TWO-thirds full, one-third empty. That's how the World Bank has defined the state of India's primary education glass. For 6.7 crore children between ages six and 10 who attend primary school, there are another 3.2 crore who do not.
TWO-thirds full, one-third empty. That's how the World Bank has defined the state of India's primary education glass. For 6.7 crore children between ages six and 10 who attend primary school, there are another 3.2 crore who do not.
In a comprehensive 307-page report, Primary Education in India, principal education specialist and task manager Marlaine Lockheed had more than just structures to reveal: "India's low average educational attainment has not reached the critical threshold where benefits are the greatest and high economic growth rates are sustained."
The major findings of the report:
Says Abusaleh Shariff, associate director, National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER): "This is one of the few, rare, good reports and is an excellent effort. In spite of having numerous organisations and universities doing similar work in the country, we have not been able to take this kind of perspective." The advantages of primary education in the overall development of a country cannot be overstressed, as reams of paper and scores of economists including Nobel contender Amartya Sen have pointed out over the last half-a-century. This report is yet another step in that direction and its findings are supported by hard data.
Consider one factor: infant mortality rate. This is directly correlated to primary education. According to the report, in 1991, Orissa, one of the lesser educated states with a 35 per cent literacy, recorded an infant mortality rate of 112.1 per thousand. For Bihar —with 23 per cent literacy, the lowest in the country—the figure was 89.2. The figures for Uttar Pradesh were 25 per cent and 99.9 respectively. On the other hand, Kerala, with the highest literacy rate of 86 per cent, saw the lowest infant mortality: less than 24 out of a thousand infants died prematurely.
Or, take birth control. In Uttar Pradesh, the more women received education, the more they started using birth control measures. From around 12 per cent of non-literate women using birth control, the figure steadily jumped to 35 per cent for those educated up to secondary level and above.
There is a similar high correlation between the mother's education and her child's immunisation. In Uttar Pradesh, compared to around 17 per cent immunisation for children of non-literate mothers in 1995, the figure was over 50 per cent for secondary educated mothers. In Tamil Nadu, the numbers stood at 58 per cent and 86 per cent respectively.
The problem is aggravated by social ills—the haplessness of the more vulnerable sections—scheduled caste and tribes, Muslims, the poor. In 1986-87, a survey of students of ages six to 22 in Maharashtra found that compared to 54 per cent of rural scheduled caste males dropping out of school, the figure for others stood at 38 per cent. Against 34 per cent of urban scheduled tribe males dropping out, only 29 per cent of general students did so.
If data doesn't convince you, Shariff could. "There is a vested interest of the ruling class to prevent the lower classes from getting educated. In Gujarat for instance, the dominant caste of Patels does not allow children of scheduled castes and tribes to attend school." But there are structural problems too. The report cites two interesting examples.
In Kayipady, a fishing hamlet in Kerala which is also the most literate state in the country, not one of the 250 children between ages five and 14 was enrolled in school, just 3 km away. Reason: to reach the school, the children had to wade through a river, hop across a railway line and then cross the main highway twice. Concerns over their safety prevented the parents from sending them to school. Later, when a school was established in Kayipady, 185 children between ages five and 10 enrolled.
Likewise, in Andhra Pradesh, researchers studying the Kondareddy and Khammom tribes found that a third of the children of school-going age preferred to spend time "moving freely, swimming, catching fish, climbing trees, hunting birds, riding on buffaloes etc." Reason: socialisation in tribal society presents children with a lot of freedom, conspicuously absent from the highly disciplined and rigid model of a classroom. Shariff reacts: "Indian education has alienated itself from the local society. This has to change." At the lowest end of the education spectrum is the girl child. Her plight is the worst in all segments. The report found 75 per cent of the rural scheduled caste girl-children and 60 per cent from the scheduled tribes dropping out of school. The figure for urban scheduled tribe girlchildren was 48 per cent. The gender gap was significant: compared to 38 per cent of rural and 29 per cent of urban boys dropping out of school, the respective figures for girls stood at 57 per cent and 36 per cent.
This has invisible but damaging social and economic repercussions. For, the incremental non-market rate of return on education for girls is much higher than for the boys. Or, every Re 1 of primary education spent on girls will generate more non-market benefits—healthier children, birth control, and the like. More, since girls start much behind the boys, the effect of extra education goes longer. Of all scheduled caste women in UP and Bihar between ages 15 and 45—the reproductive age—only 6 per cent are literate, says Shariff.
If this fails to move you, then a dose of economics might work. Consider this: the more literate states are economically better off than the less literate ones. For this, the study compared the state domestic product with growth in educational attainment. The results: Haryana, Punjab and Maharashtra had the highest growth rates, and were among the better educated states. On the lowest rung were Assam, West Bengal and Orissa.
IN an otherwise remarkable report, the quality of data may be suspect. Government data on enrolment of students is highly overstated. What happens is that state officials find out the number and names of children belonging to a certain age group, which is translated into the school registers. And during spot scrutiny, the balance is termed as "dropouts". Confirms Shariff: "We don't have reliable data on enrolment rates, and the numbers in this report could be overstated and should not be used for planning." Shariff also feels the report has "grossly understated" the financial needs for making the country fully literate. While NCAER's own survey placed the outlay at Rs 22,810 crore in 1996, the report puts it at just Rs 10,464 crore. The government spends only 1.6 per cent of its GDP on elementary education. "This should rise to 4 per cent—even of a higher GDP," he says.
The problem of primary education does not end here. The next step is child labour. India has the largest number of child labourers in the world who, according to the voluntary organisation, The Concerned for Working Children, contribute 20 per cent of its GNP. Almost 8 crore children begin work very early and toil for more than 12 hours a day. According to voluntary groups, any non-school going child is a child labourer. That should be reason enough to make primary education a fundamental right.
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