Quality of classroom instruction
The last factor that Sood mentions in her paper on teacher effectiveness is the teaching quality in the classroom itself. The National Policy of Education, 1986, Right to Education as well as the 12th five year plan speaks about the need to have child-friendly classrooms. Some of the parameters for a child-friendly classroom are: students ask questions, student work is displayed in the classroom, teacher relates content to local context, students are allowed to work in small groups and where TLM other than textbook is used. (National Curriculum framework parameters)
In a study of 1700 classrooms by ASER, less than 20% of classrooms were observed having any of these parameters. It turns out that having child-friendly classrooms is not just a humane measure but one that has a direct link to learning outcomes. Classrooms that had none of the parameters had a mean score of less than 40% while classrooms that were child-friendly and qualified on more than three parameters had a mean score of 55%. (ASER Policy Brief, 2009). In addition to many teachers not meeting the criteria for education, availability and training, it is evident that the standard of actual teaching in the classroom falls far below acceptable measures and goals laid out.
Lastly, teacher motivation has an impact on effectiveness and learning outcomes. In Indian public schools, teacher motivation is low because of lack of accountability, appreciation and existence of non-teaching duties such as census survey, election duties etc. According to the Planning Commission’s Evaluation Report on SSA, 76% of urban teachers expressed disinterest in non-teaching activities. All these factors contribute to lack of teacher effectiveness, which in turn impacts learning outcomes.
Implications for Policy
Despite a 96% enrolment at the primary level, India’s education system fails to capitalise on providing quality education to these students. Learning outcomes are low and this exacerbates dropouts by the end of the lower secondary level, which is completed by only 50% students.(UNESCO Institute of Statistics) Out of the 50% who make it to upper secondary, it narrows down to a meagre 18% at tertiary level. (World Bank 2012).
The low learning outcomes at the primary level might point towards an overestimation of the literacy rate. In fact, one study found that only 26% of the people classified as literate by the census could read. (Sharma, Haub, 2008) India’s growth depends on its ability to develop a well-educated and skilled workforce.
Currently, its population is engaged pre-dominantly in low productivity jobs in agriculture and this situation is likely to continue if the learning outcomes don’t improve and dropouts at the secondary level continue. Bhatt argues that the opportunity cost of two-thirds of India’s children not completing primary education comes to $100 billion per year. (Bhatt, Brookings Institute)
Demographic disaster
The median age of the Indian population, at 25.1, is amongst the youngest in the world. (CIA World Factbook) The demographic dividend will be achieved only if the youth, who make up the majority of the population, are educated. Else, the dividend will turn into a financial burden for the economy. The learning outcomes have been declining over time and the trend indicates that if the status quo continues, learning outcomes will get worse.
The Right to Education has made education a fundamental right and has increased access to schools but not learning. If the RTE is to be implemented in its true spirit, learning outcomes need to be taken into consideration. The poor learning levels have resulted in a largely under-employed population with large-scale prevalence of ‘disguised’ unemployment. If the trend of outcomes continues for these students, India will have a larger proportion of people who are unemployable and unskilled than it has now.
Of the 186 million students in India, only 12.4 percent are enrolled in higher education, one of the lowest ratios in the world.
The rest of the students who drop out, do not pick up even basic literacy or numeracy skills, leaving them incapable of joining vocational education. This is indicated by the fact that only 3% of the age appropriate population in India is involved in any form of vocational training, as opposed to China, which has 20% of its higher education age-group enrolled in vocational training. (KPMG-China, 2011)This has been made possible due to China’s impressive learning outcomes at a primary level, which provides its students with strong fundamentals which enable them to pick up other concepts and to apply what they have learnt.
The MHRD Annual Report 201-2013 reports that India needs to develop 500 million skilled workers by 2022. The key word here is skilled because the low learning outcomes at primary and secondary level would mean that even those who have cleared secondary education might not necessarily be skilled. This clearly indicates the need for fundamental reforms across primary, secondary and higher education.
Conclusion
The learning outcomes have gone down after the introduction of the RTE. The causes behind this have not been examined. However, another significant development is the RTE regulation of not keeping students behind till 8th grade. This means that despite reducing learning outcomes, students failing a grade will not be kept back but will be promoted till 8th grade, by which point, remediation will be ineffective and students incapable of keeping up with the academic rigor demanded.
Issues of teacher training and quality of teaching need to be examined in the light of student achievement scores. Additionally, outcomes at a primary level affect the access to vocational education as well. Improving outcomes promises to expand opportunities for the students to pick up skills that will enable them to be a part of the formal economy.
However, currently only 1% students are out of school. Herein exists the latent opportunity that Bardach talks about, of providing quality education to the second-largest set of school going children in the world.
By Ankit Vyas
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