There is massive demand for English, information technology (IT), and engineering courses fueled by India’s growth. This demand for language and computer literacy starts from primary education right up to higher education. India state institutions cannot meet the demand for English, let alone higher education as a whole. For example, according to The National Knowledge Commission, India has 350 institutes of higher education, but needs 1,500 if it wants to increase beyond the 15% enrollment by 2015 (Nilekani 2008). As an economist, I know the solution is to allow private education to pick up the slack. If this is not done formally and consistently, the demand for this education will be met informally by the private sector. While there is nothing wrong per se with the provision of education in the informal sector, information problems make quality and consistency hard to come by.
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The private provision of education has of course happened in India. There are problems, however. The private education sector is regulated by a patchwork of state institutions, if at all. For example, there is no supra-national regulator for the many technical training colleges and schools that are privately owned (Nilekani 2008). Private education quality is inconsistent and the curriculum is not standardized. While there are standard bearers in formal private education schools, they are the exception, not the rule (Nilekani 2008 and Deccan Herald 2009) Just like the patchwork and ineffective regulatory framework precipitated the financial crisis, if Indian federal and state governments do not think about how to meet the demand for education and provide a consistent regulatory response, the education system in place right now will create a sub-prime sector of Indian workers that will not be able to innovate and succeed in the knowledge economy that is their engine of growth. |
There are signs of hope on the ground, however. We visited the Institute of Leadership and Institutional Development (ILID) founded by Dr. Jayaram on Friday. Three years ago, he began a program with both private, technical schools, and government schools to provide computer-aided English instruction. The program is called Pygmalion and is funded by a small grant from the Global Fund for Children. The program is now in 250 government schools in the Karnataka and is offered from grades 5 to 10. (It is not offered to younger children because of state laws against English from grades 1-5. See earlier post.) The technical school students pay a fee-for-service that helps to subsidize the program for public school students. Local IT companies provide new/recycled computers (not quite sure on the recycled). ILID has crafted a program to meet the demands for English education in public schools, test program effectiveness, and begin to address the uniformity issue.
We are excited that the culture of social entrepreneurship is strong in Bangalore. Civil society is stepping in as it should and will help address some of the deficiencies in the system. While this is good, we should not forget the issue of scalability. For true large scale change we need to reduce duplication, improve program effectiveness, and make some macro level educational reforms. The need for such change is urgent. I hope our program can play a small part in enabling the local drive for such change that we are seeing.
Several people that we met in India brought up the issue of rote memorization in India’s educational system — one of the recent graduates from the CSIM program in Bangalore is working on a project about it. It happens to be something that I am also passionate about in the context of the US educational system (standardized state level testing, SATs, etc.), though the problem exists on a different scale here.
But you do bring up an excellent point about the inequality of access (there are so many layers to understanding India!).
you’re right, the way the Indian system of educated is regulated is complex. This website (http://countrystudies.us/india/37.htm) explains where the jurisdiction of the education system falls in India.
Just earlier this morning I read an article in the Times of India, about how Obama was urging US citizens to catch up to the educational standards of those in India and China. This, I guess, comes from the view that India’s ‘IT youth’ has been the driver of its rapid economic growth. A large number of high school indian students are motivated and dedicated to securing good scores in the college entrance examinations. The high levels of competition into the IIT’s, the IIM’s, St. Stephens and other colleges of Delhi University leave high school students with no choice but to study and cram incessantly for hours. Such rigorous academic learning spurs millions of indians to learn their subjects, particularly science and mathematics at very high levels. I’m not an outright defendant of the way these subjects are taught to us at the high school level, but one thing is sure-learning pages and pages of a textbook definitely improves your memorizing abilities, and your capacity to retain more information.
All right, but this if for the numbers that actually get to go through higher education, and even get the chance to compete in college entrance exams. What about the other millions in the country, particularly in the rural areas, that do not even have access to high school level education? The demand is huge and growing, supply is lacking and inefficient-especially when talking about state sponsored education and delivery of public services. I’ve heard and read numerous times that in these state sponsored schools, teachers are absent more absent than present, and even if they show up, they don’t teach. Most of them, especially in areas like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are happy chewing their Paan and spitting out the reddish liquid from it-mixed with their saliva on the walls of the school buildings. These teachers- you can’t really blame all their actions because they are heavily unpaid, and when the money comes in to the school( for making uniforms for the children, or for getting new textbooks etc), these teachers swindle the system and manage to pocket the money for themselves.
Regulation does need to come in, but looking at who manages the system of education in India, it’s all so complex. There are some signs of hope: the new Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal seems much more capable and promising than the previous one, Arjun Singh. Apparently Manmohan Singh was dissatisfied with Singh’s performance, and will try to revamp the system under Sibal. Obviously, this is an effort from the center which needs to trickle down through the various levels of bureaucracy in order to really have an impact. The new budget that was passed about a week ago also looks shelves out a chunk of funds towards rural development. Let’s just hope that the poverty upliftment schemes dwindles the vicious cycles that are current prevalent in the vast, rural and urban lands of India.
I’m glad to know that the network of social entrepreneurship is really strong in bangalore and parts of south india. True that the South has the IT sector, but given the strength of the civil society there, it’s not sonot surprising then that the levels of development in the south far exceed those of the north.
you’re title: supply, demand and regulation describes the situation perfectly. I’m really glad you guys are following up on the blog even after your return. It has been a wonder reading all your posts. Can’t wait to have an exciting conversation about India when we all meet!