Rural Education #1: Problems
Prof. Karthik Muralidharan wrote this very long (~900 pages) but excellent book, Accelerating India’s Development . One chapter is about education. This is the first of a two-part blog based on just that one chapter. At independence, India paid more attention to tertiary education over primary education. This was because a technical workforce was considered vital for India’s modernization. In more recent times, while enrolment for primary education has exploded, the outcome (what they learnt) is still very poor. The government’s approach is to focus on inputs (money, infrastructure, teacher count, mid-day meals, books and computers), not on harder to quantify but more important outputs . Take improvements in school infrastructure. While it may make the learning experience more pleasant, it doesn’t translate to better learning if the “teaching and learning processes are ineffective”. Computers are often kept under lock and key and never allowed to be used, for fear...