What kind of India do we want? Managing the climate change

Dr. Devendra Kothari

Population and Development Analyst

Forum for Population Action

India is a country that is facing the challenges of people and nature.

The Nature Conservancy[1]

The Issue:

As one of the greatest challenges facing India, climate change deserves serious treatment by all of us. Of all the most polluting nations – US, China, Russia, Japan and the EU bloc – only India’s carbon emissions are rising: they rose almost 5 percent in 2016. No one questions India’s right to develop, or the fact that its current emissions per person are tiny. But when building the new India for its 1.35 billion people, especially those who are living below poverty lines, whether it relies on coal and oil or clean and green energy will be a major factor in whether global warming can be tamed.

Over fifty per cent of India’s population (around 700 million)   still has little or no access to basic facilities, such as quality education, health or sanitation even after the adoption of market-friendly strategies during the 1990s and record-high GDP growth in recent years.[1]  As such, “India is the frontline state,” says Samir Saran, at the Observer Research Foundation in Delhi. “Two-thirds of India is yet to be built. So please understand, 16% of mankind is going to seek the American dream. If we can give it to them on a frugal climate budget, we will save the planet. If we don’t, we will either destroy India or destroy the planet.” This view is shared internationally: Christiana Figueres, the UN’s former climate chief who delivered the landmark Paris climate change agreement says India is “very, very important” for everybody. Similarly. Lord Nicholas Stern, the climate economist who has worked in India for 40 years, says a polluting, high-carbon development would leave India alone accounting for a huge chunk of the world’s future emissions, making it “very difficult” to keep the global temperature rise below the internationally agreed danger limit of 2C. Right now, India gets 0.4 per cent  of its energy from wind and just 0.03 per cent from solar PV, and even in 2040, in an extremely optimistic scenario, India will get just 3 per cent of its energy from wind and solar.

India, therefore, has to step up to balance economic growth with nature. For this, there is work to be done everywhere in India with various perspectives to manage the climate change.  In the face of such overwhelming need, the paper, based on secondary data and analysis, will try to identify and respond to the most pressing challenges, and will suggest a way out. In fact, it offers an opportunity for nations including India to step in and help lead the way with a smarter approach to manage the climate change.  Here, India could contribute the path breaking way out looking to its tradition – coexisting with nature – with right type of policies.  In a news item, The Guardian argues that “How India’s battle with climate change could determine all of our fates.” [2] It is because India’s population and emissions are rising fast, and its ability to tackle poverty without massive fossil fuel use will decide the fate of the planet.

Climate change and its impact:

The difference between the two terms environment and atmosphere is that the atmosphere refers to the envelop of gases for the earth, whereas the environment refers to all the living and non-living things including atmosphere that make up the surroundings. Climate is part of environment. Climate affects and is affected by the environment in reciprocal fashion.

Climate change is a change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns when that change lasts for an extended period of time. The change is attributed largely to the increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂₎ produced by the use of fossil fuels and/or by human activities. Global warming, also referred to as climate change, is the observed century-scale rise in the average temperature of the Earth's climate system and its related effects. Multiple lines of scientific evidence show that the climate system is warming.[3]

The world has warmed more than one degree Celsius since the Industrial Revolution. The Paris climate agreement — the nonbinding, unenforceable and already unheeded treaty signed on Earth Day in 2016 — hoped to restrict warming to two degrees.[4] The odds of succeeding, according to a recent study based on current emissions trends, are one in 20. If by some miracle we are able to limit warming to two degrees, we will only have to negotiate the extinction of the world’s tropical reefs, sea-level rise of several meters and the abandonment of the Persian Gulf. Large scale migration cannot be ruled out.  Long-term disaster is now the best-case scenario. Three-degree warming is a prescription for short-term disaster: forests in the Arctic and the loss of most coastal cities. Robert Watson, a former director of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has argued that three-degree warming is the realistic minimum. Four degrees: Europe in permanent drought; vast areas of China, India and Bangladesh claimed by desert; Polynesia swallowed by the sea; the Colorado River thinned to a trickle; the American Southwest largely uninhabitable. The prospect of a five-degree warming has prompted some of the world’s leading climate scientists to warn of the end of human civilization.[5]

Climate change has occurred repeatedly throughout Earth's history.  Some aspects of the current climate change are not unusual, but others are. The concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere has reached a record high relative to more than the past half-million years, and has done so at an exceptionally fast rate. Current global temperatures are warmer than they have ever been during at least the past five centuries, probably even for more than a millennium. If warming continues unabated, the resulting climate change within this century would be extremely unusual in geological terms. Another unusual aspect of recent climate change is its cause: past climate changes were natural in origin, whereas most of the warming of the past 50 years is attributable to human activities.[6]

When comparing the current climate change to earlier, natural ones, three distinctions must be made. First, it must be clear which variable is being compared: is it greenhouse gas concentration or temperature, and is it their absolute value or their rate of change? Second, local changes must not be confused with global changes. Local climate changes are often much larger than global ones, since local factors (e.g., changes in oceanic or atmospheric circulation) can shift the delivery of heat or moisture from one place to another and local feedbacks operate (e.g., sea ice feedback). Large changes in global mean temperature, in contrast, require some global forcing (such as a change in greenhouse gas concentration or solar activity). Third, it is necessary to distinguish between time scales. Climate changes over millions of years can be much larger and have different causes (e.g., continental drift) compared to climate changes on a centennial time scale.

Why does carbon dioxide (CO2) get most of the attention when there are so many other heat-trapping gases? Climate change is primarily a problem of too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This carbon overload is caused mainly when we burn fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas or cut down and burn forests. As a result, rate of acceleration of climate change is   gaining momentum. Globally, 2018 is shaping up to be the fourth-hottest year on record. The only years hotter were the three previous ones. That string of records is part of an accelerating climb in temperatures since the start of the industrial age that scientists say is clear evidence of climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions.[7]

In 2018, record heat wreaked havoc on four continents.[8] For example, the contiguous United States had its hottest month of May, Japan was walloped by record high temperatures in July, killing at least 86 people in what its meteorological agency bluntly called a “disaster.” Further, Nawabshah is in the heart of Pakistan’s cotton country. But no amount of cotton could provide comfort on the last day of April, when temperatures soared past 122 degrees Fahrenheit, or 50 degrees Celsius. Even by the standards of this blisteringly hot place, it was a record. Similarly, May had been the warmest in 100 years in Oslo. June was hot, too, according to MET Norway. And weather stations logged record-high temperatures on the edge of the Sahara and above the Arctic Circle. At 3 p.m. on July 5, on the edge of the vast Sahara, the Algerian oil town of Ouargla recorded a high of 124 degrees Fahrenheit. Even for this hot country, it was a record, according to Algeria’s national meteorological service. While attribution studies are not yet available for other record-heat episodes this year, scientists say there’s little doubt that the ratcheting up of global greenhouse gases makes heat waves more frequent and more intense. No doubt, there will be variations in weather patterns in the coming years, scientists say. But the trend line is clear: 17 of the 18 warmest years since modern record-keeping began have occurred since 2001.The temperatures and wildfires witnessed this summer are set to become the new normal - yet much of the world is unprepared for life on a hotter planet, scientists are warning.

India is no exception. The country has about 18 percent of the world’s population, eight percent of its biodiversity, about two percent of its land and less than one per cent of its water. As such, the country is highly vulnerable to climate change. Average temperatures have been rising throughout the country, and rainfall has become more erratic. These changes are projected to continue accruing over the coming decades. South Asia’s Hotspots: The Impact of Temperature and Precipitation Changes on Living Standards (2018) is the first book of its kind to provide granular spatial analysis of the long-term impacts of changes in average temperature and precipitation on one of the world’s poorest regions. [9] The book finds that higher temperatures and shifting precipitation patterns will reduce living standards in communities across South Asia including India —locations that the book terms “hotspots.” More than 700 million people in India currently live in communities that are projected to become hotspots under a carbon-intensive climate scenario.

According to this World Bank report, rising temperatures and changing monsoon rainfall patterns from climate change could cost India 2.8 percent of GDP and depress the living standards of nearly half the country’s population by 2050. Most of them now live in the vulnerable areas and will suffer from declining living standards that could be attributed to falling agricultural yields, lower labor productivity or related health impacts. Some of these areas are already less developed, suffer from poor connectivity and are water stressed.

India’s average annual temperatures are expected to rise by 1.00°C to 2°C by 2050 even if preventive measures are taken along the lines of those recommended by the Paris climate change agreement of 2015. If no measures are taken average temperatures in India are predicted to increase by 1.5°C to 3°C.

The work scientifically identifies vulnerable states and districts as “hotspots” using spatial granular climate and household data analysis. The report defines hotspot as a location where changes in average temperature and precipitation will have a negative effect on living standards. These hotspots are not only necessarily higher temperature zones than the surrounding areas, but also reflect the local population’s socio-economic capacity to cope with the climatic changes.

In India today, approximately 600 million people live in locations that could either become moderate or severe hotspots by 2050 under a business-as-usual scenario, the report says. States in the central, northern and north-western parts of India emerge as most vulnerable to changes in average temperature and precipitation.

According to the report’s analysis, by 2050 Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh are predicted to be the top two climate hotspot states and are likely to experience a decline of more than 9 percent in their living standards, followed by Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Maharashtra. Seven out of the top 10 most-affected hotspot districts will belong to the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra.

“These weather changes will result in lower per capita consumption levels that could further increase poverty and inequality in one of the poorest regions of the world, South Asia,” says report author Mani Muthukumara (2018), a Lead Economist in the South Asia Region of the World Bank. “

To be concluded.....

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[1] Chancel, Lucas and Thomas Piketty. 2017.  “Indian income inequality, 1922-2014: From British Raj to Billionaire Raj?”  WID, World Working Paper Series No. 2017/11, World Inequality Lab, Paris School of Economics.  Also refer at: http://wid.world/document/chancelpiketty2017widworld/

[2] Carrington, Damian and Michael Safi, 2017. “How India’s battle with climate change could determine all of our fates,” The Guardian Weekly (Nov. 6 2017) at: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/06/how-indias-battle-with-climate-change-could-determine-all-of-our-fates

[3] IPCC. 2013. Climate Change 2013 – The Physical Science Basis Working Group I Contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Edition: 2014, Chapter: Observations: Atmosphere and Surface,  Cambridge University Press, pp.159-254

[4] . The climate scientist James Hansen has called two-degree warming “a prescription for long-term disaster.”

[5] Rich, Nathaniel. 2018. Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change, The New York Times Magazine (August 1, 2018). Also refer at: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html

[6] IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007. FAQ 6.2 Is the Current Change Unusual Compared to Earlier Changes in Earth’s History? at: https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/faq-6-2.html

[7]As quoted by: Sengupta Somini. 2018. 2018 will be fourth-hottest year on record, climate scientists predict at: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/climate-change-global-warming-records-2018-heatwave-a8489151.html

[8] Sengupta Somini, Tiffany May and Zia ur-Rehman, 2018. How Record Heat Wreaked Havoc on gout continents, The New York Times at: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/30/climate/record-heat-waves.html

[9] Mani, Muthukumara, et al. 2018. South Asia's Hotspots : Impacts of Temperature and Precipitation Changes on Living Standards. South Asia Development Matters; Washington, DC: World Bank. Also refer at:  https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/28723 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”

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[1] The Nature Conservancy is a charitable environmental organization, headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, United States. Its mission is to "conserve the lands and waters on which all life depends." 

Population Stabilisation must for New India

Dr. Devendra Kothari

Population and Development Analyst

Forum for population Action

With India confronting a host of crises concurrent with poverty, governance, corruption, social and religious conflicts, why should anyone be concerned about population?  The simple answer is that virtually all major problems that confront India today relate in some critical way to the galloping population. It leads to a massive diversion of national investable resources to consumption which could otherwise be used for increasing investment and productivity and for improving the quality as well as supply of public services like education, health, sanitation, provision of safe drinking water, etc.  It impacts overall development. Without population stabilization, India cannot solve its current problems.

India's demography is mind-boggling. India’s population in 1947 was 33 crore  and in 2018 it is 135 crore. In last seventy years it has quadrupled.  India now contains about 17.8 per cent (i.e. every sixth person in the world is an Indian) of humanity. China is the only country with a larger population ‑ in the order of 7 crore  more in 2018 as compared to 30.2 crore   in 1990. The Indian population grew at an annual rate of 1.24 percent during 2010-15. On the other hand, China registered a much lower annual growth rate of population (0.61%) during the corresponding period.  The UN Population Division expects that in the year 2030 India's population will surpass the population of China. At that time, India is expected to have a population of more than 147.6 crore while China’s population   is forecast to be at its peak of 145.3 crore and will begin to drop in subsequent years. Based on the analysis of recent data, the author came to the conclusion that India will overtake China in the next 3-5 years that is before 2023.

So will India’s population soon start shrinking? Not really. Not anytime soon. Current estimates are that it will keep growing till it peaks at about 175 crore around 2060. This continued increase in population is thanks to something called demographic momentum.  31 per cent of the population of the country was in the age group 0-14 years, as per the Census 2011.  So to expect a country with over a billion to abruptly halt is both impossible and illogical.

The current population growth in India, however, is mainly caused by unwanted fertility.  Around five in ten live births are unintended/unplanned or simply unwanted by the women who experience them and these births    trigger continued high population growth.  With a large number of people resulting from unwanted pregnancies (Box 1), how can one think about using them for nation building?   The consequences of unwanted pregnancy are being reflected in widespread malnutrition, poor health, low quality of education, and increasing scarcity of basic resources like food, water and space.

Box 1 Level of unwanted childbearing Around 2.6 crore children were born in India in 2017, and out of this about 1.3 crore births could be classified as unwanted. Further, based on the National Family Health Surveys (1 to 4), it is estimated that in 2017 around 43.0 crore people out of 134 crore   in India were a result of unwanted pregnancies.

While India’s population continues to grow by 1.5-1.6 crore people annually, and while 1.3 crore women, especially in the lower economic strata including Muslims, seek to postpone childbearing, space births, or stop having children; they are not using a modern methods of contraception. This is also known as the ‘unmet need’ for contraception. Often, women with unmet need for family planning services  travel far from their homes to reach a health facility, only to return home “empty handed” due to shortages, stock outs, lack of desired contraception and/or non-availability of doctors and paramedical staff or poor quality of services. When women are thus turned away, they are unable to protect themselves from unwanted/unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections. And this type of incomplete control over the reproductive process reduces the prospects for an early decline in the rate of population growth.  

Incidents of unwanted pregnancies can be dramatically reduced, if not eliminated, within a decade by providing reproductive services as per the needs of couples,   as had been done in Andhra Pradesh during the nineties.  If Andhra, with little outside help, can manage its population growth under relatively low literacy and high poverty (Literacy Rate of Andhra Pradesh in 2011 was 67.7% compared to 67.1% in Rajasthan, as per 2011 Census), there is no reason why other states especially Four Large North Indian States of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, with lesser problems and with increasingly generous support from the Centre, should fail so spectacularly in managing unwanted fertility. 

 

India must, therefore, ensure that every child is a wanted one. So revamp the family planning programme. With limited economic progress, India’s large population can become a liability rather than an advantage. A failure to stabilize India’s 

An agenda for New India

Devendra Kothari PhD

Population and Development Analyst

Forum for Population Action

Empowering deprived population will yield greater dividend

The policy paper- Nurturing Human Development: A Strategy for New India - provides a pragmatic and workable agenda for NEW INDIA based on the concept on Social Inclusion.[1]  India has been trying to achieve inclusiveness through reservations in government jobs and higher education. If the reservation system had truly worked to empower deprived or backward communities, the decades of its operation ought to have ensured an inclusive society. But we have seen that India is most unequal society in the world.  The paper provides an alternative framework to achieve social inclusion.

Productivity is a major determinant of economic growth and provides the basic trust for the improvement of the standard of living.  As per the International Monetary Fund, India became the seventh largest economy in the world in terms of GDP in 2016 but still it has a very-very low per capita GDP. As a result it is placed at 123rd position among 186 countries. This is perhaps the most visible challenge.

The results of the cross country analysis indicate that the level of productivity is negatively related to income inequality.[2] Even though India has made remarkable progress in various fields, pockets of exclusion continue to prevent millions of its people from realising their true potential. It is because of this that India has been ranked the most unequal large country in the world. The concern raised by many experts is that this equality is rising much faster than expected.  The top one per cent richest individuals in India appropriated six per cent of total income in the early 1980s, and now, this figure has gone up to twenty two per cent.[3] This suggests that wealth is not trickling down to the poor and India is turning into a ‘republic of inequality’.

As a result, over fifty per cent of India’s population (Box 1)  still has little or no access to basic facilities, such as quality education, health or sanitation even after the adoption of market-friendly strategies during the 1990s and record-high GDP growth in recent years.[4]   

Box 1 Sizable deprived population Around 700 million (70 crore) out of the total population of 1350 million in March 2018 can be classified as deprived or Vanchit population. And, without empowering this population of 140 million (14 crore) families, mainly comprising Dalits, tribes, other lower castes including OBCs and Muslims, India cannot think of becoming a developed country.

What is the way out? The paper is based on the premise that only the well-being of the deprived population, capable of actively participating in the development process and in market economy, can ensure sustainable and inclusive development of the country. Bill Gates and Ratan Tata rightly noted:  “Human capital is one of India’s greatest assets. Yet, the world’s fastest growing economy hasn’t touched millions of Indian citizens at the bottom of the economic pyramid.”[5] It will, therefore, be more effective and rewarding if we can focus on the poor families and provide opportunities to them for upward mobility.

In fact, in the changed situation the poor people want upward social mobility, as evidenced by recent violent agitations. But the irony is that most political parties insist on imposing a social identity on their vote banks without in the least realising that these deprived people want other identities, or at least be associated with it – probably a more neutral identity which is not as closely linked with their given identity. These aspirations have come largely through media exposure, and through what one sees others doing (as proposed by M.N. Srinivas in the concept of “Sanskritisation”). Both Indian politics and society would, therefore, will be better served if we could move our discourse more towards identities like ‘aspirational’ middle class   rather than “be fixated around supposedly immutable ascriptive identities” like caste and religion.[6] This move will help the vast downtrodden population in achieving middle class identity leading to the creation of an inclusive society in the real sense. Now the crucial question is how to translate this premise into a concrete fundamental plan in policy framework and programme?

For this, India has to empower its people through a dedicated human development approach/strategy. The proposed approach is the central point of the paper, focuses on enhancing the richness of human life rather than simply the richness of the economy. It will enable ordinary people to decide who they want to be, what to do, and how to live. Also, it will help India transform its demographic dividend into an asset.

To start with, the process of human development must focus on five interventions, namely:  Improving the quality of school education, Strengthening WASH factors (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene), Enhancing primary health, Reducing gender gap, and most importantly Stabilizing the population by minimizing incidents of unwanted childbearing incidences and bringing down infant mortality. In addition, we recognize that shifting of excess labour from agriculture to non-agriculture sectors and managing climate change including the quality of air and water are important inputs in the process of human development.

How to implement the strategy? It may be recalled that the Government of India  has launched various pro-poor  schemes in  recent years such as ‘Swachh Bharat’, ‘Skill India’, ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’, ‘Ujjwala’, ‘Saubhagya’, and ‘Ayushman Bharat’ among others for financial inclusion and unlocking human potential. These schemes give new wings to aspirations of the poor.  However, it appears that these schemes may not serve the purpose since most of these are being implemented on a piecemeal basis and in isolation from the wider process of holistic development. No doubt, India needs a comprehensive policy package in place of incremental approaches to expedite the process of human development.

The paper, therefore, suggests a strategy entitled ‘HDPlus’ to identify the right beneficiaries or the target population. Additional inputs may be added looking at the needs of specific people/area. Hence, the framework has been termed as “HDPlus”.  It is based on a ‘whole child’ concept, that is child and his/her family should be the fulcrum of human development efforts and is being referred as ‘HDPlus families’. The concept is being described by policies, practices, and relationships which ensure that each child is healthy, educated, engaged, supported and encouraged. For this, integrating the child and his or her family more deeply into the day-to-day life of school and home activities represents an untapped instrument for raising the overall achievements including learning skills and health parameters, and hence improving overall productivity. In other words, creating an enabling environment at family and school levels is a way out to empower people.

 *

Now the question arises how to identify the target population or HDPlus families?  In this framework, all government school-going children, aged between 6 and 14, and their families will be the target population for action. Most BPL (Below Poverty Line) families send their children to government schools, though some of them have started sending their children to the private ones too. The suggested framework will be implemented by government agencies in collaboration with civil (society) organizations as was done in the Pulse Polio campaign during the 1990s and the 2000s to eradicate the polio virus (Box 2).

Box 2 HDPlus framework: at a glance HDPlus is an affirmative action framework to change the circumstances that lead to (or have led to) social exclusion.  Its main features are: ·         The focus of action will be all school-going children, aged 6 to 14, in government schools and their families (HDPlus families). ·         The focal point of various governments’ pro-poor schemes along with HD interventions will be HDPlus families. ·         The framework will be implemented by government agencies in collaboration with civil organizations.

India’s future is apparently bright, but it will depend on which direction our policies lead us to.  India has to develop not only in wealth but also in human potential. HD, therefore, is more than a goal in itself. It is a precondition for meeting the challenges of increasing productivity, reducing inequality, promoting sustainable development and building good governance (Box 3).  It is high time that the Government of India and research institutions focus on developing effective and smart human development agenda to unlock the human capital. And, the paper suggests a prototype - HDPlus.

Box 3 The major Benefits of the proposed HDPlus strategy:   ·         It will trigger rapid economic growth on a sustainable basis, and India can be a developed country in a generation. ·         It will open new vistas for social mobility or an aspirational middle class identity, which are urgently needed for sustainable development of the country. ·         It will help to solve an array of seemingly intractable problems such as the battle over caste reservations, gender inequality and lack of opportunity for youth among others.  ·         It will redesign India’s future by providing its youth with innovative ideas/jobs, involving robotics and artificial intelligence. ·         It will reinforce the faith in liberal values.

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[1] Based on the policy paper: Nurturing Human Development: A Strategy for New India by the author. It analyses what actions to be taken in the next 5 to 10 years to empower the people, especially the Satar Crore Vanchit (deprived) Bharatiya. It can be an effective political slogan.  For details, contact: Dr.  Kothari at: E mail: dkothari42@gmail.com & Mobile: 91 9829119868.

[2] DiPietro, William R. 2014.  “Productivity Growth and Income Inequality,” Journal of Economics and Development Studies, Vol. 2 (3): 01-08.

[3] Chancel, Lucas and Thomas Piketty. 2017.  “Indian income inequality, 1922-2014: From British Raj to Billionaire Raj?”  WID, World Working Paper Series No. 2017/11, World Inequality Lab, Paris School of Economics.  Also refer at: http://wid.world/document/chancelpiketty2017widworld/

[4] Chancel, Lucas and Thomas Piketty. 2017.  “Indian income inequality, 1922-2014: From British Raj to Billionaire Raj?”  WID, World Working Paper Series No. 2017/11, World Inequality Lab, Paris School of Economics.  Also refer at: http://wid.world/document/chancelpiketty2017widworld/

[5] Gates, Bill and Ratan Tata. 2016. “New nutrition report underscores the importance of leadership in addressing stunting in India” at: https://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-editorials/new-nutrition-report-underscores-the-importance-of-leadership-in-addressing-stunting-in-india

[6] Kapur, Devesh. 2018. “Middle class is an aspirational identity … people want other identities not as closely linked with their ascriptive identity” at: https://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Addictions/middle-class-is-an-aspirational-identity-people-want-other-identities-not-as-closely-linked-with-their-ascriptive-identity/

CBSE results and Indian higher education system

Dr.  Devendra Kothari PhD

Population and Development Analyst

Forum for population Action

“While the desired levels of research and internationalization of Indian campuses remain weak points, Indian higher education also suffers from a lack of funds, and its largely linear model with very little focus on specialization.”

livemint

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has announced the Class 12 examination results on May 26, 2018. An analysis of the results brings very interesting facts, as noted in the TOI Edit: Give them wings: CBSE results reveal lakhs of students raring to go. The system mustn’t fail them[1]

CBSE’s Class 12 board examination results lay out neatly the contradictions of the Indian education system.  There is no dearth of bright students – 72,599 scored 90% or above and 83.1% of the 1.18 million students who took the test have passed. But rather than exult or be relieved these students face a harrowing time securing admission to undergraduate courses of their choice. Often the best among them head to a clutch of prestigious colleges in big cities amid uncertainty and insecurity over making it through.

This is most evident in Delhi University (DU) colleges where students from across the country flock to. First list cutoffs are known to soar over 99 per cent, not surprising considering that 12,737 students have scored over 95 per cent. Also note that CBSE is just one among other education boards and a ten million (crore)  or so students pass out of education boards run by state governments. While it is not clear whether the consistently rising pass percentages and topper scores are a result of quality improvements or a liberal testing regime, the trend does require higher education to play catch up.

It has tried to do so by increasing seats and courses in top institutions like DU and IITs. But unlike school education where the private sector has stepped up and catered to rising aspirations, this has happened more slowly in higher education, mainly because of the vice-like grip of UGC and AICTE. Granting more autonomy to decide fees, student intake, courses and industry partnerships can reverse the quality stagnation in higher education.

But analysing Class 12 CBSE results alone may not give a general picture of school education. For instance, ASER survey results (Pratham) show declining learning outcomes in lower classes and very little probability of those students reaching Class 12.[2]

But the CBSE results are an aspiration index that policy makers cannot ignore. For example, some toppers are contemplating going abroad to pursue undergraduate education. These students have the gap between foreign and Indian universities in mind. This suggests the need for education reforms at every level to ensure better quality. Both public and private education approaches have their task cut out.

According to CBSE results, Meghna Srivastava topped all India with 499 marks out of 500. This is the calibre of many young Indians, at least on education, but the system is letting them down and forcing them to seek greener pastures.

The higher education and research sector in India is not in a good shape, due to mismanagement. The Times Higher Education World University Rankings provide the definitive list of the world's best universities, evaluated across teaching, research, international outlook, reputation and more.  According to THE, not a single Indian university/institute gets a place in the top 200 world university rankings in 2016. [3] The rankings reveal that Indian Institute of Science (IIS) lies between 251 and 300 and IIT-B are ranked between 351 and 400.  On the other hand, China takes four places in the top 200 in 2016, up from two in 2015, with its leader Peking University joining the top 30, at 29th place (up from 42nd in 2015).

If the private sector is fulfilling a felt need in school education, it should be encouraged to do so in higher education as well. Open up the regulatory maze, in order that this space is not dominated by the political class. Foreign universities should be invited to set up campuses in India. Another major problem in higher education is getting good teachers.

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[1] This post is mainly based on TOI Edit , published on May 28, 2018 in Times of India newspaper at https://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-editorials/give-them-wings-cbse-results-reveal-lakhs-of-students-raring-to-go-the-system-mustnt-fail-them/

[2] Kothari, Devendra. 2017. “Managing school education in India”, in Administrative Change, Vol. XLIV (2) 78-89.

[3] India Today. 2016. “World University Ranking 2015 to 2016: No Indian university in top 200, IITs and others in top 600”, India Today at: https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/news/story/top-indian-universities-322233-2016-05-07