What is the one issue which needs urgent attention in India and why?

Dr. Devendra Kothari

Population and Development Analyst

Forum for Population Action

On factors holding India back, my biggest disappointment is the low level of human development.

—Bill Gates

Co-Chair, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Times of India, November, 2017

An unknown commentator, who commented on my last post- Empowering India through HDPlus strategy (https://kotharionindia.blogspot.com/2018/10/managing-poverty-and-hdplus-strategy.html) -, asked me the question: “What is the one thing you want to change in India and why?”  And this post aims to answer this question.  There is plenty of stuff to be changed in making India as a developed country, but we cannot focus on everything in one go.  To start with, one has to put all its energies around few selected things and among these unlocking the human potential is vital.

Now question arises: why human development? Let’s consider some facts.

The event, "Human Capital Summit 2018: A Global Call to Action" during the World Bank-IMF Annual Meetings held in Indonesia this April, the World Bank President Jim Yong Kim announced the ranking of the countries on  human capital index (HCI). India ranked 115th out of 157 countries.

HCI seeks to measure the amount of human capital that a child born today can expect to attain by the age of 18. According to its parameters a child born in India today will only be 44 per cent as productive as she/he could have been if she enjoyed quality education and full health as well as quality of living environment including water and sanitation.  In other words, there are grave deficiencies in human development efforts and that are preventing our children from reaching their full potential. Further, the World Bank findings point out that India’s score is “lower than the average for its region and income group.”

Singapore topped the HCI list after it was highly rated for its universal primary healthcare system, primary education exams results and life expectancy figures. It is followed by South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and Finland.

The Government of India, however, rejected the World Bank results. In a statement, the Indian finance ministry said the HCI has “major methodological weaknesses, besides substantial data gaps” and declared it would “ignore” the ranking. But experts called on the government to acknowledge its failures and take steps to improve health and education outcomes.  India’s performance in the UNDP’s Human Development Index, another measure of human capital, also hasn’t improved much over the years, experts said. This year, India ranked 130 out of 189 countries. Whether India is going to reject this finding too?

There are many national and international reports which indicate that situation is fast deteriorating. For example, the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2017 survey titled “Beyond Basics” reveals that nearly one-fourth of India’s youngsters aged 14-18 cannot read their own language fluently. The report, an initiative by an Indian NGO Pratham, also reveals that 57 per cent of the children assessed struggled to solve a simple sum of division - exposing chinks in the quality of education imparted in the country. Further, 47 per cent of all 14 year-olds in the sample could not read English sentences. For 18-year-old youth, this figure is closer to 40. Also, the report revealed that only 28 per cent had used the internet—26 per cent had used computers in last one week. 64 per cent had never used the internet.

As far as wellbeing of children are concerned,  India is among the countries accounting for the highest burden of stunted, wasted, and overweight children, as per the latest Global Nutrition Report 2018 reflecting the growing concern around child nutrition in the country. With 46.6 million stunted children, India accounted for nearly one-third of the world’s 150.8 million children who are stunted; the report shows warning against a major malnutrition crisis. India is followed by Nigeria (13.9 million) and Pakistan (10.7 million). [1]  The three countries together are home to almost half of all stunted children in the world. This is despite the improvement made by India in reducing
stunting since 2005-06. This is one of major impediments in empowering human resources.

India’s demographics are mind-boggling. During the next one and half   decades there will be a massive increase in the population in the working ages because one  million or so  young people will join the labour force every month and many of them will not have the ability to earn living wages because of their poor human development. Many vested interests would like to perpetuate the current low-level equilibrium of human development.

So what sort of change we need? No doubt, India has to empower its people. For this author has suggested a way out, as noted in my previous post:  Empowering India through HDPlus (HD stands for Human Development) strategy. [2]   At the centre of the HDPlus strategy is the concept of capabilities. Basic capabilities valued by virtually everyone include: good health, access to knowledge, and a decent standard of material living. However, around 50 per cent of population (approx. 700 million people or 135 million families) in India still has inadequate access to basic goods such as quality education, health or sanitation. Much more, therefore, can be done in terms of investments for the bottom income groups. This will substantially increase income growth rates at the bottom, and the growth rates of the economy as a whole. What is required is single-minded focus on growth, based on human development, which increases the jobs pie.[3]

70 years after independence, India I know is losing its way. Only human development can save us. It appears that our policy makers are convinced that rapid economic growth is the most (or only) effective tool to dent into inequality and poverty, through “increased opportunities” for the needy sections. Twenty-seven years ago, India embarked on the journey of economic liberalization, opening up to globalization and market forces. We and the rest of the world have watched that the investment and trade regime introduced in 1991 raised economic growth, increased consumer choices, and reduced poverty to some extent. The trickle-down effect of economic liberalization, however, could not lift millions of Indians and the level of inequality increased. It is because our policy makers in last seventy years did not seem to endorse the concept of "Small is Beautiful" in unlocking human potential.  [4] 

 

Recently, I was interviewed by the Citylive dialogues to understand what happened in the last seventy years. You may like to watch it at:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr4QKlmIwg8 

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[1]  For details , see at:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/66873472.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

[2] For details , refer at: https://kotharionindia.blogspot.com/2018/10/managing-poverty-and-hdplus-strategy.html

[3] Kothari, Devendra. 2019. Nurturing Human Development: A Strategy for New India, New Delhi: Paragoan International Publishers

[4] The book, Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered  is a collection of essays by German born British economist E.F. Schumacher, first published by Blond & Briggs in 1973.

Changing the way India learns to unlock the human potential

Dr. Devendra Kothari

Population and Development Analyst

Forum for Population Action

The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled

Plutarch, a Greek thinker and essayist

Education is both a process and an outcome; it is the process of acquiring information, knowledge and skills; but it is also the ability to demonstrate the possession of such information, knowledge and skills so as to qualify to be referred to as educated individual or human capital. Therefore, within the term “education” is embedded the concept of productivity.[1]

There is a general belief that education leads to efficient work which in turn leads to social and economic development. There are roughly 450 million people in India that make up our work force. Of these, 90 percent have not completed school or higher education. Why? Because, of the 630,000 villages in India, over 500,000 don’t have schools that can provide education above Class VII.

Without a doubt, labour productivity is linked to education. Let us consider what is happening at the education front especially at the school education.  

India does well to keep ninety seven per cent of children between 6 and 14 years of age enrolled in schools and most of them are attending the school on a regular basis,  but the problem is now of quality, not quantity. More than half our school students are being classified as functionally uneducated and unskilled or simply half educated. NGO Pratham’s 10th Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2014, based on the survey in 577 districts and 16,497 villages covering 3,41,070 households and about 5,69,229 children in the age group 3-16 ,  noted that overall situation with basic reading and arithmetic continue to be extremely disheartening in India. According to ASER 2014 that: “Half of all children in Std V have not yet learned basic skills that they should have learned by Std II”; and “Close to half of all children will finish eight years of schooling but still not have learned basic skills in arithmetic”. [2]

As a result, the current pool of India’s labour force has very low employability mainly due to low productivity resulting from the poor quality of education.  If the labour productivity is low, then employers do not hire workers. And that is happening in India. India graduates more than five million graduates every year. Engineers comprise a small (but significant) part of it at around six hundred thousand, whereas the rest take up a variety of three or four year bachelor degree programs. The National Employability Report 2013   reveals that a significant proportion of graduates, nearly 47 per cent were found not employable in any sector, given their poor English language and cognitive/analytical skills. The report also indicates that only 17.4 per cent of technical graduates (engineers) in the country are ready to be employed. What this also means is that the rest, that is, 82.6 per cent, engineering graduates are unemployable. Again, their lack of English language knowledge and cognitive skills were identified as the major obstacles to their suitability in the job market. [3]

As such, various states have been complaining of a significant decline in learning outcomes. So they have been making RTE provision as a scapegoat and asking the Centre to revoke the provisions like no-fail policy. But such exam-obsessed approaches won’t improve learning outcomes.

There are many problems faced by India’s education system, as noted in my paper: “Education in India needs intensive care, not a quick fix”.[4]  The paper argues that the real solution lies in improving assessment and accountability systems, which largely translates into improving teacher recruitment and training.

From more than 90 per cent of aspirants failing the central Teacher’s Eligibility Test year after year to teacher absenteeism touching as high as 40 per cent in the poorest states to the prevalence of English teachers who just can’ not speak English, all around there are signs that teacher recruitment and training are in terrible shape in India. TOT Editorial rightly noted that “rather than obsessing over exams for students let’s focus on setting standards for teachers, having a system that rewards the good ones, and equipping teachers with modern pedagogical tools to teach critical thinking rather than rote lessons." [5] Only two things will truly de-stress students: good teachers and better opportunities after they graduate.

The similar views were expressed by The Economist, most trusted news magazine.  In its recent paper entitled: “How to make a good teacher”, the paper argued that forget smart uniforms and small classes to raise the standard of school teaching.  “The secret to stellar grades and thriving students is teachers”. The paper further emphasises that what matters in schools are teachers? Fortunately, teaching can be taught. [6] In sum, the idea of improving the average teacher could revolutionize the entire profession. If this is to change, teachers need to learn how to impart knowledge and prepare young minds to receive and retain it. And in the education reforms, this should be our priority.

The T.S.R. Subramanian committee, entrusted with preparing a new education policy for India submitted the report to the Government of India in May, 2016 suggesting measures that the country must take to improve the sector that caters to over 300 million students in the country. Among various measures to make good teachers, the report recommends that Teacher Entrance Tests (TET) should be made compulsory for recruitment of all teachers. The Centre and states should jointly lay down norms and standards for TET. [7] 

In addition to rational curricula and pedagogy as well as teachers’ training and teir selecti, we must explore how unconventional methods of teaching and learning could be used in improving the quality of education.  Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen in their book - The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business - sketch a future dominated by technology.[8] With vivid examples and brilliant analyses, they show how the internet and other communication technologies will empower individuals and transform the way nations and businesses operate. The authors  believe that “the most important pillar behind innovation and opportunity – education- will be tremendous positive change in the coming decades as rising connectivity reshape traditional routines and offer new paths for learning” (Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen,2013,21). According to the writers that in 2012, when the MIT Media Lab tested this digital technology in Ethiopia by distributing preloaded tablets to primary-age kids without accompanying teachers, the results were extraordinary: within months the kids were reciting the entire alphabet and writing complete sentences in English.

India's government-run schools are terrible, and education faces a drastic shortage of teachers across the board. If digital technology were deployed into education, the villages or remote areas with no access to schools suddenly become accessible. India has a satellite in orbit as well, which is meant to be used exclusively for education. Any institution can use it to impart education to children in remote areas.

For children in countries like India, the digital technology promises new access to educational tools, although clearly not as in developed world. And we must explore the implications of the burgeoning digital technology to improve the quality of education in India, because “physical class rooms will remain dilapidated; teachers will continue to take paychecks and not show up for class; and books and supply will be scare. But what’s  new in  this equation  - connectivity- promises that kids with access to mobile devices  and internet will be able to experience school physically and virtually, even if the latter is informal and on their own time”( Eric and Jared, 2013 22).

Father, there is urgent need to allocate mote funds to the education sector. The new education policy recommends that the outlay on education should be raised to at least 6 per cent of GDP without further loss of time. 

In sum, poor governance at school level and muddleheaded policies in higher education has hurt young people. To foster an environment of job creation, it is critical to produce employable Indians. This should be India’s motto. If India is to meet the more ambitious development goals in a challenging external environment, the post-2016 agenda needs to focus on ensuring a structural transformation of education system. That will enable labour to shift towards higher value-added sectors and more knowledge-intensive activities, thereby improving labour productivity relative to other developing countries. In other words, the government must focus on quality education, infrastructure rather than attempting to introduce controversial issues in the education system.

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[1] Biao Idowu. 2010. Education, work and productivity in developing countries. Educational Research, Vol. 1(11) pp. 548-555.

[2] Refer Pratham’s 10th Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), 2014

[3] For details, see: The National Employability Report Graduates 2013 at: http://www.aspiringminds.in/docs/national_employability_study_IT_aspiringminds.pdf. Also see: The National Employability Report (NER) for Engineers by Aspiring Minds at: http://www.aspiringminds.com/research-articles/exploring-national-employability-report-engineers-2014-part-i .

[4] Kothari, Devendra. 2016. Education in India needs intensive care, not a quick fix, RAEA Policy Paper No. 6, PP. 1-18.

[5] Refer TOI editorial - Make Good Teachers at: http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-editorials/make-good-teachers-instead-of-obsessing-over-board-exams-invest-obsessively-in-teacher-training/

[6] Refer article: How to make a good teacher: What matters in schools are teachers? Fortunately, teaching can be taught, The Economist, June 11^th, 2016.

[7] GoI. 2016. Some Inputs for Draft National Education Policy 2016, Ministry of Human Resource Development Government of India.

[8] Refer: Eric Schmidt  and Jared Cohen. 2013. The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business, Kindle Edition