their party ideology.

Outliers

· Delhi, under the leadership of INC, is the only state that has excelled in providing primary and secondary education.

· Eastern Indian States are a hub of poor academic performances: Bihar (under JDU+BJP), West Bengal (under CPIM), Assam (under INC) and Nagaland (under Nagaland People’s front) have poor primary and secondary education.

Implications for this Administration:

· As this Administration nudges job creation as one of its focal goals it is imperative that there is a cohesive education policy/goal adopted that is consistently implemented across states. While we assume that primary education is almost universal across India, it is evident that most parts of India are still lagging in providing primary education.

· On the other had only half of all children enrolled in primary education are likely to make it to tenth standard. Without a strong secondary education system it will be difficult to provide a smooth school to work transition and ensure that students are able to get quality education.