Education in India

Parliamentary Roundup - Teacher shortage, NOC for CBSE schools, Data on GER & edu expenditure as % of GDP

A round up of recent answers by the Minstry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) to questions raised in the Lok Sabha, relating to education.

 

Details on the shortage of school teachers in India (state-wise)

Out of 19.84 lakh sanctioned teacher posts under SSA, 14.8 lakh teachers have been recruited and another 5.04 lakh are yet to be recruited as on Sep, 30, 2013.  Bihar (1.75 lakh to be recruited) and U.P (1.24 lakh) are the farthest behind.

(Source: Lok Sabha Starred Question No. 188 Answered on 18.12.2013)

 

On use of NCERT vs private publishers' textbooks in CBSE schools

"The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has, since 2005-06, directed all its affiliated schools to refrain from recommending the books of private publishers in different subjects at the senior secondary level. The CBSE now prescribes only the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) published books for classes IX to XII."

(Source: Lok Sabha UnStarred Question No. 2101 Answered on 18.12.2013

 

On the requirement of an NOC from the State Government concerned for affiliation of a private school with CBSE NOC from the State Government concerned for affiliation of a private school with CBSE.

"The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) no longer requires an NOC from the State Government. CBSE has amended its Affiliation Bye-Laws which state that the school seeking provisional affiliation with the Board must have prior recognition of the State/UT Government. The applicant School has to also produce evidence to this effect that they had intimated the concerned Education Department of the State/UT about the application made to the CBSE for seeking affiliation with the Board. In case of receipt of any objection during the process of application of the school, the Board may ask the concerned school to produce the No Objection Certificate from the State/UT Government. Otherwise it would be assumed that concerned State/UT Government has no objection.

The newly amended provision ensures authentication of the facts and credentials of the private school as the applicant school is required to seek recognition from the State/UT Government prior to submitting its application for seeking affiliation from the Board. The Board also physically inspects the applicant school to assess its suitability before the grant of affiliation." 

(Source: Lok Sabha UnStarred Question No. 2140 Answered on 18.12.2013)

 

On the proposal to open Kendriya Vidyalayas (KVs) under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode; the norms laid down for opening of KVs in the country; the number of KVs functioning in the country along with the students enrolled in these KVs, State/ UT-wise

"The Board of Governors of Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) in its 91st meeting held on 19.01.2012 has taken a policy decision that the scheme of opening of new Kendriya Vidyalayas under the Public Private Parternership (PPP mode) is not in line with the mandate of the KVS." 

(Source: Lok Sabha UnStarred Question No. 2199 Answered on 18.12.2013)

"Presently 1091 KVs are functioning in the country." -  State/UT-wise details along with enrollment data and norms for opening new KVs.

(Source: Lok Sabha UnStarred Question No. 1115 Answered on 11.12.2013)

 

Detailed data on the gross-enrolment rate* (GER) of children in primary, upper-primary, secondary and senior secondary levels in the country during 2008-09 to 2010-11, state-wise, year-wise and gender-wise.

For India as a whole, GER is

• 116.7 at the Primary level (Class I-V);
• 83.1 at the Upper Primary level (Class VI-VIII);
• 60.8 at the Secondary level (Class IX-X) and
• 36.1 at the Senior Secondary Level (Class XI-XII)

(Source: Lok Sabha UnStarred Question No. 2296 Answered on 18.12.2013)

 

On the overall government expenditure on Education (Centre + States) as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) during last three years, comparison with the same figures for other countries and why the goal of spending at least 6% of GDP hasn't been achieved.

Overall government expenditure on Education (Centre + States) as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

• 3.95%  -  2009-10
• 4.20%  -  2010-11 (Revised Estimate)
• 4.17%  -  2011-12 (Budget Estimate)

"As per the figures published by the UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS) in its publication titled, “Global Education Digest 2012”, the share of education in Gross Domestic Product in some other countries were U.S.A.(5.4%), U.K.(5.6%), Japan (3.8%), Australia (5.1%), Russian Federation (4.1%), Egypt (3.8%), Azerbaijan (3.2%), Georgia (3.2%), Tajikistan (4.0%), Hong Kong SAR of China (3.6 %), Thailand (3.8%), Peru (2.7%), Jamaica (6.1%), Pakistan (2.4%), Bangladesh (2.2%), Ethiopia (4.7%), United Republic of Tanzania (6.2%) and Zambia (1.3%) during 2010.

During the XII Five Year Plan, the Ministry of Human Resource Development have been allocated a sum of Rs.4,53,728 crore (Rs.3,43,028 crore for the Department of School Education & Literacy and Rs.1,10,700 crore for the Department of Higher Education) as compared to actual expenditure in XI Five Year Plan which was Rs.1,77,566.86 crore (Rs.1,37,920.04 crore for the Department of School Education & Literacy and Rs.39,646.82 crore for Department of Higher Education). This increase in central plan outlay for education represents a very substantial effort on the part of the Central Government for raising public spending on education towards the national goal of spending 6% of GDP for education. Overall progress towards this goal, would however, also depend on the efforts made by the States and the private sector.

This increase in central plan outlay for education represents a very substantial effort on the part of the Central Government for raising public spending on education towards the national goal of spending 6% of GDP for education. Overall progress towards this goal, would however, also depend on the efforts made by the States and the private sector."

(Source: Lok Sabha UnStarred Question No. 1085 Answered on 11.12.2013)

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.

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.

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."

 

India's participation in PISA 2009+ cycle: Results from Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu

The detailed report on the PISA 2009+ cycle of tests including the results for the pilot in India in the states of Tamil Nadu (TN) and Himachal Pradesh (HP) has been published by the Australian Council for Educational Research, which conducted the PISA 2009+ Cycle of tests. The entire database is also accessible online in an interactive manner for slicing and dicing the data (look for QTN and QHP in the countries list).

For perspective and comparison with HP and TN, I have picked the top three in the PISA results - Shanghai-China, South Korea and Finland and also USA as a large country (in geography and population terms) and a few other countries like Brazil, Russia, Mexico, Indonesia, Turkey and Argentina as emerging economies with large populations. Of all these countries, four of them, Finland, Mexico, Turkey and USA are part of the OECD. The OECD average is also provided - it is the arithmetic mean of the estimates for the 34 OECD countries that participated in PISA 2009.

Here're some results based on the report:

Extracts from Table B.2.1: Comparing countries’ performance in reading (p 105)

The last column indicates the % of students having proficiency in reading literacy above the baseline level to participate effectively and productively in life (Table B.2.2, p 109). There are seven proficiency levels in reading (Tables 2.2 to 2.6 p 15-17), ranging from Level 6, the highest level, involving sophisticated reading tasks that are generally only able to be completed by highly competent readers; through to Level 1b, involving elementary tasks that require only very basic reading skills. Level 2 is considered the baseline level of proficiency at which students begin to demonstrate the reading skills that will enable them to participate effectively and productively in life.

	Mean	S.E.	Confidence Interval	5th Percentile	S.E. of 5th Percentile	95th Percentile	S.E. of 95th Percentile	% at or over baseline
Himachal Pradesh	317	4	309 - 325	192	6.9	443	8.5	10.8
Tamil Nadu	337	5.5	326 - 347	211	4.5	472	14.4	17.3
OECD Average	493	0.5	492 - 494	332	1	637	0.7	81.2
Shanghai-China	556	2.4	551 - 561	417	5.2	679	3.3	95.9
South Korea	539	3.5	532 - 546	400	7.6	658	3.8	94.2
Finland	536	2.3	531 - 540	382	3.4	666	2.6	91.9
USA	500	3.7	493 - 507	339	4.2	656	5.8	82.4
Brazil	412	2.7	406 - 417	262	3	572	4.6	50.4
Russian Federation	459	3.3	453 - 466	310	5.8	607	5.6	72.6
Indonesia	402	3.7	394 - 409	291	5.8	510	5.8	46.6
Mexico	425	2	421 - 429	281	3.9	557	2.4	59.9
Turkey	464	3.5	457 - 471	325	5.1	596	5.4	75.5
Argentina	398	4.6	389 - 407	209	11.3	568	6.7	48.4

The OECD mean reading score is 493 with a standard deviation of 93. The mean reading scores of both HP and TN are 1.7 standard deviations below the OECD mean. Even the 95th percentile scores in HP and TN are below the OECD mean.  HP and TN rank significantly lower than the other emerging economies too.

The other metric of  the percentage of students at or above the baseline level of proficiency is abysmally low in HP (11%) and TN (17%), and a serious cause for concern. While the OECD average is 81%, the percentage of students at or above the baseline level in countries like Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico and Argentina is in the 50% range. These countries seem to be far better off than HP and TN.

There may be a reason for this. In response to the question posed to students "What language do you speak at home most of the time?", the options being (1) the language of the test or (2) another language, a substantial majority of students said they spoke the language of the test at home in many countries - Finland (95.63%), Mexico (95.48%), Turkey (95.57%), USA (85.56%), Argentina (95.38%), Brazil (96.72%), Russian Federation (90.12%) and Shanghai-China (98.41%). But the corresponding numbers were much lower for Tamil Nadu (67.53%) and Himachal Pradesh (60.5%). I have only picked a few countries for comparison and have not looked at these numbers for all the other countries. Click here for the data.

One might think the low reading scores for TN and HP may be due to the fact that they were being tested in a language that was not their native language. Apparently the PISA 2009+ tests were administered in English, Hindi and Tamil in India (Source p 6). But surprisingly, the test scores of children in both Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh who said the test language was not their first language were higher than the scores of children who said the test language was their first language!

To a similar question posed to schools "About how many students in <national modal grade for 15-year-olds> in your school have a <first language> that is not <the test language>?", the options being (1) 60% or more, (2) 40% to 60%, (3) 20% to 40%, (4) 10% to 20%, (5) 0% to 10%, only a very small percentage of schools said over 60% of students had a first language that is not the test language in many countries- Finland (0.06%), Mexico (5.22%), USA (5.65%), Argentina (1.48%), Brazil (1.67%), Russian Federation (11.01%). In contrast, the corresponding numbers were far higher for Tamil Nadu (75.46%) and Himachal Pradesh (82.76%). Click here for the data.

Another set of data also need to be examined in this context. The scores of students in those schools that offered significant amount of instruction in the first language to students whose first language was not the test language and the scores of students in those schools that offered some some instruction in school subjects through the first language to students whose first language was not the test language.

I'm unable to understand the relationship between the scores, the first language and the test language - other experts may be able to throw some light. There may be an issue about the medium of instruction and the medium of testing for children in India leading to a comprehension problem. This merits further investigation before the PISA 2012 series of tests are administered.

Extracts from Table B.3.1: Comparing countries’ performance in mathematics (p 121)

The last column indicates the % of students having proficiency in mathematical literacy above the baseline level to participate effectively and productively in life (Table B.3.2, p 124). There are six proficiency levels in mathematical literacy (Table 3.2 p 43) ranging from Level 6 (involving advanced mathematical skills and reasoning) through to Level 1 (involving routine mathematical tasks and procedures). Level 2 is considered the baseline level of proficiency at which students begin to demonstrate the mathematical skills that will enable them to participate effectively and productively in life.

	Mean	S.E.	Confidence Interval	5th Percentile	S.E. of 5th Percentile	95th Percentile	S.E. of 95th Percentile	% at or over baseline
Himachal Pradesh	338	4.2	330 - 347	223	6.8	458	8.8	11.9
Tamil Nadu	351	5.1	341 - 361	241	6.6	468	13.8	15.2
OECD Average	496	0.5	495 - 497	343	0.9	643	0.8	78
Brazil	386	2.4	381 - 390	261	3	531	5.9	30.9
Shanghai-China	600	2.8	595 - 606	421	7.1	757	4.6	95.2
South Korea	546	4	538 - 554	397	8.4	689	6.5	91.9
Finland	541	2.2	536 - 545	399	4.4	669	3.6	92.2
USA	487	3.6	480 - 494	337	4.3	637	5.9	76.6
Russian Federation	468	3.3	461 - 474	329	5.1	609	7.2	71.5
Indonesia	371	3.7	364 - 379	260	4.9	493	8.6	23.4
Mexico	419	1.8	415 - 422	289	3.2	547	3.3	49.2
Turkey	445	4.4	437 - 454	304	5.2	613	12.2	57.8
Argentina	388	4.1	380 - 396	231	7.9	543	7	36.4

The OECD mean mathematics score is 496 with a standard deviation of 92. The mean mathematics scores of both HP and TN are 1.6 standard deviations below the OECD mean. Even the 95th percentile scores in HP and TN are below the OECD mean.  Compared to the other emerging economies, HP and TN rank significantly lower.

The other metric of percentage of students at or above the baseline level of proficiency is abysmally low in HP (12%) and TN (15%), and a serious cause for concern. While the OECD average is 78%, the percentage of students at or above the baseline level in countries like Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico and Argentina is in the 23%-30% range. These countries seem to be just a bit better off than HP and TN in mathematical literacy.

Extracts from Table B.3.3: Comparing countries’ performance in science (p 126)

The last column indicates the % of students having proficiency in scientific literacy above the baseline level to participate effectively and productively in life (Table B.3.4, p 129). There are six proficiency levels in scientific literacy (Table 3.4 p 54) ranging from Level 6 (involving the application of scientific knowledge and knowledge about science to complex life situations) through to Level 1 (where the tasks require only limited scientific knowledge to be applied to familiar situations). Level 2 is considered the baseline level of proficiency at which students begin to demonstrate the science competencies  that will enable them to participate actively in life situations related to science and technology.

	Mean	S.E.	Confidence Interval	5th Percentile	S.E. of 5th Percentile	95th Percentile	S.E. of 95th Percentile	% at or over baseline (Table B.3.4)
Himachal Pradesh	325	4.2	317 - 333	209	6.8	450	11.1	11.2
Tamil Nadu	348	4.2	340 - 357	252	4.3	461	12.1	15.5
OECD Average	501	0.5	500 - 502	341	1	649	0.7	82
Brazil	405	2.4	401 - 410	275	3.5	554	4.8	45.8
Shanghai-China	575	2.3	570 - 579	430	4.9	700	3.3	96.8
South Korea	538	3.4	531 - 545	399	6.5	665	4.8	93.7
Finland	554	2.3	550 - 559	400	4.2	694	3.6	94
USA	502	3.6	495 - 509	341	4.8	662	6.7	81.9
Russian Federation	478	3.3	472 - 485	331	5.8	628	5.2	78
Indonesia	383	3.8	375 - 390	272	5.4	499	5.4	34.4
Mexico	416	1.8	412 - 419	291	2.8	544	2.8	52.7
Turkey	454	3.6	447 - 461	322	5	587	6.4	47.6
Argentina	401	4.6	392 - 410	228	10.6	564	7.9	70.1

The OECD mean science score is 501 with a standard deviation of 94. The mean science scores of both HP and TN are 1.6 standard deviations below the OECD mean. Even the 95th percentile scores in HP and TN are below the OECD mean.  Compared to the other developing economies, HP and TN rank significantly lower.

The other metric of percentage of students at or above the baseline level or proficiency is abysmally low in HP (11%) and TN (16%), and a serious cause for concern. While the OECD average is 82%, the percentage of students at or above the baseline level in countries like Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico and Argentina is in the 34%-70% range. These countries, especially Argentina (70%) seem to be far better off than HP and TN in scientific literacy.  

Visible, but unseen so far - what do we make of the PISA 2009+ results in HP and TN?

Despite the caveats about the quality issues in adminstering the PISA tests in India, the results need to be taken seriously. There is no doubt that our children are being tuned towards rote-memorization and are unable to comprehend or understand well enough and reason out. The ASER reports published annually by Pratham and the periodic reports put out by Educational Initiatives have been telling us as much for years.

The PISA 2009+ results provide us an opportunity to crystallise reform. Although we knew things aren't good, we have shied away from figuring out how bad they are. We can't do that anymore. Knowing that we are at the bottom of the list of 74 countries leaves us no room for denying the reality on the grounds that there is no data that says things are bad. The PISA 2012 cycle is only likely to show us how much worse it is when the data from all the other states are also available.

I hope we won't shoot the messenger and question the motives of the OECD which organises the PISA tests or worse, go into a shell and refuse to participate in the 2012 PISA cycle. It would be interesting to see what the MHRD has to say about the PISA results. I am waiting for an MP to ask a question about this in Parliament. The question will need to be phrased cleverly, or else the Minister will get away by saying nothing meaningful.

To improve, we will need to embark on serious and sustained assessment and exam reform to change the way we evaluate what students have learnt. If we begin testing for comprehension, understanding and the ability to think and reason out, there will be an incentive for schools, teachers and students to work towards honing those skills rather than the ability to reproduce the precise expected answer. Exam reform will also require changing the way things students are taught in a classroom and as a result teacher education as well. It will take many years to turn the system around, given the huge inbuilt inertia. But there is no alternative to the long hard way.

 

Dependence of students' scores on student and school characteristics

The detailed report also describes the variation of student scores as a function of various parameters to try and identify the factors that may be responsible for some students doing better on the tests. I've looked at the data on a couple of such parameters below.

Public Schools vs Private Schools

An index of school type is constructed by combining a classification of the school as public or private and the proportion of core funding received from government agencies. A public school is defined in PISA as one that is managed directly or indirectly by a public education authority, government agency, or governing board appointed by government or elected by public franchise. A government-independent private school is classified as one that is not managed by a government agency and receives less than 50% of its core funding from government agencies.

				Reading	Reading	Mathematics	Mathematics	Science	Science
Country	Category	%	%SE	Mean	SE	Mean	SE	Mean	SE
Himachal Pradesh	Public	85.07	3.08	310	5.41	331	5.45	317	5.84
Himachal Pradesh	Private	14.93	3.08	356	14.57	379	12.01	372	14.86
Himachal Pradesh	m	a	a	a	a	a	a	a	a
Tamil Nadu	Public	60.1	3.32	325	6.72	334	6.09	339	5
Tamil Nadu	Private	39.9	3.32	356	9.84	378	8.33	365	7.62
Tamil Nadu	m	a	a	a	a	a	a	a	a
OECD Average	Public	81.9	0.3	488	0.63	491	0.64	496	0.67
OECD Average	Private	17.85	0.3	518	2.02	519	2.04	525	1.93
OECD Average	m	1.17	0.36	444	5.18	452	8.47	458	6.11

m - Missing or invalid response category (this category is excluded from computations of group percentages in the international report)

a - The category does not apply in the country concerned. Data therefore missing

The mean scores of students in public schools can be compared to those in private schools through the response to a question posed to schools  "Is your school a public or a private school?". In almost all countries in the set that I looked at, students in private schools seem to have done better than students in public schools, except for Indonesia where students in public schools did better.

Students in private schools did better in Tamil Nadu (40% of schools tested were private schools) and Himachal Pradesh (15% of schools tested were private schools) too. Click here for the data.

Reading Habits of Students

The 15-year-old student populations in Tamil Nadu-India and Himachal Pradesh-India were estimated to have among the lowest reading literacy levels of the PISA 2009 and PISA 2009+ participants with more than 80% of students below the baseline of proficiency. Around one-fifth of students in these economies are very poor readers.

Students were assigned a reader profile based on their self-report to questions on two dimensions: effective learning strategies; and frequency of reading a range of materials.

Students with high levels of effective learning strategies were classified as ‘deep’ readers, while those with low levels of learning strategies were classified as ‘surface’ readers. Additionally, students who indicated they read a range of materials regularly were classified as ‘wide’ readers, those who indicated they only read magazines or newspapers regularly were classified as ‘narrow’ readers, and those who indicated they did not read any materials regularly were classified as ‘highly restricted’ readers.

Table 4.9 (p 93)

	Deep and Wide Readers		Deep and Narrow Readers		Deep and highly restricted readers		Surface and wide readers		Surface and deep readers		Surface and highly restricted readers
Country or economy	%	Score	%	Score	%	Score	%	Score	%	Score	%	Score
Himachal Pradesh	32	321	16	327	18	317	18	311	7	319	9	296
Tamil Nadu	13	360	10	366	14	321	22	336	17	342	23	313
OECD Average	19	546	25	506	29	504	5	462	10	440	13	427

Socioeconomic and Cultural Status

In PISA 2009 an index of social, economic and cultural status was constructed (ESCS). The data used to construct the index came from responses to a variety of items within the student questionnaire. These items included parental levels of education, parental occupation, the number of books in the home and a variety of items measuring family wealth, the presence of cultural possessions in the home, and the presence of educational resources in the home. This index is used in models presented subsequently in this chapter to unpack the amount of variance in performance that is, firstly, due to social, economic and cultural factors; and secondly, due to school level factors.

The socioeconomic profiles of Tamil Nadu-India and Himachal Pradesh-India are very similar (Figure 4.9 p 78). Both populations have low socioeconomic status relative to the OECD average. Socioeconomic status is not a strong predictor of reading performance, as measured by PISA, in these populations

Other indices that summarise responses from students, their parents or school representatives (typically principals) to a series of questions

Student scores can also be compared across a variety of other factors including:

student age, occupational status or parents, educational level of parents, language background, family structure, family wealth (whether students had the following at home: a room of their own, a link to the Internet, a dishwasher (treated as a country-specific item), a DVD player, and three other country-specific items (some items in ST20); and their responses on the number of cellular phones, televisions, computers, cars and the rooms with a bath or shower), home educational resources (whether students had the following resources at home: a desk and a quiet place to study, a computer that students can use for schoolwork, educational software, books to help with students’ school work, technical reference books and a dictionary) and cultural possessions (whether students had the following at home: classic literature, books of poetry and works of art),

relative grade of the students, learning time in school in the test language,  students' reading habits and activities, students' approaches to learning, students' attitudes towards school, students' perception of teachers, students' perception of the disciplinary climate in school, students' reports on teacher stimulation of reading, students' reports of how their language of instruction was taught by the teachers, students' use of libraries, students' reports on how they understood and memorised the text,

school and class size, student teacher ratio, proportion of girls enrolled, availability of computers in school, number of teachers, basis for admission to the school, whether resource allocation and curriculum and assessment policies were decided at the school level or at a higher level, teacher shortage, extracurricular activities in the school, student behaviour and teacher behaviour.

There is a wealth of data on all these indices made available in the detailed report on the PISA 2009+ cycle of test as well as the entire database that is accessible online. I have only been able to parse a small segment of the data as described above. There is much more to be gleaned from the data, if you are interested and motivated enough to dig through.

In other posts, I had looked at

• Programme for International Student Assessment: What? Why? How?
• India's participation in PISA 2009+ cycle: The Process
• India's participation in PISA 2009+ cycle: Terminology & Caveats

 

 

India's participation in PISA 2009+ Cycle: Terminology and Caveats

There are many terms and concepts used in the PISA 2009+ report, which also lays out some caveats in interpreting the results, for Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu in particular. This post looks at the terminology and the caveats described in the detailed report on the PISA 2009+ cycle of tests on the results for the pilot in India in the states of Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh.

Terminology (quoting from the report)

• Proficiency levels. To help interpret what students’ scores mean in substantive terms, the scale is divided into bands or levels (based on a set of statistical principles) and then descriptions are generated (based on the tasks that are located within each level) to describe the kinds of skills and knowledge needed to successfully complete those tasks.
  For PISA 2009, the range of difficulty of tasks allows for the description of seven levels of reading proficiency: the range of difficulty of tasks allows for the description of seven levels of reading proficiency: Level 1b requires the lowest proficiency, then Level 1a, Level 2, Level 3 and so on up to Level 6. Students with a proficiency estimated to be within the range of Level 1b are likely to be able to successfully complete Level 1b tasks, but are unlikely to be able to complete tasks at higher levels. Level 6 reflects tasks that present the greatest challenge in terms of skills and knowledge. Students with scores in this range in reading are likely to be able to complete reading tasks located at that level successfully, as well as all the other reading tasks in PISA. The mathematics and science scales are divided into six proficiency levels, from Level 1 (least proficient) to Level 6 (most proficient). (p 5)
• Baseline level of proficiency: Level 2 is considered a baseline level of proficiency at which students begin to demonstrate the skills that will enable them to participate effectively and productively in life. The percent of students at or above the baseline level of proficiency is the percentage of students at or above Level 2.
• Confidence levels: The statistics in this report represent estimates of national performance based on samples of students, rather than values that could be calculated if every student in every country had answered every question. Consequently, it is important to measure the degree of uncertainty of the estimates. The use of confidence intervals provides a way to make inferences about the population means and proportions in a manner that reflects the uncertainty introduced through the sampling of students, and for the tests, the use of a small set of items. From an observed sample statistic it can be inferred that the corresponding population result would lie within the confidence interval in 95 out of 100 replications of the measurement on different samples drawn from the same population. (p 100)
• Standard error: Each estimate has an associated degree of uncertainty, which is expressed through a standard error. The standard errors for most of the statistics used in this report are provided in the data tables within Appendix B (abbreviated as S.E.). Standard errors are used to construct the confidence interval. A 95% confidence interval around a statistic is calculated as the statistics value +/- 1.96 × the standard error. (p 100)
• Statistical Significance: In the tables, figures and text of this report, differences are labelled or described as statistically significant when a difference of that size or greater would be observed less than 5% of the time in a similar sample drawn from the same population, if there were actually no difference in the corresponding population. Where observed differences do not meet this criterion, they are described as being not statistically significantly different, or as ‘statistically the same’. (p 4)
• PISA student populations:
  Total population of 15-year-olds is an estimate of the number of 15-year-olds in the country/economy, including those who are not attending educational institutions.
  Total population 15-year-olds enrolled in grade 7 or above is the estimate of the PISA eligible population.
  Total in national desired population refers to the number of students from the PISA eligible population who are potentially included as part of the PISA sample.
• Equity of outcomes within countries: the degree to which there is equality of outcomes among student subpopulations including analyis of
  - the differences in educational outcomes between boys and girls;
  - the relationship between socioeconomic background and educational outcomes; and
  - the relationships between school policies and practice and educational outcomes.
• OECD average is the arithmetic mean of the estimates for the 34 OECD countries that participated in PISA 2009. Each country contributes equally to the calculation of the OECD average, regardless of the number of 15-year-olds in its population.

Caveats (quoting from the report)

There seem to have been many issues in the population data provided and the student sampling in Himachal Pradesh (HP) and Tamil Nadu (TN) during the PISA 2009+ cycle. The report lays out the caveats in interpreting the data from these two states in India:

Executive Summary (page xii)
Ten additional partner participants who were unable to participate within the PISA 2009 project timeframe participated in the PISA 2009 study on a reduced and delayed timeline. This is known as the PISA 2009+ project. The ten PISA 2009+ participants administered the same assessments as their PISA 2009 counterparts, the only difference being that the assessments were administered in 2010. The PISA 2009+ countries or economies were adjudicated against the same technical and quality standards as their PISA 2009 counterparts*.

* Himachal Pradesh-India, Miranda-Venezuela and Tamil Nadu-India did not meet all PISA standards (for student sampling) and their results should be interpreted with caution. See ‘Sampling outcomes’ in Appendix A for details.

Data on student populations and exclusions were not supplied or were of insufficient quality to report the following for  Himachal Pradesh-India and Tamil Nadu-India [Appendix A - page 101, Table A.2 - Population Coverage Indices - page 102]:
- the number of 15-year-olds in the country/economy, including those who are not attending educational institutions,
- population of 15-year-olds enrolled in grade 7 or above which is the estimate of the PISA eligible population
- number of students from the PISA eligible population who are potentially included as part of the PISA sample

Himachal Pradesh-India and Tamil Nadu-India did not meet PISA standards for student sampling. Due to irregularities in the student sample numbers, it was established after the testing that these economies sampled from student lists that were often incomplete: not all 15-year-olds within the school were listed. It was not possible to determine whether any bias existed in the obtained sample. Caution should be exercised when using the data from Himachal Pradesh-India or Tamil Nadu-India and when interpreting the reported analyses. [Appendix A - Table A. 4 - Student Response Rates & Sample Size - page 104]

In other posts, I had looked at

• Programme for International Student Assessment: What? Why? How?
• India's participation in PISA 2009+ cycle: The Process
• India's participation in PISA 2009+ cycle: Results from Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu

 

 

India's participation in PISA 2009+ cycle: The Process

The Indian Government seems to have been reluctant initially to participate in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests. In reply to a question in Parliament on March 10th, 2008 by Rajya Sabha MP, Rahul Bajaj on the reasons for India not participating in the PISA tests, Arjun Singh, the then Minister for HRD, didn't answer the question, but instead responded saying,

The Government of India conducts its own pupil learning achievement surveys under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) through National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) aimed to track changes in learning achievement levels of students and to give a national picture of the status of students learning levels. NCERT conducted such sample surveys for Class V in 2002-03, for Class III and Class VII/VIII in 2003-04 and for Class-V in 2006-07. The NCERT surveys cover a representative sample of students across districts.

Subsequently, the government seems to have changed its mind and decided to participate in the PISA tests on a pilot basis. In NCERT's Annual Report for 2008-09 (p117), there is a mention of Prof. Avtar Singh of NCERT  attending the National Project Managers Meeting of PISA 2009 cycle at Frankfurt in February 2009. To my knowledge, there is no other mention of PISA on any of the government web sites or documents.

By the time India and eight other countries decided to participate in the PISA tests in the 2009 cycle, 65 countries had already completed the testing in the 2009 cycle. So these nine countries participating for the first time conducted the PISA tests in a separate round termed the PISA 2009+ cycle.

A February 2011 report by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) office in India on the preparation for conducting the PISA tests in the two states in India as part of the 2009+ round provides some context and background.

In 2009 PISA cycle, 65 countries (32 member and 33 non member) participated. In India after continuous deliberation among the leading educational policy making institutes like MHRD, NCERT, NUEPA, CBSE and development partners like World Bank, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between OECD and MHRD regarding India’s participation in PISA in 2009 plus cycle. As it was late for any country to participate in PISA, a new timeline was developed to accommodate India and eight other countries (Georgia, Costa Rica, Mauritius, Malaysia, Moldova, Venezuela (Miranda), Malta, UAE (except Dubai). Initially it was suggested, India was to participate in PISA with four states but on further deliberations it was decided that only two Indian states (Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu) will participate in this prestigious activity.

World Bank contracted Australian Council for Educational Research (India) to support NCERT in conducting PISA 2009 plus in India in the states of Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu for training of personnel involve in field administration (school coordinator & test administrator), quality monitoring of field administration, training of coders and supervision of coding activities.

In India, PISA is administered in three languages i.e., English, Hindi and Tamil.

There are more details in the ACER India report on how personnel were trained to administer the PISA tests in Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh, how quality was monitored and the challenges faced in adminstering the PISA tests in India for the first time. Around 16,000 students from 400 schools in these two states were tested as part of the PISA 2009+ cycle of tests.

In an earlier post, I had looked at PISA: What? Why? How? and in the next post, I will look at the results of the PISA 2009+tests in Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh.

In other posts, I had looked at

• Programme for International Student Assessment: What? Why? How?
• India's participation in PISA 2009+ cycle: Terminology & Caveats
• India's participation in PISA 2009+ cycle: Results from Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu

 

 

Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA): What? Why? How?

Two states in India, Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh, have participated for the first time in a pilot in the 2009 PISA round of testing. Here's some background information on PISA, documented for later reference.

For a quick and handy description of PISA, its worth spending the 12 minutes to watch this video. The PISA FAQ has more details.

What is PISA?

PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) is an international study which began in the year 2000. It aims to evaluate education systems worldwide by testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students in participating countries/economies. Since the year 2000 over 70 countries and economies have participated in PISA.

Objective of PISA:

The objective of the study is to provide countries with international comparative data as well as with national trend data on reading, mathematical and scientific literacy and problem solving skills of 15 year old students.

The PISA website describes these skills as follows:

Mathematical Literacy: An individual’s capacity to identify and understand the role that mathematics plays in the world to make well-founded judgments and to use and engage with mathematics in ways that meet the needs of that individual’s life as a constructive, concerned and reflective citizen. More details on PISA's approach to testing mathematical literacy are available here. 

Reading literacy: An individual’s capacity to understand, use and reflect on written texts, in order to achieve one’s goals, to develop one’s knowledge and potential and to participate in society. More details on PISA's approach to testing reading literacy are available here. 

Scientific literacy: The capacity to use scientific knowledge, to identify questions and to draw evidence based conclusions in order to understand and help make decisions about the natural world and the changes made to it through human activity. More details on PISA's approach to testing scientific literacy are available here.

Problem Solving: In the PISA 2003 cycle, an additional domain of problem solving was introduced to continue the examination of cross-curriculum competencies. More details on PISA's approach to testing problem solving ability are available here.

Method of Assessment:

All students take pencil-and-paper tests, with assessments lasting a total of two hours for each student. For the PISA 2009 assessment, some participating countries/economies have also opted for an assessment of the reading of electronic texts. Test items are a mixture of multiple-choice items and questions requiring students to construct their own responses. The items are organised in groups based on a passage setting out a real-life situation. You can take an interactive version of the tests here.

A total of about seven hours of test items is covered, with different students taking different combinations of test items. Students answer a background questionnaire, which takes 20-30 minutes to complete, providing information about themselves and their homes. School principals are also given a 20-minute questionnaire about their schools.

Periodicity

PISA surveys take place every three years, commencing in 2000. The results of previous surveys have been published by the OECD and are available. The next survey will take place in 2012.

For each survey, one of the three areas (Mathematics, Science and Reading) is chosen as the major assessment domain and it is given greater emphasis.  The remaining two areas, the minor domains, are assessed less thoroughly.  In 2000 the major domain was reading, in 2003 it was mathematics, in 2006 science and 2009 reading.  In 2012 Mathematics will again be the major domain, and a computer-delivered assessment of problem solving will be an innovation.

The design and implementation of PISA for the 2000, 2003, 2006, 2009 and 2012 data collections has been the responsibility of an international Consortium led by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) with Ray Adams as international project director.

The PISA survey also collects information from students on various aspects of their home, family and school background; and information from schools about various aspects of organisation and educational provision in schools. This information is collected to facilitate a detailed study of factors within and between countries that are associated with varying levels of reading, mathematical and scientific literacy among the 15-year-old students of each country.

Results, Data and  Reports:

The results of the survey are presented in the form of rankings of student performance by country. All the survey data is available for download for any interested researcher. Various reports based on the data look at

• how successful education systems moderate the impact of social background and immigrant status on student and school performance
• 15-year-olds’ motivation, their engagement with reading and their use of effective learning strategies
• how human, financial and material resources, and education policies and practices shape learning outcomes
• the progress countries have made in raising student performance and improving equity in the distribution of learning opportunities
• explores students’ use of information technologies to learn

and many more in-depth reports look at a variety of specific issues like student learning, equity, the high cost of low educational performance, and country-specific in-depth reports.

In the next post, I will look at India's decision to participate in PISA on a pilot basis in the 2009 round and the results from that pilot study.

In other posts, I had looked at

• India's participation in PISA 2009+ cycle: The Process
• India's participation in PISA 2009+ cycle: Terminlogy & Caveats
• India's participation in PISA 2009+ cycle: Results from Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu

Teacher Eligibility Test for all school teachers in India

Qualifying in a Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) is now mandatory for all existing and aspiring primary and middle school teachers in the country, with the passing of the Right To Education Act. The National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE) has published the guidelines for conducting the TET, providing complete details about rationale for the test, eligibility to take the test, the structure and syllabus for the test, the type of questions that would be asked  and the marks required to qualify as a teacher.

To be eligible to take the CTET or any other TET conducted by the states, one has to have a degree in education (B.Ed or D. Ed) or be on the verge of completing a degree in the year of taking the test. Teachers will need to take the TET within a period of 5 years from the time the TET is first notified. This kind of a qualifying test can help improve the quality of teachers right from the recruitment stage.

The Central Government and many States have begun conducting the TET. The Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET) was conducted by the CBSE for the first time in June 2011. The next CTET will be held on January 29, 2012. Here's how the CTET web site describes the Test.

It had been inter alia provided that one of the essential qualifications for a person to be eligible for appointment as a teacher in any of the schools referred to in clause (n) of section 2 of the Right To Education Act is that he/ she should pass the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) which will be conducted by the appropriate Government in accordance with the Guidelines framed by the NCTE.

The rationale for including the TET as a minimum qualification for a person to be eligible for appointment as a teacher is as under:

• It would bring national standards and benchmark of teacher quality in the recruitment process.
• It would induce teacher education institutions and students from these institutions to further improve their performance standards.
• It would send a positive signal to all stakeholders that the Government lays special emphasis on teacher quality.

The aggregate results of CTET 2011 are available thanks to a question raised in the Lok Sabha by the MP, Priya Sunil Dutt. Two papers were held as part of CTET 2011, one for those who wish to become a teacher in classes I to V and another for those who wish to become a teacher in classes VI to VIII. 

Aggregate results from the CTET conducted by CBSE in June 2011

	Paper-I (Classes I to V)			Paper-II (Classes VI to VIII)
Category	Appeared	Qualified	% Qualified	Appeared	Qualified	% Qualified
General	255,480	35,768	14%	254,612	29,931	12%
SC	100,837	3,601	4%	92,996	2,383	3%
ST	30,435	515	2%	21,812	389	2%
OBC	213,001	14,864	7%	199,069	10,468	5%
Total	599,753	54,748	9%	568,489	43,171	8%

According to the aggregate data provided by the Minister of State for Human Resource Development, D. Purandeswari, less than 10% of those who took the tests were able to qualify. There is no indication of how many of those who qualified were existing teachers.

Priya Sunil Dutt, in her question, had also asked whether, to protect the interests of SC & ST candidates, the Government proposes to prescribe lower marks/ qualifying standard in future and retrospectively to CTET 2011. The Minister, D. Purandeswari, responded saying,

The CBSE has issued certificates and statements of marks to candidates of all categories securing marks 60% and above. Appointing authorities can consider giving concessions to persons belonging to SC/ST/OBC/differently abled category in accordance with respective reservation policies.

It would be good if the National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE) and the respective State Councils of Teacher Education publish a list on their web sites of all teachers who have qualified in the TET conducted by them, just as the Medical Council of India, publishes a list of all qualified doctors. This would also help students wanting to do a B.Ed or D.Ed in selecting those teacher training colleges that do a good job in training teachers to qualify. The teacher training colleges could also be asked to publish on their web sites the percentage of their students who have qualified in the TETs.

The Tamil Nadu Government notified the Tamil Nadu Teacher Eligibility Test recently and put out a Government Order based on the NCTE guidelines. There are a few points that I am still unsure about after reading the Tamil Nadu Government Order.

• The G.O. says "The teachers working in unaided private schools are required to pass Teacher Eligibility Test within 5 years." I presume all teachers currently working in Government schools or Government-aided schools will also need to pass the test within 5 years, but am not sure about it. The G.O. states that teachers can be recruited henceforth only if they have qualified in the TET.
• The G.O. says "The Validity Period of the TET qualifying certificate for appointment will be decided by the appropriate Government subject to a maximum of seven years for all categories." Does this mean that every Teacher will have take the test again after seven years?
• Since the RTE Act only applies to children of 6-14 years of age, are high school and higher secondary school teachers exempt from taking the TET? If so, the NCTE could come up with guidelines for another similar TET for teachers teaching classes IX - XII.