South India #2: Education

Nilakantan RS’s South vs North has a chapter on the state of education across different states in India. He starts off by pointing out that literacy rate is a lagging indicator of the state of things (that means it takes a long while to reflect in the numbers). Instead, like he did for healthcare, he suggests looking at multiple data points to evaluate education.

 

Even with literacy rate, he points out that in a country like India one should compare the literacy rate of older folks (say, above 80) with that of the younger kids (say, 5-14). What does that convey? It shows what the trend is – if most older folks are not literate, whereas most young kids are literate, it means the state is moving in the right direction. You might think surely all states would be improving on that comparison, but you’d be wrong. The ratio is moving in the wrong direction in West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Assam (independence v/s today), which means things have deteriorated in those states. The southern states have all moved in the right direction since independence.

 

Another metric is the GER (Gross enrollment ratio) – ratio of kids enrolled in school to the total number of eligible kids. At the primary level, most states have done well on this count. But extend it to secondary and higher secondary levels, and the GER tells a different story – the southern states do a far better job of ensuring kids stay on in school. So why do kids drop out in some states but not others? For all kids, the quality of education, and whether it leads to better employment opportunities is a big factor. For girls, other reasons matter in addition – (1) the risk of sexual harassment; and (2) presence of clean toilets (because of menstrual hygiene).

“Keeping girls in school… is the greatest force multiplier for improving (overall) development outcomes.”

When it comes to the conditions to keep girls at school, south India does well.

 

Next, says Nilakantan, we should look at GER in higher education – colleges, universities and professional courses. As you might suspect, it is higher in the south. And that tells a tale of its own – it implies the quality of education at the lower levels is good enough to get into college, and that college education leads to better employment opportunities. It creates a virtuous cycle.

 

Tamil Nadu, he says, got the free mid-day meal scheme working well early (the idea is that poor students will come to school to eat but will stay to learn). It was so successful that in 2001, the Supreme Court made the scheme mandatory across India. But the results of the free mid-day meal scheme haven’t been the same everywhere, because for the second half to occur (kids staying on at school to learn), one needs good quality of education + possibility of better jobs if one is more educated. For those conditions to be met requires good governance at state level. South India has done much better on that front.

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Nilakantan next criticizes the center trying to standardize education across the country. The NEP (National Education Policy), he says, sets the same bar for all states, which makes no sense for states that are doing far above the average. He also opposes the idea of having board exams for classes 5 and 8 – it will lead to more kids failing, and potentially dropping out of school. (I am not sold on that argument – is the aim of education to keep passing everyone? Or to ensure kids have learnt some minimum amount, however imperfect the system may be?).

 

He is not a fan of NEET, the common entrance test for undergraduate medical seats across the country. States, he argues, should be allowed to structure their higher education systems to cater to the needs of the state. Tamil Nadu, he says, has a good healthcare system that is partially due to the medical education system in the state. Why rock the boat where things are working?

 

He is critical of the three-language formula (poorer kids have enough challenges, why add a language from out of state to that list). He condemns the insistence that subjects be taught in the language of the state. When kids in the better off southern states prefer English as the medium of instruction, it just reflects market and employment world realities – so why reduce the benefit of education by taking away the choice on the medium of education?