{"id":6192,"date":"2020-02-06T15:29:50","date_gmt":"2020-02-06T09:59:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/?p=6192"},"modified":"2020-02-06T15:29:50","modified_gmt":"2020-02-06T09:59:50","slug":"measures-needed-to-improve-indias-education-sector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/measures-needed-to-improve-indias-education-sector\/","title":{"rendered":"Measures needed to improve India\u2019s education sector"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Relevance: Mains: G.S paper II: governance: Education<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/education-sep-2019.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-6194\" src=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/education-sep-2019.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"715\" height=\"310\" srcset=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/education-sep-2019.jpg 715w, https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/education-sep-2019-150x65.jpg 150w, https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/education-sep-2019-300x130.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 715px) 100vw, 715px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Context:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>India celebrates the 10th anniversary of its Right to Education Act (RTE), which went into effect in April 2010.<br \/>\n\u2022 The RTE has been censured for its limited focus on governance and learning outcomes, its achievement in improving access to schooling is undeniable.<br \/>\n\u2022 It has also served as a rallying point for a wide range of stakeholders to intervene in the sector.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Lack of quality education:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>India\u2019s learning outcomes remain stubbornly low.<br \/>\n\u2022 Quality concerns around education are seldom viewed as a political priority. But these concerns cannot be ignored for much longer, especially in light of India\u2019s human capital crisis, reflected in unemployment statistics.<br \/>\n\u2022 The 2030 Skills Scorecard by the Global Business Coalition for Education reinforces these concerns \u2014 in 2030.<br \/>\n\u2022 India will have the highest number of secondary school graduates in South Asia, but nearly half of them will lack the skills to enter the job-market.<br \/>\n\u2022 India\u2019s education sector must focus on both scale and substance, addressing the learning problem at a system-wide level, while also recalibrating the raison d\u2019etre of the education system itself.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/educations.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-6193\" src=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/educations.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"638\" height=\"479\" srcset=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/educations.jpg 638w, https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/educations-150x113.jpg 150w, https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/educations-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 638px) 100vw, 638px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Strengthening administration:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In the past, even the most sophisticated education policies and curriculum frameworks have failed to live up to their promise, owing to weak administration.<br \/>\n\u2022 Strengthening the pillars of governance in the education sector is of undeniable importance.<br \/>\n\u2022 Over the past few years, several States, including Haryana, Rajasthan, and Himachal Pradesh, have taken ownership to drive large-scale changes in how education is administered.<br \/>\n\u2022 In many of these States, the starting point has been the integration of schools.<br \/>\n\u2022 Historically, government schools have emerged organically without a coherent strategy, sometimes serving just a handful of students, causing a large, unwieldy school network.<br \/>\n\u2022 The state\u2019s capacity to manage such a system, however, is limited with inadequate frontline administration, information gaps, and large vacancies among faculty.<br \/>\n\u2022 Optimising for the number of schools is complemented with interventions directed at infrastructure improvements, adequate staffing of teachers, school leaders, and frontline officials, and developing the capacity of these staff.<br \/>\n\u2022 Alongside is a strong focus on \u2018remediation\u2019 to enable all students to achieve grade-level competency.<br \/>\n\u2022 In terms of administration, programmes across States appear to share some common elements: management information systems to improve review and monitoring; communications across all levels of government, leveraging technology such as video conferences and WhatsApp; and project management protocols at the State, district, and block levels.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Various initiatives taken by different state governments:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In Rajasthan, where the International Innovation Corps worked with the Department of Education alongside other players, the State focussed on developing approximately 10,000 \u201cmodel\u201d secondary schools \u2014 one in every gram panchayat \u2014 with quality infrastructure and prioritised staffing under the Adarsh programme.<br \/>\n\u2022 Headmasters of these schools were subsequently designated Panchayat Education Officers and trained to mentor other schools.<br \/>\n\u2022 Such efforts reduced teacher vacancies from 50 per cent to 19 per cent over four years, and created a cadre of frontline administration that regularly monitors schools.<br \/>\n\u2022 The State has defied national trends to witness a reverse migration of students from private to government schools, and both the National Achievement Survey and Board results point to improvements in secondary school outcomes.<br \/>\n\u2022 Other States have similarly seen positive results.<br \/>\n\u2022 For instance, in Haryana, an evaluation by Gray Matters India estimates that students in 94 of the 119 blocks are now \u201cgrade-level competent.\u201d<br \/>\n\u2022 This has been attributed to the Saksham Haryana Programme.<br \/>\n\u2022 The programme has instituted new mechanisms for data collection and analysis, and a restructuring of planning, coordination, mentoring, and monitoring at the district- and block-levels.<br \/>\n\u2022 Building on such successes, the NITI Aayog and three States \u2014 Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, and Jharkhand \u2014 are in the process of scaling such efforts through the SATH-E programme.<br \/>\n\u2022 Additionally, 14 of the 30 indicators for the NITI Aayog\u2019s new School Education Quality Index are concerned with governance processes, including availability of teachers, training, and accountability and transparency.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Revaluation of outcomes:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>This focus on building the capability of the state to better manage the education system is an important shift in the sector, and the aforementioned examples demonstrate how to go about it.<br \/>\n\u2022 But despite their successes, these should be viewed as starting points. These efforts remain focussed on the public school system.<br \/>\n\u2022 For more meaningful change, it is imperative to transition from seeing the government as just a provider to a regulator and facilitator.<br \/>\n\u2022 There has recently been an increasing sense of competition, with governments claiming how their schools are out-performing private schools.<br \/>\n\u2022 This may induce a positive pressure to perform, the reality is that apart from an elite few, the bulk of private schools are under-resourced and have little regulation of quality, safety, or outcomes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Way ahead:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Fixing administration is an important but belated response to the state capacity problems.<br \/>\n\u2022 A new policy must capitalise on this energised administrative apparatus to redefine the broader objectives of the education system.<br \/>\n\u2022 This will require a fundamental reengineering of assessments mechanisms, a mass behavioural change to facilitate a shift in focus from high-stakes examinations, and new partnerships between stakeholders \u2014 parents, students, teachers, frontline administrators, and NGOs.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Conclusion:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>An \u201coutcomes-focus\u201d is undoubtedly critical, but should be underpinned by an overarching human capital strategy.<br \/>\n\u2022 In a few years, a generation of students, who would otherwise not have access to an education, will have completed a full cycle of schooling thanks to the RTE.<br \/>\n\u2022 But over the next decade, the key priority that education policy must seek to address is to make sure that schooling isn\u2019t just an end for students, but a ladder to opportunity.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Relevance: Mains: G.S paper II: governance: Education Context: India celebrates the 10th anniversary of its Right to Education Act (RTE),<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3530,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[123,18],"tags":[392],"class_list":["post-6192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","category-general-studies-ii","tag-union-public-service-commission-upsc"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6192"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6195,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6192\/revisions\/6195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}