Education in India

Axioms of education reform in India

What are the areas of common ground in the ongoing debate on improving school education in India to provide a quality education for all children? The points of contention seem to get more attention and are often amplified in the public debate, while the points of agreement are forgotten.

I’ve tried to list out the areas of agreement, which can be termed 'axioms', that could serve as the common ground to build on. 

For clarity on what I mean by axioms, the dictionary definitions of axiom are as follows:

• a statement or proposition that is regarded as being established, accepted, or self-evidently true. (Oxford)
• a statement or principle that is generally accepted to be true, but need not be so (Cambridge)
• a maxim widely accepted on its intrinsic merit (Merriam-Webster)
• a statement accepted as true as the basis for argument or inference (Merriam-Webster)
• an established rule or principle or a self-evident truth (Merriam-Webster)

A couple of caveats - the axioms listed below are not in any specific order of importance or in any sense complete. Some of the axioms listed below may not reflect the current ground realities. The axioms focus on areas of common agreement on the way things ought to be, rather than the way they are now.

Axioms of education reform in India

1. Every single child must have the opportunity to get a high quality school education upto the age of 17 years (class XII level).
2. Education is a public good. The Government must fund the education of every single child till completion of high school.
3. Children of all backgrounds must be encouraged to be in school together. Stratification of children based on any criteria like class, income, caste, religion etc. should be discouraged.
4. A substantial majority of parents today want their children to get a school education. Parents are willing to spend a good part of their income to give their kids what they perceive as the 'best education' within their means.
5. More and more middle and upper class parents in the urban areas, and in rural areas too in recent years, are sending their children to private schools.
6. An increasing number of poorer parents too are opting to pay to educate their children in private schools, even when there are government schools nearby providing free education, free uniforms, free noon meals, free notebooks and textbooks etc..
7. The existing number of schools in the country (including both government and private schools) aren’t enough to educate all our children - we need many more schools.
8. The existing number of teachers aren’t enough to educate all our children - we need many more teachers.
9. Teachers matter – teachers play an important role in guiding, inspiring, and helping children learn and live up to their potential.
10. Outcomes matter – 
    • all children should have learnt the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic in primary school, and
    • all children should have an acceptable level of mathematical and scientific literacy and reading comprehension, and be able to think critically and express and articulate their thoughts and ideas, by the time they leave high school.
11. Every school must be accountable to the parents of the children studying in the school as well as to the larger local community for the outcomes mentioned above.
12. The focus of the State has so far been largely on inputs (more spending, more schools, more classrooms, more facilities in each school, more teachers etc..) , but it has to shift to ensuring the outcomes mentioned above.
13. A substantial majority of parents strongly believe that English medium education is the key to a brighter future for their children, although many studies show that children learn better when taught in their native language, especially in primary school.
14. Our current evaluation system, especially at the school leaving levels, is a test of the ability to provide expected answers to template questions, rather than a test of the levels of understanding and learning, or skills like critical thinking or expressing ones understanding in one’s own words.
15. The one and only job of teachers must be to educate children. Teachers should not be drafted by the Government to do other unrelated work like conducting the census or organizing elections etc., which takes away weeks and months at a time from their core activity of educating children.
16. Education must be regulated by the State to ensure that all government and private schools maintain basic infrastructure and quality standards as well as minimum standards for learning outcomes.
17. Profiteering by schools (making profits through illegal or unethical means or exploiting the desperation of parents and charging fees far beyond costs) should not be tolerated. Schools that are found to be profiteering should be penalized after following a due process.
18. An educated citizenry is a must for India to develop and grow economically and socially. Conversely, an uneducated citizenry can lead to social, economic and political disaster, especially so in today’s India, given the large percentage of young people with very high aspirations.
19. Although it has been a stated goal of allocating 6% of GDP for public expenditure on education ever since the Kothari Commission proposed it in 1968, we have never been able to spend more than 4.3% of GDP on education till date and haven’t spent more than 4% of GDP in the past decade. 
20. Given the current economic situation in the country, the amount of public funding available for school education is likely to be less than desired for the foreseeable future. Private funding of education is likely to increase in the future.

I'm sure there are axioms that I've missed. What are they? Some of the axioms listed may not seem as axiomatic to you as to me. Do chime in with comments, if you feel so.

In the next post, I will list out the points of contention in the ongoing debate on what needs to be done to achieve universalisation of schooling in India.

 

Primary school teachers in Tamil Nadu promote education in government schools

"People pay taxes of many kinds to the Tamil Nadu Government and should therefore enthusiastically admit their children in government schools and benefit from the free education provided in the government schools," says the Tamil Nadu Primary Teachers Association (TNPTA).

In a press release, Abdul Majeed, an office bearer of the Association said, "Parents must come forward to admit their children in government schools offering free education. All these schools have excellent teachers. In addition to providing free education to all students, the Tamil Nadu State Government also provides 4 pairs of free uniforms every year, a nutritious meal with an egg and a banana every day, free text books and notebooks, a free cycle and also a free laptop computer. Parents must make full use of all these benefits available to them."

To drive this message home to parents, 100,000 leaflets emphasising the necessity and the benefits of admitting children in government schools are being distributed to the public by the Tamil Nadu Primary Teachers Association.

This is the gist of a report that appeared in the Tamil daily newspaper Dinamalar (Nov 23, 2012). None of the English media seem to have carried this news.

The way the statements have been phrased by the TNPTA suggests that the government school teachers know something that the rest of the public are unaware of. But the actions of the government school teachers speak much louder than their words and the people are only too well aware of the implications.

Over 73% of these very same government school teachers in Tamil Nadu have chosen to send their own children to private schools and not the 'excellent' government schools that they themselves teach in. This data has been painstakingly collected by Mr. T.K. Chandrasekaran by filing RTI applications with the District Education Officers in each of the districts in Tamil Nadu.

The initiative by the teachers to promote education in government schools is probably arising out of a fear of losing their jobs if the exodus to private schools continues unabated*. The teachers need to ask themselves why parents are shunning the free education in government schools despite the attendant benefits of free uniforms, free books, notebooks, a free cycle, a free laptop etc.. When people perceive that the quality of education is poor, all the other freebies are irrelevant.

But the teachers know this only too well. By choosing to pay out of their pocket and educate their own children in private schools, the teachers are clearly acting in their self-interest. Nothing wrong with that - in fact, they are doing the right thing by their children. There is no way they can prevent the rest of the people from acting in their own self-interest - the teachers are fighting a losing battle.

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* The 2011 ASER Report provides data on the trend of increasing enrollment in private schools in rural Tamil Nadu.The corresponding figures for urban Tamil Nadu are likely to be much higher.

What is the Government's official stand on India's participation in the PISA 2012 tests?

After India's poor performance in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2009 cycle of tests, there is no clarity about India's participation in the PISA 2012 cycle of tests. There have been news reports indicating and suggesting that the Government has decided against participating in the 2012 cycle, but the Government does not seem to have made any statement yet. Here is a summary of what I have been able to glean from the news reports and questions raised in Parliament.

Indian Express (September 3, 2012)

Just why did Indians perform so badly at the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) as to stand at the bottom of the ladder? The government thinks it is not a reflection on the country’s schooling. Advised by the NCERT, the HRD Ministry has concluded that India trailed in the international rankings because of the questions posed.

Terming these out of context, the government will take up the issue with organisers of PISA before deciding on full-scale participation in the test for 2012, with students from 10 of its states.

...

The ministry has concluded that there was a socio-cultural disconnect between the questions and Indian students. The ministry will write to the OECD and drive home the need to factor in India’s “socio-cultural milieu”. India’s participation in the next PISA cycle will hinge on this.

Considering that over 70 nations participate in PISA, it is uncertain whether an exception would be made for India. Incidentally, the Ministry of External Affairs is not enthused about a pan-India participation in PISA as it is expected to throw up discouraging results. India is already close to missing the 2012 cycle and may have to wait for 2015.

The NCERT in its report concluded that “non-exposure of students (especially in rural areas) towards the items tested in PISA” was a critical factor in the poor performance by Indian students. They cited questions relating to ATMs and use of air bags in cars.

Times of India (September, 9, 2012)

"India is already late for the 2012 test as preparations began a year in advance. If the questions conform to our sensibilities , we will take part. We will enter into a correspondence with OECD before taking a final call," says the official. But it may already be too late. The question is: why participate at all if one is not ready for it?

...

Sydney Rebeiro, former dean, University of Delhi, says such standardized tests factor in various levels of education. But the HRD official says these tests would be difficult for children in rural areas. "If the child hasn't heard of airbags, hot air balloons and ATMs, he won't even attempt those questions. Also, such detailed questions would be confusing; straight questions would work better." But surely international tests can't be tailor-made for each country? Besides, other countries are also taking these tests.

Indian Express (July 18, 2012) carried a report, which does not seem to have been corroborated or confirmed by anyone else. Presumably, MEA refers to the Ministry of External Affairs here.

... [The HRD Ministry] is putting up a brave face and wants the PISA assessment done in as many as nine states now. But, strangely, it is the MEA that seems to have developed cold feet. The HRD Ministry has to take an approval from the MEA to get this assessment done and the MEA is learnt to be sitting on the proposal for many days now.

Some MPs have raised questions in Parliament on the India's performance in the 2009 cycle of PISA tests and what the Govt plans to do going ahead and the then HRD Minister's answers relating to PISA tests in India are excerpted below. This is as official as it gets.

• Manish Tewari, Devji Patel - Lok Sabha Unstarred Question No. 1226 answered on 21.03.2012

  The purpose of this PISA (2009) pilot study was to build our capacity for international participation and to understand the methodology and other aspects of the international survey. 

• Motilal Vora -  Rajya Sabha Unstarred Question No. 4745 answered on 18.05.2012
• S. Thangavelu - Rajya Sabha Unstarred Question No. 861 answered on 17.08.2012

  The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), 2009 covered only two States, Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh in India and indicates unsatisfactory performance of students in these two States. 

• Ashok Tanwar - Lok Sabha Unstarred Question No. 3945 answered on 05.09.2012 specifically asked "whether there is any proposal to implement International Student Assessment (ISA) Programme in all States so as to build capacity for international participation and to understand the methodology and other aspects of the international survey; " (sic)

  The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a project of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), was piloted in two Indian states, namely, Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. However, no decision has been taken to implement the Programme in all states of the country. (emphasis mine)  

The official view (as of September 09, 2012) is that the Government has not taken any decision. Since time is running out for participation in the 2012 cycle of PISA tests, the Minister of HRD ought to make a statement on the following:

• Has the Government written to the OECD (organisers of PISA 2012) about its concerns of a socio-cultural disconnect between the questions and Indian students? If so, when did the Government write to OECD? If not, when does the Government plan to write to the OECD?
• If the Government has already written to the OECD, has the Government received a reply from the OECD in response to its letter? If so, when did it receive the reply and what did the OECD say?
• Has the Government taken a decision to participate in PISA 2012 or not? If so, what has it decided? If not, by when does the Government expect to take a decision?

The lack of any official statements makes one wonder - is the Government planning to take no decision till it is too late to participate in the 2012 cycle and then tout that as the excuse for not participating?

Govt backtracks on home schooling; says not permitted under the RTE Act

In a volte face, the Govt has reversed its view (filed earlier in an affidavit in the Delhi High Court) that home schooling is permissible under the Right to Education Act.

Deccan Herald reports

The Union government took a U-turn before a division bench of the Delhi HIgh Court, saying its earlier stand that the Right to Education Act does not come in the way of home-schooling was "incorrect and contrary" to Section 10 of the Act.

The Centre had sought time to file a fresh affidavit clarifying its stand.

...

Advocate Ashok Agarwal, in the capacity of an intervener appointed by the High Court in this case, had objected to the government's and the petitioner's stand in their affidavits.

"The demand on the part of the petitioner for home-schooling or alternative forms of schooling and the stand taken by the Union Government in support of such demand through counter affidavit dated July 16, 2012 is based on completely casual and erroneous interpretation of the letter, spirit and intent of the RTE Act," he had submitted in his response.

The Delhi High Court directed the Union of India to file its counter affidavit by December 19th, 2012.

Case Details:

Delhi High Court Case no. W.P.(C) 8870/2011

SHREYA SAHAI AND ORS  Vs. UOI AND ORS
Advocate: Somnath Bharti

(APPELLATE JURISDICTION) , COURT NO. 1 ,  (DIVISION BENCH-1) 
HON'BLE THE ACTING CHIEF JUSTICE , HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE RAJIV SAHAI ENDLAW

Additional Respondents:

Ashok Aggarwal
Central Board of Secondary Education 
National Institute of Open Schooling
Association of Unaided Private Schools

Jandhyala B G Tilak, has argued in the Economic & Political Weekly that the affidavit submitted in July 2012 by the Government to the Delhi High Court permitting home schooling under the Right to Education Act contradicts the letter and spirit of the Right to Education Act.

The Prohibition of Unfair Practices in Schools Bill, 2012 - full text of the draft

The Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) has come up with a draft legislation for prohibiting unfair practices in schools.

A copy of the full text of the draft of  The Prohibition of Unfair Practices in Schools Bill, 2012 can be downloaded here (~15MB pdf).

I quickly scanned through it and at first glance, the bill seems to be excessively harsh and severe on the schools, although there are some very good clauses too, which could bring about much needed transparency in the functioning of schools.

The proposed draft legislation was to be presented before the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) meeting on November 1st, but Business Standard reports that the CABE Committee meeting for November 1st was postponed due to the change of guard at the Ministry of HRD.

According to a report in Law et al, even before the Government officially published the draft of the bill,  the Independent School Federation of India (IFSI) filed a petition in the Delhi High Court on this and the Court has already issued orders on the petition.

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday directed the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) to publish on its website the proposed “Prohibition of Unfair Practices in Schools Bill, 2012" framed by it.

A bench of Justice Rajiv Shakdher was today hearing a petition by Independent School Federation of India (ISFI) seeking direction to CABE to give appropriate hearing to all before finalizing penal provisions in the proposed Bill.

ISFI also sought direction to Ministry of Human Resource & Development (HRD) to give appropriate representation to the managements of private schools in the composition of CABE to give their suggestions.

In its petition ISFI has alleged that although CABE gave lip-representation to academicians but no representation is given to private management.

The proposed legislation would be presented before the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) meeting on November 1.

Delhi High Court case details:

Delhi High Court Case no. W.P.(C) 6857/2012

INDEPENDENT SCHOOL FEDERATION OF INDIA & ANR  Vs.   THE UNION OF INDIA & ANR
Advocate: SK Chauhan

The orders passed by Justice Rajiv Shakdher have not yet been uploaded on the Delhi High Court website, at the time of writing this post. The next hearing of the case is scheduled for November 5th.

Schools seem to fear that the Government will ride roughshold over their concerns and drive the bill through Parliament without giving them a fair hearing. Hence the pre-emptive petition by ISFI in the Delhi High Court. Though the ISFI has taken up the cudgels on behalf of the schools, correspondents and principals of all private, aided and unaided ought to go through the draft bill and consider the legal and practical implications of the bill, if it becomes law in the proposed form. Various associations of schools across the country would do well to print and mail a copy of the draft bill to each and every school correspondent/principal to ensure they are aware of the bill and can provide their feedback.

There needs to be widespread public debate on the draft bill with the views of schools, teachers, parents and the policy establishment taken into account to improve the draft legislation, before it becomes law.

Home schooling is now permissible under the RTE Act. Govt. Clarifies the word "Compulsion"

IMPORTANT UPDATE:

On Oct 17, 2012, the Government reversed its earlier stand (referred to in the original post below) and now says home schooling is NOT permissible under the RTE Act. For more details, see new post on this. The Government will be filing a fresh affidavit on this in Delhi High Court on December 19, 2012.

--------------------- Text of my original post continues below ---------------------

The Government has clarified in the Delhi High Court that parents interested in home schooling their children or adopting alternate forms of education are now perfectly at liberty to do so. According to a report in the Indian Express (July 20, 2012),

In response to a public interest litigation, the Ministry of Human Resources Development filed an affidavit in the Delhi High Court, which stated that

"Parents who voluntarily opt for alternate forms of schooling may continue to do so. The RTE Act does not come in the way of such alternate schooling methodologies or declare such form of education as illegal."

The Ministry’s response came after the High Court directed it to respond to a petition filed by a 14-year-old girl, Shreya Sahai, who opted for home schooling but contended that Section 18 of RTE Act does not recognise any other mode of imparting education except the one through formal schooling.

“The benefits of all children aged 6-14 years and their parents who feel threatened because their right to choose a mode of education for primary education stands violated as the Act restricts the same only to a formal school,” she said.

All other modes of imparting education, except a formal school, like home schooling, alternate schools of education and the schools not subscribing to the norms and curriculum mandated in the Act stand declared illegal under sections 18 and 19 of the Act, said the petition. 

The Hindustan Times (July 20, 2012) adds,

The affidavit clarifies that the Act concerns itself with the rights of children, and is not a compulsion. “The compulsion is on the appropriate government and the local authority to provide free education to all children up to 14 years,” the affidavit said.

This statement in the affidavit provides complete clarity on the connotation of the world "compulsion" in the RTE Act. The compulsion is on the state to provide free education and not on the citizens to be educated in a conventional school.

Case Details:

Delhi High Court Case no. W.P.(C) 8870/2011

SHREYA SAHAI AND ORS  Vs. UOI AND ORS
Advocate: Somnath Bharti

(APPELLATE JURISDICTION) , COURT NO. 1 ,  (DIVISION BENCH-1)
HON'BLE THE ACTING CHIEF JUSTICE , HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE RAJIV SAHAI ENDLAW

Additional Respondents:

Ashok Aggarwal
Central Board of Secondary Education
National Institute of Open Schooling
Association of Unaided Private Schools

Periscope 7 - 50 new DTH channels for Higher Ed, Open Schooling, New Education Commission, Higher Ed GER, Expenditure on IITs

• "Starting nearly 50 DTH channels for Higher Education in the Country within the XI Plan period has occupied a high place under the National Mission on Education through ICT (NMEICT) at present. MHRD’s request to ISRO for providing 2 transponders has been noted by ISRO and sent to the INSAT Coordination Committee. NMEICT has an allocation of Rs. 120 crore for the DTH channels to begin with." Source: Lok Sabha UnStarred Question No. 3397 Answered on 14.12.2011

Since the Minister's reply says it will be done within the XI plan period, the channels should be in place before the end of 2012. Sounds unrealistic. The NMEICT, in its mission document, had listed as one of its 48 ambitious objectives, 

34. Content delivery through EduSAT and narrowcasting of TV signals. Providing 1000 DTH (Direct to Home) channels on 40 transponders [to be availed through the Department. of Space] so that a separate DTH channel is available for every subject for every class in various languages to the extent possible.

• Data on enrollment and expenditure in National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS): Enrollments are much lower than I thought.  NIOS also enrolls students in 15 overseas centres of NIOS in UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Nepal. Source: Lok Sabha Starred Question No. 381 Answered on 21.12.2011

Year	2009-10	2010-11	2011-12 (Upto Oct 31st)
Total Learners Enrolled	4,38,906	4,93,091	3,66,539
Learners from minority communities enrolled	88,983	92,185	62,696
% of minority community enrolled	20%	19%	17%
	Rs. in Crores	Rs. in Crores	Rs. in Crores
Budget: Plan Funds from Govt of India	15.00	11.25	15.00
Budget: Income Generated by NIOS	89.35	99.07	40.83
Expenditure: Plan Funds from Govt of India	11.61	8.19	6.02
Expenditure: Income Generated by NIOS	69.75	71.98	37.15

A recent report on the Development of the State Open Schools in India by T. Rajagopalan, erstwhile Education Correspondent of The Hindu, concludes that it is well nigh impossible to achieve the goal of Education for All through the formal education system alone or even the National Open School system alone. Rajagopalan says although the State Open Schools have an important role to play, the policy establishment pays only lip service to expanding educational opportunities and seems least interested in consolidating and strengthening the open school system in the states.

• New Education Commission: "In pursuance of the announcement made by the Prime Minister on 15th August, 2011, Government has decided to set up an Education Commission to make recommendations for improvement at all levels of education. The Constitution and Terms of Reference of the proposed Commission is being finalized by the Government after wide consultations." Source: Lok Sabha UnStarred Question No. 4492 Answered on 21.12.2011. Other than the news reports based on the PM's August 15th speech, I could find no other mention on any of the Government-related web sites on the setting up of the new education commission, but apparently they're working on it.

• Data on government expenditure on education as % of total government expenditure and also breakdown by segment within education. Note: This is NOT expenditure on education as a percent of GDP Source: Lok Sabha UnStarred Question No. 4500 Answered on 21.12.2011
  

	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11
% of total budget allocated to MHRD	5.16%	4.36%	4.50%

Sector	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11
Elementary Education	56.32%	48.75%	50.23%
Secondary Education	14.45%	15.57%	13.71%
Adult Education	1.17%	1.02%	2.61%
Higher Education (Including Technical & Other)	28.05%	34.66%	33.45%
Total	100.00%	100.00%	100.00%

• "The average annual expenditure per student in the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) is Rs. 2.82 lakhs, the tuition fees uniformly payable for under-graduate programmes by each student is Rs. 25,000 per semester.

The Council of the IITs, in its 43rd meeting held on 14th September, 2011, accepted ‘in principle’ the report of Dr. Anil Kakodkar Committee on the road map for enhancing the autonomy of the IIT system which has recommended, inter-alia, that while the students' scholarships, capital and infrastructure expenditure may continue to be met fully by the Government, the IITs may meet, on their own, the operational expenditure. Thus, while the capital costs may be taken care of by the Government, the student of under graduate programme may pay enhanced fee towards the recurring cost of education on getting employed, which is justifiable on the grounds of earning potential of an IIT graduate. An empowered Task Force has been constituted for implementation of the Committee’s recommendations. " Source: Lok Sabha UnStarred Question No. 4520 Answered on 21.12.2011

It is unclear from the statement if the annual expenditure of Rs. 2.82 lakhs includes both capital and operational expense per student or only operational expense per student. If the latter, the gulf between annual expenditure per student (Rs. 2.82 lakhs) and tuition fees paid per year (Rs. 50,000) by each student is substantial. If annual operational costs have to be recovered by the IITs through fees alone, the fees will have to rise by over 500%!

 

• "Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) of students enrolled in higher education as a percentage of the population in the age group of 18-23 years in 2009-10(Provisional) is 15.0 (All Categories), 11.1 (Scheduled Caste) and 10.3 (Scheduled Tribe)." Source: Lok Sabha UnStarred Question No. 4593 Answered on 21.12.2011

Statewise 2009-10 Provisional GER data was also provided - Delhi (47.9) is the highest followed by Uttarakhand (36.0), Puducherry (29.1), Goa (28.3), Chandigarh (28.0). The GER for larger states Himchal Pradesh (23.9), Maharashtra (21.4), Chattisgarh (20.0), Tamil Nadu (19.0), Karnataka (18.1), Andhra Pradesh (16.9), Madhya Pradesh (14.9), West Bengal (11.9) and Uttar Pradesh (10.9) is lower. 

Want to look at the PISA test questions and try them out yourself?

Sample questions from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests have been published by the OECD, the organisation that conducts the tests. Check out the questions. 

If your children are about 15 years old or more, you could ask them to try out the sample questions and see how they fare. Teachers may also like to try them out. It would be interesting to find out what teachers think of the level of these questions and the capability of their students to answer them. 

The list has sample questions from the field trials and the actual PISA tests administered in 2000, 2003 and 2006 including questions testing reading literacy, mathematical literacy, and scientific literacy. The detailed answer keys to all the questions are also provided.

For some of the questions used in the actual PISA tests in past years, country-wise data on the percentage of children that got the answer right is also provided.

I think students studying in English medium schools in India would find the questions that test reading literacy quite challenging. In many English medium schools in India I doubt if the students are as fluent in English as they ought to be, despite English being the medium of instruction. I haven't come across the samples of questions adminstered in Tamil or Hindi during the 2009+ cycle of tests in Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh. It would be interesting to look at samples of those. But in any case, the average test scores of those children in India who took the PISA 2009+ tests in their own first langauge were a bit lower than those who took the test in a language different from their first language (presumably, English was the language the latter took the test in). Reading literacy may be an issue even for students in schools where the local langauge is the medium of instruction.

If reading and comprehension is a problem, then students are likely to find the questions that test mathematical and scientific literacy challenging too, even if they may be good at math and science. 

We may be failing to build reading and comprehension skills as well as we ought to, whether in the local langauge or English. We need to figure out why we are not doing well on that front and what we can do differently to build those skills. Lack of reading and comprehension skills may be one of the reasons for the poor show in the PISA 2009+ cycle of tests by students in Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh.

 

Aside 1: You can also try out examples of computer-based questions to test reading of digital texts, mathematical and problem solving skills. These have been tried out in a few countries during the 2009 cycle and will be tried out in the upcoming 2012 PISA cycle too, in some countries.

Aside 2: While only Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh participated in the 2009+ cycle of PISA tests, more states in India will be participating in the 2012 cycle of PISA tests.

National Education Finance Corporation - Why has the MHRD abandoned it?

This seemed like a very good idea. The HRD Minister, Kapil Sibal, proposed the idea for a National Education Finance Corporation in early 2010, and expanded on it in the Rajya Sabha by making a persuasive case for it.

Under the present policy framework if you want to set up an institution there is no Government agency that can finance you.  So, there is no access to finance to setting up a new educational institution.  So, he will have to go to the bank to actually get financing from the bank at the lending commercial rate.  Now, human resource development is not considered as an infrastructure development and the Supreme Court has said that this is charity, this is for public service.  So, an activity which is for public service has to borrow if he wants to set up an educational institution at commercial rates.  But, an activity which is in the infrastructure sector, namely physical infrastructure, you can borrow at softer rates because that is priority sector.  So, what the policy framework within which we are working is, that anybody who wants to set up an educational institution should have access to finance. That is the first purpose.  This has nothing to do with UGC.  Secondly, if you set up an educational institution, under the present guidelines you will get grants from the UGC or from the Government or under schemes of the Government only when you have achieved certain milestones.  Now, in the meantime if you want to enhance your infrastructure -- and nowadays, with research and development expanding exponentially -- you need new capital investment.  There is no way that you can get finance.  You have to cross many milestones.  So, when you want to set up an educational finance corporation, our objective is that anybody who wants to set up an educational institution should have free access to finance as a priority lending sector.  What happens is, when you call it charity, State Government control fees.  Once it is charity, State Government control fees and they cannot increase fees in their institutions.  Many of them do the kind of practices that they are doing and that is the root cause of the problem.  When they will have free access to finance and every child has free access to loan why will he need to sell the family silver to enter into an educational institution?  So, I think it is the need of the hour and I would require you to give me suggestions as to how we must move forward because unless we build that infrastructure and capital we will not be able to move forward.

Kapil Sibal's proposal was welcomed by a few other MPs during the discussion in the Rajya Sabha.

But the Planning Commission apparently raised some objections and the MHRD seems to have given up on the idea.

"Proposal for setting up of National Educational Finance Corporation (NEFC) was prepared and sent to Planning Commission for concurrence. Planning Commission has raised certain objections to the proposal. Therefore the proposal was not taken forward." Source: Lok Sabha UnStarred Question No. 4410 Answered on 21.12.2011

I wish the MP, Rajaogpal Lagadapati, who asked the question had raised a supplementary question about what the Planning Commission objected to and whether the MHRD is pursuing any alternatives, or has given up the idea for good.

A report in The Hindu (May 10, 2010) throws some light on the Planning Commission's thinking on the NEFC as well as the idea of providing loan guarantees:

The Planning Commission has suggested that the Human Resource Development Ministry examine the option of setting up a loan guarantee authority as a separate division within the purview of the proposed National Education Finance Corporation (NEFC).

The proposed NEFC aims at refinancing student education loans and institutional loans at concessional rates with longer repayment, which will help expansion and new investments in the higher education sector, particularly universities.

While putting the NEFC on a “fast track”, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia reportedly told the Ministry to also look into the possibility of creating an authority that would stand guarantee for education loans to students or institutions who borrow money for investment in the higher education sector, instead of only refinancing.

 Mr. Ahluwalia is said to have suggested to the Ministry that both the options of refinancing and standing guarantee could be brought under the purview of the NEFC. The proposed NEFC would have two divisions, one as a loan guarantee authority and the other to deal with infrastructure loans.

....

If the NEFC stands as a guarantor, it will have to pay only for defaulters, who would be few. The Ministry, open to the new suggestion, is working out mechanisms to cut down on defaulters before approving the loans.

The refinancing of loans for investment is also expected to curb capitation fees, since, at present, investment for infrastructure has to be borrowed at commercial rates where the interest is high and the repayment period short. To avoid this, institutions often borrow money from the market, and in order to repay it quickly, charge capitation fees from students. Once the loan is repaid, the capitation fee turns into profit. With the availability of soft loans, this is expected to come to an end.

The NEFC will refinance to the bank at a lower rate the sanctioned loan that it releases to the student or an institution. The bank makes its margin from the difference in interest rates, while the NEFC will use the educational cess released by the government, which is free of cost and also borrows from the market, so that the average cost of funds advanced as loans is lower than the rate at which it lends to banks. This differential rate will be the NEFC's margin or profit.

The Planning Commission doesn't seem to have objected to the idea of the NEFC per se - it has only provided constructive suggestions on how the NEFC could also look at providing student loan guarantees.  The report in The Hindu had indicated that the MHRD was open to the Planning Commission's idea and was working on incorporating it into the scope of the NEFC.

Why then is the MHRD claiming now that the Planning Commission objected to the idea of the NEFC and citing that as the reason for abandoning the idea of the NEFC altogether? An eminently sensible idea seems to have been buried quietly. The MHRD needs to explain its thinking instead of providing bland statements.

Periscope 6 - MHRD on PISA Results, Inequity in education, Finland's schools

• The education establishment reacts to the PISA results for Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh. [Indian Express]
  

  Rattled over the dismal performance of Indian schools on a reputed international ranking system, the Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry has asked the National Council of Education Research & Training (NCERT) to probe reasons for this poor show and submit a report to Minister Kapil Sibal.
  There was a random selection of schools from the two states for PISA with a large number of government and rural area schools in the sample size, sources said. This was also a factor to be considered in view of the nature of PISA questions, officials pointed out.
  

  The MHRD officials (in a Freudian slip?) suggest that the results are bad because a large number of government and rural schools were included in the sample! The Indian Express reporter smartly checked with Dr. Ratna Dhamija, the PISA Co-ordinator at ACER India, the organisation that conducted the test, and she busted that theory.

  “It is important for you to know that the schools who participated in the PISA 2009+ were randomly selected by the PISA consortium and were selected from all eligible educational institutions of the two states where 15-year-old students were studying,” said Dr Ratna Dhamija, manager India, Australian Council for Educational Research (India) that helped in conducting PISA for India, in an emailed response to this newspaper.

• Lant Pritchett analyses the PISA results in Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh and says "They confirm the worst of what anyone has been saying about the levels of learning in India elementary education."

• Teach for India Fellow, Rahul Panda bemoans our tolerance and forbearance with the poor quality of elementary education

How has the free, compulsory and nearly meaningless (if not entirely useless) education provided in government schools failed to stir the collective conscience? Perhaps because the establishment has done just about enough to string people along. The midday meal scheme is, to put it mildly, a devious masterstroke. For (the government may argue) what use is teaching a kid who doesn’t even get two square meals a day? Fair point, I concede. But a counter to that would be: what use is feeding a kid once a day without teaching him anything and eventually leaving him to fend for himself with little education and no skills to find meaningful employment? A classic case of feed a fish or teach to fish. In the case of government schools however, even the quality of the fish is suspect.  .....

Why does this not  fail to incite the youth’s ire? It is because educational inequity has always been a subliminal issue. And that could be attributed to the fact that its effect cannot be readily quantified.  .....

The scale of the problem of educational inequity in the country is too immense to wrap one’s wits around. To say the least, and at the risk of sounding tedious, it’s a no brainer that it has now become imperative for the country’s top bananas (if I may be allowed that expression) to come forth to try and solve it. We need more people teaching in classrooms than the ill-informed yet enthusiastic crowd that spilled onto the streets during the anti-graft campaign. And even then we’d fall short by a huge margin

The country's top bananas are unlikely to react unless the educational inequality is made a burning political issue. They know there is no simple solution, but don't want to grapple with the problem head on and take tough decisions. So they have resorted to stringing people along by passing flawed legislation like the Right to Education Act, to give people the feeling that they are doing something that nobody had done for 60 years to address the growing inequality of opportunity in education in India.

Pratap Bhanu Mehta put it bluntly by saying,

Nobody in the political system realises that the historical window of opportunity for putting in lasting changes is very small. In our case, it is 10 to 15 years given our demography. If we don’t lay the foundation for wealth and prosperity in the next 15 years, then the India story is gone forever. You will then grow old, before you grow rich.

• Coincidentally, an article in The Atlantic looks at why Finland's schools are successful and points to their focus on addressing inequity.

Decades ago, when the Finnish school system was badly in need of reform, the goal of the program that Finland instituted, resulting in so much success today, was never excellence. It was equity.

Since the 1980s, the main driver of Finnish education policy has been the idea that every child should have exactly the same opportunity to learn, regardless of family background, income, or geographic location. Education has been seen first and foremost not as a way to produce star performers, but as an instrument to even out social inequality.

There is an interesting quote in The Atlantic story attributed to Pasi Sahlberg, director of the Finnish Ministry of Education's Center for International Mobility and author of the new book Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland?. In response to the question he encounters in America - How can you improve teaching if you have no accountability for bad teachers or merit pay for good teachers, he says

As for accountability of teachers and administrators, Sahlberg shrugs. "There's no word for accountability in Finnish," he later told an audience at the Teachers College of Columbia University. "Accountability is something that is left when responsibility has been subtracted."