With effect from October 2 the Centre for Civil Society, New Delhi has launched a National Education Choice Campaign which promotes reforms to deliver quality education for all. Radical new thinking is necessary to save one more generation of the nation’s children from being lost to the failing education system. The campaign invites participation to broaden the dialogue and to work towards immediate implementation of reforms.

The Free and Compulsory Education of Children Bill, 2004 is the latest effort by the Union government and education experts to deliver elementary education to all. Unfortunately the bill represents outdated thinking and is completely disconnected from the ground realities of contemporary India. It advocates a CSS (common school system) where government will decide which school every student will attend with the ultimate goal that all students from a given area must attend the same ‘common’ school.

The CSS principle was adopted by western countries more than a century ago. Has nothing changed in our understanding of quality education in a century? Should we look at what these countries had done a century earlier or what they are doing today to improve their education systems? In fact they are moving away from the regimented, bureaucracy-ridden system that represents the interests of teacher unions and administrators rather than of students. Let’s learn from their mistakes, not repeat them.

The recently elected UPA government in New Delhi promises to increase government spending on education to 6 percent of GDP. The almost doubling of govern-ment expenditure on education is bound to have some positive impact. The question is whether the impact would be in any way proportionate to the increase in spending. It is evident that unless we reform the delivery system, the extra money is unlikely to match our expectations of improvement.

Several countries that have achieved high literacy rates in the post-war era rarely spend anywhere close to 6 percent of their GDP on education. South Korea spends about 3.2 percent; Japan spends around 3.8 percent, and China 2.6 percent. Student expenditure in the United States is one of the highest but student performance is far below world standards. International evidence suggests that it is not how much governments spend but how they spend that determines the quality of education systems.

Geeta Gandhi Kingdon’s study (in 1996) of Uttar Pradesh documents that annual expenditure per student in private unaided schools is Rs.999, in private aided schools Rs.1,827 and in government schools Rs.2,008. The learning achievement however, is inversely related to the amount of spending. The government spends more than twice that of private unaided schools and provides half as much education.

It is widely recognised that government is inefficient in producing economic goods and services. The world over, governments are getting out of the business of manufacturing steel, cement, bicycles, bread etc. But what magic makes the government efficient in providing complex services like education when it is inefficient in producing simple goods like cement? A government that performs poorly in tilling the fields, how well would it train minds?

Therefore what has been done for the economy needs to be done for education — delicense, deregulate, depoliticise, decentralise. Make schools and colleges accountable not to education bureaucrats (licensors) but to parents and students (customers). Increase choice and competition.

The best way to attain this objective would be to combine the core competencies of the private and public sectors. The private sector should ‘produce’ education — manage schools and colleges — and provide it to all who can afford to pay. For those who cannot afford to pay, the government should finance their education through scholarships, education vouchers, and loans. In short, government stands as a guarantor of education, not by producing it, but by financing it. Instead of focusing on the inputs of education, government should ensure the output — meaningful, high quality learning. This approach combines the efficiency and accountability of the private sector with the equity and independent supervision of the public sector.

High prices in terms of tuition fees and donations and long queues for admissions are signs of shortages. The same shortages existed for consumer goods before the industrial delicensing of 1991. That licence-permit-quota raj still exists in our education system.

For instance, to start a new school, one must first acquire an essentiality certificate (EC) from education authorities. In addition to the EC, the government has detailed specifications for classroom size, playground facilities, hiring, firing, and salaries payable to teachers. Undoubtedly these regulations are well intentioned. But outcomes are often perverse.

The role of government is to liberate the supply side, fund the demand of the poor, and monitor access and quality of education. If private initiative and entrepreneurship — for profit and non-profit — were to govern our schools and colleges, scholarships, education vouchers, and loans would offer the same freedom of choice to the poor as the rich enjoy today. Governments and NGOs should evaluate schools and colleges and publish their results so that parents can make informed decisions.

All individuals and organisations that support the direction of policy reforms proposed here must come together to form an effective coalition for these reforms. Please e-mail us at [email protected].

 

(Parth Shah is president of the Centre for Civil Society, a Delhi-based think-tank)