The Hindu Business Line : Education system and the unanswered questions

It is worth enquiring why the government is concentrating its resources on the kind of schools which no MP or any middle-class parent would want for his or her own child, says P. V. INDIRESAN.

Equity is more important at the school stage than at the university level.

The HRD Minister, Mr Kapil Sibal, in an interview, has expressed his anguish that many B.A. degree holders are not getting jobs. Yet, he bemoans that our university enrolment is barely 12.4 per cent whereas it is as high as 70 per cent in the US. He wants to raise enrolment in our universities to 30-35 per cent. There is a contradiction here which, alas, seems to have missed his perception.

The Minister has three objectives — expansion, equity and quality. The problem lies with how to combine them all in one scheme which offers expansion of as much as 200-300 per cent within a few years. At the same time, his primary emphasis on school education is unexceptional because equity does not erupt suddenly at the university level and is important even more at the school stage than it is at the university level.

However, it is not so easy to agree with his concern for a central examination to test students for admission to universities or his enthusiasm for abolishing, at the same time, the X standard examination. Thus, the Minister’s concerns and ideas are like the proverbial curate’s egg — good in parts.

The Minister’s primary emphasis is on expansion, next on equity and only incidentally there is some concern for quality. In contrast, China seems to have only two objectives — expansion and quality. China is now far ahead of India in education; it could be a useful model for us to study.

Opting for funding, not quality

When I asked a cabinet minister at the Centre how many MPs will send their children to any Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan school, he categorically replied “never”. Hence, it is worth enquiring why the government is concentrating its resources on the kind of schools which no MP or any middle-class parent would want for his or her own child.

The answer is that the government does not have the money to build better schools for all. Hence, it does the most it can. Here the Centre has two alternatives: (a) fund all state-run schools, or (b) confine itself to its constitutional responsibility of maximising quality. The government has opted for the former, probably because it feels it will win more votes.

If the government had opted for the latter, it could have built first-rate schools but only for the top 10 per cent of the students, the ones that deserve the best. For instance, it could have taken students after the second standard (to place some pressure on the students as also on their parents to study well at least for two years) and place them for the next ten years in the very best schools in the neighbourhood.

It is also important to bear in mind that children who study with those from the middle-class do better than those who study by themselves. Middle-class parents take special pains to train their children very well, something that poor parents often cannot or will not do. Hence, because the government is thinking of public-private partnership, I suggest that the government meet half the cost and the middle-class parents meet the other half. In selecting the top 10 per cent, the government may even apply the backward caste criteria. That will cause far less harm at age eight than it will do by applying the same principle at age eighteen.

Here we assume that the basic intelligence is about the same among all groups but the breeding provided by the middle-class parents distorts the picture. Hence, poorer families (if the government so decides, the backward castes) will benefit much better when their children are selected at age eight than at 18. Then, the government will have to pay for ten years of education for about two million children every year, or for a total of twenty million children in all — about Rs 30,000 crore a year.

Does the Centre have that kind of money? If it does not, can it fund at least half the number? These are matters for the government to decide. The government will have to incur that kind of expense not immediately but only after ten years when the scheme extends to the entire school level. It should have Rs 3,000 crore to spare in the first year, rising by the same amount each year.

The ‘numbers’ trap

The present government seems to have enormous faith in paper and pencil tests. If it will have its way, entire university admission will be done on the basis of such tests.

We should remember that the US, which has developed such tests the most, uses the tests only for shortlisting, not for the final selection. We would be wise to follow that principle.

The government has fallen into the trap of “number of students at the university level”. The minister has been talking of trebling admissions from the current 12.4 per cent to 35 per cent or more. He forgets that our economy is still undeveloped, that excessive education can be a bane. It can lead to frustration, even violence.

We already have enough problems with Naxalism. Government policy will probably make matters worse, not better.

Hence, I suggest that university education, at any rate the one supported by the Centre, should apply the rule that the costs will be shared equally by the three beneficiaries — the student, the society and the employer. Further, not all students need pay the same amount of fees but pay according to their paying capacity. The fees might even be proportional to that paid at their school.

In brief, I have three suggestions to make: One, select top schools in every tehsil and help the best poor children to attend them by guaranteeing them the cost of the fees as well as transport costs. An equal number should be full-fee paying students.

Two, do not place too much credence on entrance tests — not even the JEE is good enough even though it deals with subjects such as mathematics and science that are not culture-specific. I see no way of having a nationwide test in other subjects such as history, let alone languages.

Three, limit the numbers of students that will be supported at the university level to the numbers employers are willing to support by meeting a third of the costs. That may require changes in the law but that should not be difficult.

Politician vs statesman

Our politicians have treated education as a means for patronage, as a means for collecting votes. They forget that they have two choices: (a) garner short-term benefit at the cost of long-term failure; (b) help all deserving children and not merely the politically influential few. Politicians will be wiser and do greater good to the country if (a) they make education as good for bright poor children as they are for middle-class children (that too from as low a level as possible) and (b) the numbers supported at the university level match the number of jobs the economy will support and not much more.

There are two choices: Politicians choose immediate, short-term benefit for the favoured few; statesmen choose ultimate, long-term prosperity that will benefit all without bias.

(Concluded)

(This is 256th in the Vision 2020 series. The previous article appeared on July 6.)
(The author is former Director, IIT, Madras. blfeedback@thehindu.co.in)

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Sibal wants Class 10 board exams to be optional

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