Approaches to International Education: India

Session 9

Factors influencing the success of EFA

1. The negative impact of target setting

2. The negative effects of donor dependency

3. Lack of participation of CSOs linked to target setting and donor dependency

4. The negative effect of gender mainstreaming as part of educational practice – toolkits and checklists!

5. Ethnicity and class variables which cut across EFA goals eg the middle class of West Bengal

Context: development of Indian education

• Traditional education served the needs of high caste Brahmin families and boys in particular

• Moguls remained elitist – wealth more than religion• Nehru – 1947-64 India as a secular democracy –

education for all to overcome social & religious division but emphasis on higher education

• Rajiv Gandhi reforms 1986 – increased central government funding to states – school in most villages

• Operation Blackboard 1987-8 – staff & plant• District Primary Education programme 1993 –

decentralised planning• EFA (2000) universal primary education by 2010?

India: choice as a means of achieving EFA goals

• Neo-liberal market forces encouraged by the World Bank and educational choice in England (specialist schools & academies) and America (charter schools) held up as good practice.

• World Bank Group report Making Services Work for Poor People (2002):

‘ What is worth noting is that here, despite the evidence of externalities in primary education and health in developing countries, clearly there is private demand for these services even (or especially) amongst the poor (p4)

India: choice as a means of achieving EFA goals

• ‘We need to examine options for improving the outcome of public services for the poor. We need to address the relationship between the policymaker and the service provider, the provider and the client, the client and the policymaker’ (p14)

• CfBT Report Public-Private Partnerships in Basic Education (2008) undertaken on behalf of EFA

India: choice as a means of achieving EFA goals

‘ In a PPP the public sector role is to define the scope of business, specify priorities, targets and outputs and set the performance regime. The role of the private sector is to deliver the business objective of the PPP in terms of offering value for money to the public sector. (p8)

Is there a demand for private education from the poor in India?

Tooley & Dixon (2006)1. Widespread acceptance of the availability of

affordable private schools for the poor in a range of developing countries

2. Parents choose them because of the inadequacy of the state system

3. Private schools are more accountable4. Teaching/teacher attendance superior5. Unregistered private schools perform better6. They perform better at a cheaper price

Three key objections to private school use in EFA refuted

1.Private schools do not have to be inequitable if they contribute to EFA through concessions eg vouchers

2.Private schools starting from a higher bases can be improved quickly alongside state schools if they receive a state subsidy

3.Private schools do not have to undermine state school reform if they are accessible to all, including the most poor, the socially excluded and girls

Critical evaluation of private school to achieve EFA goals in India

Key issues:

1. In which geographical and socio-economic areas has private education expanded?

2.Are schools competing in these areas along neo-liberal lines?

3.Who is in a position to choose?

4. Is there better learning in private schools?

Challenging points to consider

‘Ascribed status and the indices of povertyhave converging relationships with school Choice’ (Harma 2009 p164).‘Increased reliance on LFPs will polarise Society with the poorest remaining poor at least partly through lack of learning in ‘ghettoised’ government schools’ (p164).‘Markets do not deliver universal and sociallyoptimal levels of service delivery’ (p164).

India: the way forward

‘It is socially desirable to reform the government system, incorporating accountability as a core principle’ (Harma p164)

Reform Options 1. Funding a) teachers’ salaries b) spend less on secondary & tertiary education and more on primary c) regulating not subsidising private schools d) Incentives which guarantee attendance not just enrolment (Mehrotra (2006)

India: the way forward

2. Improving teachers’ accountability and work environment: a) serious shortage of teachers b) performance of teachers: absenteeism, para-teachers, teacher education, role of village education committee (CSO), unions c) Teacher work environment – pupil-teacher ratios, single teacher schools

Conclusions

• Can choice really bring about a basic education for all?

• Is there a place for public-private partnerships in achieving EFA goals?

Bibliography

Harma, J. (2009) can choice provide education for

all? Evidence from growth in private primary

schooling in India, Compare, 39 (3) 151-156.

LaRocque, N (2008) Public and private

partnerships in basic education, CfBT.

Mehrotha, S. (2006) reforming elementary

education in India: a menu of options, International

Journal of educational Development, 26 (2).

Bibliography continued

Tooley, J. (2004) Private education: the poor’sbest chance?http://www.unesco.org/courier/2000_11/uk/doss22.htmTooley, J & Dixon, ( (2006) ‘De facto’ privatisationof education and the poor: implications of a study from sub-Saharan Africa and India, Compare, 36 443-62. World Bank(2004) Making services work for poor people, inthe World Development Report, Islamabad, World Bank,