SUB-SECTORAL BACKGROUND, ISSUES AND OBJECTIVES
A.BACKGROUND 1.1 Substantial gains have been made in providing access to education to Indian children over the past four decades; however, much remains to be done. Forty-eight percent of India's population is still illiterate and the number of illiterates increased from 302 to 324 million between 1981 and 1991. While nearly all children have physical access to a school, the holding and teaching power of most rural primary schools is very weak.
1.2 About seventy-five percent of the 102 million children reported to be enrolled in primary school attend one of 565,000 schools that offer the lower primary cycle of education. *1/ The balance are enrolled in primary sections of upper primary and secondary schools. A child is expected to enter grade 1 at the age of 6 and to complete eight years of schooling by age 14. States differ in administration and definition of the steps on the educational ladder, but most have adopted the national model of five years of lower primary plus three years of upper primary schooling; some states have adopted a four plus three structure for lower and upper primary schooling. Together, lower and upper primary cycles are referred to as elementary education. Lower secondary school, also called high school, comprises two or three years and higher secondary consists of two additional years of secondary education which is the Plus 2 stage.
1.3 While the stated gross enrolment ratio (GER) at the primary level is high, 102.7 percent in 1992, a proportion of the children reported as enrolled in grade 1 are listed on school ledgers but do not attend beyond a few days. In addition, the reported GER includes repeaters, who are not identified as such. The Government of India (GOI) thus discounts the reported GER by 20 percent for planning purposes. Internal efficiency is extremely low. Nearly one-fourth of children who are reported to be enrolled drop out before reaching the second grade and about half drop out before grade five. Although gaps in access and completion have been closing in recent years, nationwide a disproportionate number of non-enrolled and dropouts are from the poorest households, girls, members of Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs).
1* Elementary education in India consists of four or five years of lower primary school, depending on the state, plus three years of upper primary schooling.
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1.4 Approximately 250,000 non-formal education (NFE) education centers provide equivalent primary education for an estimated seven million children in the 9-14 age group who do not enter or who drop out of school, and literacy programs are provided for adults in selected districts.
1.5 Primary education in India is the joint responsibility of the central and state governments, although most financing is provided by the States. In the Seventh Five Year Plan (1985-1990) the states provided 63 percent of the plan resources invested in primary education and 96 percent of non-plan recurrent costs.
1.6 After the National Policy on Education was issued in 1986, central government assistance for primary education expanded in the form of grants to states for specific programs. During the Seventh Plan, 70 percent of central government assistance was delivered through Operation Blackboard (OBB), through which grants are provided for an additional teacher and educational materials in single-teacher rural schools. An important provision is that one of the two teachers in OBB schools should be female. In addition, the GOI provides grants for non-formal primary education for girls and working children and for improved primary teacher education through the establishment of District Institutes of Education and Training (DIETs) in the states. DIETs are intended to provide training, curriculum and planning and management support for elementary education at the district level. A centrally financed National Literacy Mission (NLM) has been established to implement total literacy campaigns (TLC) in selected districts.
1.7 Two autonomous national resource institutions are financed by the GOI to provide professional and academic leadership in education. These are the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT), and the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA). Both are located in New Delhi. These institutions work closely with counterpart organizations in the states, providing training, research and planning support.
B. ISSUES 1.8 The effectiveness and efficiency of primary education in India need to be improved. Weak outcomes signal low returns to investment or, from another point of view, failure to capture the significant benefits in poverty reduction, economic development and social returns that primary education has been shown to generate, internationally and in India. Addressing the principal constraints on sub-sector efficiency and effectiveness through expanded and better investment is a significant challenge to Indian education.
OUTCOMES OF PRIMARY EDUCATION 1.9 Despite substantial improvements since 1986, the outcomes of primary education, as measured by literacy statistics, dropout and learning achievement are unsatisfactory. Available data also suggest that there is considerable variation on these
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indicators both between and within states, indicating a substantial degree of regional inequity.
1.10 Ten large northern states have overall literacy rates ranging from 38 to 55 percent, and female literacy rates from 20 to 40 percent, all well below national averages. By contrast, Kerala has achieved universal enrollment and comparatively high levels of completion of the lower primary cycle. Near universal literacy has been attained. Among other major states, dropout rates in grades 1-5 range from 21 percent in Tamil Nadu to 66 percent in Bihar. Female dropout rates are five or more percentage points higher than male rates in six large northern states and in Karnataka; they are lower than male dropout rates in a number of smaller states.
1.11 Within state disparities on basic indicators are also marked. For example, of Maharashtra's 29 districts, 20 have female literacy rates above the national average of 39 percent, but the rates in 9 fall below the average. For Assam, the comparable figures are 13 and 10 districts, respectively. In Haryana, 9 districts are above the national average and 7 are below. Three of Tamil Nadu's 20 districts have female literacy rates below the national average.
1.12 Many of the students who do complete primary school learn relatively little. Project studies of student learning achievement in the second and final year of lower primary school in seven states show that, on average, students have mastered fewer than a quarter of the curriculum objectives. Learning achievement is very low even in states that have achieved full enrollment and comparatively low dropout, such as Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
1.13 The effects of these disparities are readily seen in social indicators. The sex ratio is an indicator of gender discrimination. In a high literacy state such as Kerala, there are 1016 females for every 1000 males, and the infant mortality rate is 28 per thousand births. By contrast, in the low literacy state of Bihar there are 930 females for every 1000 males, and the infant mortality rate is 117 per thousand births. Nationally, household sample survey data show that completing primary education is associated with significant improvements in contraceptive use, pre-natal care and child immunization among rural women. On the basis of dropout rates alone, more than half of rural girls are leaving school ill-equipped to take advantage of these important development services.
SUB-SECTOR CONSTRAINTS 1.14 With the issuance of the Revised National Policy on Education and a National Programme of Action in 1992, the GOI has accelerated central leadership and support for primary education development. The challenges are substantial. Historically, the ability of states to invest in primary education has varied widely, but limited federal resources have not been well targeted to offset these variations. The institutional mechanisms needed to manage expanded investment and to provide technical leadership have received little past attention. Reforms will now need to be carried out in a changing
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institutional environment caused by the implementation by states of the Seventy-third and Seventy-fourth amendments to the Constitution of India (1992) that provide for increased responsibility on the part of elected local governments (Panchayat Raj institutions) for social programs, including primary education. Having achieved the comparatively easy objective of putting schools in reach of most children, reforms will need to address the much less tractable problems of improving the quality of education in order to reduce dropout and improve learning achievement, and to improve the equity of access to and completion of primary education for girls, scheduled caste (SC) and scheduled tribe (ST) students.
1.15 Historically Inadequate Financing. With the introduction of new economic policies in 1991, and the launching of the Eighth Plan in 1992, India has substantially increased financing for elementary education.2/ Projected Eighth Plan investments in elementary education by the Government of India and the states would be on the order of US$3 billion; in the Seventh Plan (1985-90), combined investment totalled less than US$1 billion. This sharp increase in planned investment comes after decades of gradual increases in both Plan (investment) and Non-plan (recurrent) expenditures on education and, within education, on elementary education (Annex 15 - Public Finances and Education Expenditures in the Six IDA DPEP States). Average annual state expenditures on elementary education have risen from 5.2 percent of total budgets in 1985/86 to 10.2 percent in 1990/91.
1.16 Recent trends are thus encouraging. However, the present primary education system shows the effects of past under-financing. In real terms, the rate of growth in expenditure per student at the elementary level was only 0.4 percent from 1980/81 to 1987/88, reflecting both the priority given to expanding enrollments and the continuing growth of population at 2 percent annually. More than 90 percent of expenditures continues to go to salaries. In consequence, expenditures on the quality of education -- in-service training, learning materials, maintenance of facilities, educational research and development, system planning and management -- have been severely constrained. Household survey data show that about 40 percent of dropout is explained by lack of interest in education and by failure in school; both factors can be attributed at least in part to the low quality of education. Very poor absolute levels of learning achievement across the states provide a further indicator of poor quality.
1.17 The challenge for the balance of the century is thus to target substantially increased resources on improving educational quality. This will require an enhanced leadership and management role for the GOI in a complex federal system of education in order to ensure equitable allocation of enhanced resources and to assist states in developing institutional planning and management capacity at state and district levels.
2/ Most financial data is reported for elementary education, and not separately for primary education. Proportion and relative changes in resources for elementary education, however, are reasonably accurate indicators of similar resource shifts for primary education.
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1.18 System Management. Prior to the National Education Policy of 1986, the central government's role in primary education was marginal. States provided the largest share of investment and recurrent cost financing, but, with few exceptions, states gave low priority to primary education. State planning and management mechanisms were poorly developed, and primary education systems were characterized by routine administration of inadequate finances to districts, which in turn built and supervised schools. Change and improvement in primary education was limited to small scale pilot efforts in a few states.
1.19 Beginning in 1986, the central government has sought to expand its leadership and financing role in basic education through national grants schemes and mobilization of external assistance. The centrally sponsored grant schemes (OBB, Nonformal Education, DIETS) focus on one element of the education delivery system. They provide standard packages of inputs, regardless of the varying conditions of states and districts and targeting is imprecise. Other than DIETS, there has been little investment in the development of district, state or national institutional capacity for the planning and management of large scale education reform programs or for educational evaluation and research. Implementation difficulties have reduced the effectiveness of the OBB and NFE schemes.
1.20 External assistance has been mobilized for integrated state basic education development programs in Bihar, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, and to expand the earlier ODA-assisted project in Andhra Pradesh. In these projects, most of which have been launched since 1990, the development of state institutional capacity has begun to receive attention. Registered "societies"3/ have been established to manage the flow of resources and to provide a nucleus for the planning and management of reforms. In Uttar Pradesh, a State Institute of Education Management and Training is being established to provide technical planning, management and research services. In most states, however, institutional development has yet to begin.
1.21 At the national level, capacity to finance and manage a sustained, large scale program of financial and technical assistance to states for educational reform and improvement has yet to be developed. The bulk of technical, professional training and research resources of NCERT and NIEPA have been directed at secondary and higher education. A 1993 national survey of more than 130 universities and social science research institutions identified only four with any ongoing work on primary or elementary education. Less than one percent of the publications of NCERT and NIEPA have addressed issues in primary education. In the GOI Department of Education (DOE), supervision of existing state primary-level projects and planning for initiatives is being handled by a team of four persons, with assistance from a team of ten NIEPA and NCERT faculty.
3/ Registered societies - separate legal entities registered under the Societies Registration Act of 1860 - have been used in India to undertake educational, scientific, literary and charitable activities; they have are being used as implementation entities for basic education projects in Bihar, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.
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1.22 The size of the country, the diversity and complexity of the federal system, and the scope of the task to be accomplished mandate the creation of a strong planning, monitoring and management function within the GOI to assist in the development of state institutional capacity and to support and supervise programs and projects aimed at improving the quality of primary education.
1.23 Decentralization and the Role of Local Governments. The 73rd and 74th Amendments to the Constitution of India (1992) mandate the creation of locally elected governments in all states. States have latitude in determining the structure and functions of these governments through enabling legislation. It is anticipated that such legislation will be passed and elections for local bodies held in all states by 1995.
1.24 Primary education is to be one of the major areas of responsibility for elected local governments. A committee of the Central Advisory Board for Education (CABE) has recommended the functions to be performed at district, block and community levels with respect to primary education. Long-standing national policy for the creation of effective school/community organizations has been strengthened. The CABE report has been endorsed by state ministers of education." In a nation of the size and diversity of India, moving responsibility for primary education to lower levels of administration holds considerable promise, as does expanded community involvement. However, patterns of authority and financing are likely to vary across states and are at present undecided. District-level tax-based financing is unlikely in most states in the near future. District- level planning and management capacities are largely undeveloped. There are risks that state education agencies would be unable to provide the technical support needed at lower levels of government, and that changing patterns of fund administration may result in inefficient administration of investment programs, including those for primary education.
1.25 Gaining the potential benefits of decentralization poses an additional challenge to state and national education agencies. International experience shows that effective decentralization requires not only real transfer of authority, but also training and technical support to enable officials to carry out new responsibilities.
1.26 Education Quality. While universal access to basic education remains elusive, high primary gross enrollment rates suggest that the system has at least largely caught up with the backlog of unenrolled children. However, expansion of facilities to meet population growth, to improve equity of access for girls, SC and ST students, and to reduce overcrowding in classrooms will continue to be needed. The major challenge at this point is to improve internal efficiency and learning achievement in schools that serve the 100 million children who appear on the enrollment ledgers at the beginning of the school year.