Archive for January, 2010

Dr. Tooley: His conclusions on Private Education and Entrepreneurship

Professor James Tooley criticized the United Nations’ proposals to eliminate all fees in state primary schools globally to meet its goal of universal education by 2015. Dr. Tooley says the UN, which is placing particular emphasis on those regions doing worse at moving towards ‘education for all’ namely sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, is “backing the wrong horse”.1

On his extensive research in the world poorest countries such as Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, India, and China, Dr. Tooley found that private unaided schools in the slum areas outperform their public counterparts. A significant number of a large majority of school children came from unrecognized schools and children from such schools outperform similar students in government schools in key school subjects.2 Private schools for the poor are counterparts for private schools for the elite. While elite private schools cater the needs of the privilege classes, there come the non-elite private schools which, as the entrepreneurs claimed, were set up in a mixture of philanthropy and commerce, from scarce resources. These private sector aims to serve the poor by offering the best quality they could while charging affordable fees.3

Thus, Dr. Tooley concluded that private education can be made available for all. He suggested that the quality of private education especially the private unaided schools can be raised through the help of International Aid. If the World Bank and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) could find ways to invest in private schools, then genuine education could result. 4 Offering loans to help schools improve their infrastructure or worthwhile teacher training, or creating partial vouchers to help even more of the poor to gain access to private schools are other strategies to be considered. Dr. Tooley holds that since many poor parents use private and not state schools, then “Education for All is going to be much easier to achieve than is currently believed”.

Hurdles in Achieving the MED

Teachers are the key factor in the learning phenomenon. They must now become the centerpiece of national efforts to achieve the dream that every child can have an education of good quality by 2015. Yet 18 million more teachers are needed if every child is to receive a quality education. 100 million children are still denied the opportunity of going to school. Millions are sitting in over-crowded classrooms for only a few hours a day.5 Too many excellent teachers who make learning exciting will change professions for higher paid opportunities while less productive teachers will retire on the job and coast toward their pension.6 How can we provide millions of more teachers?

Discrimination in girls access to education persists in many areas, owing to customary attitudes, early marriages and pregnancies, inadequate and gender-biased teaching and educational materials, sexual harassment and lack of adequate and physically and other wise accessible schooling facilities. 7

Child labor is common among the third world countries. Too many children undertake heavy domestic works at early age and are expected to manage heavy responsibilities. Numerous children rarely enjoy proper nutrition and are forced to do laborious toils.

Peace and economic struggles are other things to consider. The Bhutan country for example, has to take hurdles of high population growth (3%), vast mountainous areas with low population density, a limited resources base and unemployment. Sri Lanka reported an impressive record, yet, civil war is affecting its ability to mobilize funds since spending on defense eats up a quarter of the national budget.8

Putting children into school may not be enough. Bangladesh’s Education minister, A. S. H. Sadique, announced a 65% literacy rate, 3% increase since Dakar and a 30% rise since 1990. While basic education and literacy had improved in his country, he said that quality had been sacrificed in the pursuit of number.9 According to Nigel Fisher of UNICEF Kathmandu, “fewer children in his country survive to Grade 5 than in any region of the world. Repetition was a gross wastage of resources”.

Furthermore, other challenges in meeting the goal include: (1) How to reach out with education to HIV/AIDS orphans in regions such as Africa when the pandemic is wreaking havoc. (2) How to offer education to ever-increasing number of refugees and displaced people. (3) How to help teachers acquire a new understanding of their role and how to harness the new technologies to benefit the poor. And (4), in a world with 700 million people living in a forty-two highly indebted countries – how to help education overcome poverty and give millions of children a chance to realize their full potential.10

Education for All: How?

The goal is simple: Get the 100 million kids missing an education into school.
The question: How?

The first most essential problem in education is the lack of teachers and it has to be addressed first. Teacher corps should be improved through better recruitment strategies, mentoring and enhancing training academies. 11 Assistant teachers could be trained. Through mentoring, assistant teachers will develop the skills to become good teachers. In order to build a higher quality teacher workforce; selective hiring, a lengthy apprenticeship with comprehensive evaluation, follow ups with regular and rigorous personnel evaluations with pay-for-performance rewards, should be considered.12 Remuneration of teaching staff will motivate good teachers to stay and the unfruitful ones to do better.

Problems regarding sex discrimination and child labor should be eliminated. The Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA), for example, addressed the problem of gender inequality. BPFA calls on governments and relevant sectors to create an education and social environment, in which women and men, girls and boys, are treated equally, and to provide access for and retention of girls and women at all levels of education.13 The Global Task Force on Child Labor and Education and its proposed role for advocacy, coordination and research, were endorsed by the participants in Beijing. The UN added that incentives should be provided to the poorest families to support their children’s education.14

Highly indebted countries complain on lack of resources. Most of these countries spend on education and health as much as debt repayments. If these countries are with pro-poor programs that have a strong bias for basic education, will debt cancellation help them? Should these regions be a lobby for debt relief?

Partly explains the lack of progress, the rich countries, by paying themselves a piece dividend at the end of the Cold War, had reduced their international development assistance. In 2000, the real value of aid flows stood at only about 80% of their 1990 levels. Furthermore, the share of the aid going to education fell by 30% between 1990 and 2000 represented 7% of bilateral aid by that time. 15 Given this case, what is the chance of the United Nations’ call to the donors to double the billion of dollars of aid? According to John Daniel, Assistant Director-General for Education, UNESCO (2001-04), at present, 97% of the resources devoted to education in the developing countries come from the countries themselves and only 3% from the international resources. The key principle is that the primary responsibility for achieving ‘education for all’ lies with the national governments. International and bilateral agencies can help, but the drive has to come from the country itself. These countries are advised to chart a sustainable strategy for achieving education for all. This could mean reallocation of resources to education from other expenditures. It will often mean reallocation of resources within the education budget to basic education and away from other levels. 16

A Closer Look: Private and Public Schools

Some of the most disadvantage people on this planet vote with their feet: exit the public schools and move their children in private schools. Why are private schools better than state schools?
Teachers in the private schools are more accountable. There are more classroom activities and levels of teachers’ dedication. The teachers are accountable to the manager who can fire them whenever they are seen with incompetence. The manager as well is accountable to the parents who can withdraw their children.17 Thus; basically, the private schools are driven with negative reinforcements. These drives, however, bear positive results. Private schools are able to carry quality education better than state schools. The new research found that private schools for the poor exist in the slum areas aiming to help the very disadvantage have access to quality education. The poor subsidized the poorest.

Such accountability is not present in the government schools. Teachers in the public schools cannot be fired mainly because of incompetence. Principals/head teachers are not accountable to the parents if their children are not given adequate education. Researchers noted of irresponsible teachers ‘keeping a school closed … for months at a time, many cases of drunk teachers, and head teachers who asked children to do domestic chores including baby sitting. These actions are ‘plainly negligence’.

Are there any means to battle the system of negligence that pulls the state schools into failing? Should international aids be invested solely to private schools that are performing better and leave the state schools in total collapse? If private education seems to be the hope in achieving education for all, why not privatize all low performing state schools? Should the public schools be developed through a systematic change, will the competition between the public and the private schools result to much better outcomes? What is the chance that all educational entrepreneurs of the world will adapt the spirit of dedication and social works – offering free places for the poorest students and catering their needs?

Public schools can be made better. They can be made great schools if the resources are there, the community is included and teachers and other school workers get the support and respect they need. The government has to be hands on in improving the quality of education of state schools. In New York City for example, ACORN formed a collaborative with other community groups and the teachers union to improve 10 low-performing district 9 schools. The collaborative won $1.6 million in funding for most of its comprehensive plan to hire more effective principals, support the development of a highly teaching force and build strong family-school partnerships. 18

Standardized tests are also vital in improving schools and student achievements. It provides comparable information about schools and identifies schools that are doing fine, schools that are doing badly and some that are barely functioning. The data on student achievement provided by the standardized tests are essential diagnostic tool to improve performance. 19

The privatization of public schools is not the answer at all. Take for instance the idea of charter schools. As an alternative to failed public schools and government bureaucracy, local communities in America used public funds to start their own schools. And what started in a handful of states became a nationwide phenomenon. But according to a new national comparison of test
scores among children in charter schools and regular public schools, most charter schools aren’t measuring up. The Education Department’s findings showed that in almost every racial, economic and geographic category, fourth graders in traditional public schools outperform fourth graders in charter schools. 20

If the government can harness the quality of state schools, and if the World Bank and the Bilateral Agencies could find ways to invest on both the private and the public schools – instead of putting money only on the private schools where only a small fraction of students will have access to quality education while the majority are left behind – then ‘genuine education’ could result.

Conclusion

Education for all apparently is a simple goal, yet, is taking a long time for the world to achieve. Several of destructive forces are blocking its way to meet the goal and the fear of failure is strong. Numerous solutions are available to fix the failed system of public schools but the best solution is still unknown. Several challenges are faced by the private schools to meet their accountabilities, but the resources are scarce. Every country is committed to develop its education to bring every child into school but most are still struggling with mountainous debts.
‘Primary education for all by 2015′ will not be easy. However, everyone must be assured that the millennium development goal is possible and attainable. Since the Dakar meeting, several countries reported their progress in education. In Africa, for example, thirteen countries have, or should have attained Universal Primary Education (UPE) by the target date of 2015. 23 It challenges other countries, those that are lagging behind in achieving universal education to base their policies on programs that have proved effective in other African nations. Many more are working for the goal, each progressing in different paces. One thing is clear; the World is committed to meet its goal. The challenge is not to make that commitment falter, because a well-educated world will be a world that can better cope with conflicts and difficulties: thus, a better place to live.

“For fifty years we have been a developing nation. It is time we see ourselves as a developed nation.” This is the part of the speech of Dr Abdul Kalam in Hyderabad. Whenever we are talking about Developed nation, suddenly education comes to picture with other major indicators like the growth rate of the economy, birth rate, death rate, infant mortality rate (IMR), and literacy rate. These indicators are all interconnected with each other and the literacy rate has been the major determinant of the rise or fall in the other indicators. There is enough evidence even in Orissa to show that a low literacy rate correlates with high birth rate, high IMR, and decrease in the rate of life expectancy. The recognition of this fact has created awareness on the need to focus upon literacy and elementary education programmes, not simply as a matter of social justice but more to foster economic growth, social well-being, and social stability.

The Constitution of India casts an obligation on the State to provide free and compulsory education to all children up to the age of 14. The literacy rate in Orissa during 1951 was 15.8% against the all India average of 18.3%, which increased to 63.6% in 2001 against the all India average of 65.4%. While the male literacy rate of 63.1% in the State in 1991 increased to 75.9% in 2001, the female literacy rate increased from 34.7% to 51.0%. There has been a steady improvement in the literacy rates of the State over successive decades, which is a result of expansion of educational infrastructure both quantitative and qualitative.

In 1950-51, there were 9,801 Primary Schools with 16,525 teachers and 3.15 lakh students. There were 501 Upper Primary Schools with 2,569 teachers and 40,000 students. Also there were 172 High Schools with 2,247 teachers and 16,000 students. Since 1950-51, there has been a considerable expansion in the number of educational institutions, enrollment and number of teachers at all levels during successive plan periods. In 2003-2004, there are 44,416 Primary Schools with 52.54 lakh enrollment and 97 lakh teachers in the State. There is one Primary School for every 3.5 Sq.Km area. The state government has established 14, 233 Upper Primary Schools for each 10.94 km area in the State.

Issues of Concern

Education is the key to social & economic development of any society. It encompasses every sphere of human life. Level of literacy has a profound bearing on the level of human development. There are major issues, which are directly or indirectly concerned with the education in Orissa. First, the dropout rate in primary and upper primary schools is become a major issue of concern. In the same time dropout rate become a major setback in the increasing literacy rate which was at the primary stage 33.6%. But if you compare girls dropout rate with boys, the dropout rate for girls was 35.4% and for boys 31.9%. Dropout rate at upper primary stage was 57.5% in 2003-04. Out of them 56.5% boys dropped out in upper primary stage while 58.6% girls dropped out in the same year. Second issue is infrastructure of school buildings, which are in bad conditions. And the old or unsafe school buildings of our state are inadequate to meet the needs of school children. Many of them one-room (or even open-air) operations with poorly paid teachers.

Steps taken by the State Government

Orissa government has always made concerted efforts to provide education to all. Some major initiatives were taken to offer quality education for a brighter future not only for Oriyas but also for the state, at last for the nation. Some steps were directed towards the reform and renewal of state’s education system. In the same time there has been a considerable expansion in the number of educational institutions, enrolment and number of teachers at all levels during successive plan periods.

The central and state governments have been expanding the provision of primary formal and non-formal education to realise the goal of Universilisation of Elementary Education (UEE). Elementary education is recognised as a fundamental right of all citizens in India. The directive principles of state policy envisage UEE as one of the major goals to be achieved and mandated in a timeframe. As per guidelines adopted at the national level, the State aims at providing access to Primary Schools within one kilometer and Upper Primary Schools within three kilometers from habitations having 300 or more and 500 or more respectively. In order to achieve the goal of Universalisation of Elementary Education and to improve the quality, steps have been initiated to engage more 9,563 para teachers under State Plan.

Government of India’s flagship programme ‘Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan’ was launched on nation-wide scale to universalize elementary education by providing for community ownership and monitoring of the school system. The objectives of the programme are compulsory Education to all the Children of 6-14 years age group by 2007. Under the programme, there were 780 new primary schools, 2,771 new upper primary schools were opened and. 25,594 Swechasevi Sikhshya Sahayaks were appointed in 2003-04. The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan programme calls for community participation through effective decentralisation – involvement of Village Education Committee (VEC), Members of Panchayat Raj institutions and Womens’ group. It ensures transparency and accountability of the school system to the community. To lesson the burden of Directorate of Higher Education, the state government has been established three regional Directorates in Bhubaneswar, Berhampur and Sambalpur. Regional Directors of these Directorates have been vested with similar powers of Director of Higher Education. Today, access to the qualitative education is reducing in Orissa. The reason is a lack of budget, weak governance and decline of physical infrastructure, shortage of teachers and their low salary, obsolete teaching plans, poverty and malnutrition, and absence of parents and society participation.

Hurdles to achieve the Goal

Funds become major hurdle for every developmental programme in Orissa. In some cases, it is surplus and government cannot utilize the fund within the required timeframe. In the other side, it is deficit. In every step and in every stage, we extend our hand in front of the Central government, financial institutions for funds. How do you education keep the education aside? The government does not have money for primary education. Well, the fiscal deficit is surely a problem, but that could not be excused during a downturn if it is used for opening up the way to developed nation. The Government of Orissa fully endorses the approach on universalisation of elementary education and the scheme ‘Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan’ should be given the highest priority. But when we are heading towards success of the programme, we do not have fund to provide the study materials to the students. With the assistance from Central Government, the Orissa Government has been providing the study materials every year. For a state like Orissa, the government needs 3.5 crores books for the students up to VII class.

Generally, the government was sanctioned eight crores every year. In the current year budget, only four crores has sanctioned, whereas approximately 30 crores required for the printing of study materials. Now, It is become routine issue for the government to sanction inadequate fund and demand more money at the neck of the moment when the books should reach at the end user. This is not only creating an obstacle in the time bound programme but also spoil the valuable time of the students for struggling with the course without courseware. Here I have highlighted one issue, which is occurred in every year at the beginning of academic year. Government has been compromising the issue without thinking the future of the small kids.

Though it is a routine issue, then why Government is not considering this issue seriously?

Some other issues like educational infrastructure and appoint good teachers with good salary are also taken into consideration. When we are appointing good teachers for this programme, we should think about the other side of the coin (i.e good remuneration). The state government appointed 40,846 Shiksha Sahayaks under several schemes including District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) and Sarba Siksha Abhijan (SSA). Due to deficit budget the Shiksha Sahayaks are compromising with the situation and ready to work in less salary (i.e. Rs 1500 per month), which is less than the wage of a bonded labour. In spite of that the State Government is unable to provide their share at least in time to the Shiksha Sahayaks. How would we expect quality education from a teacher who is struggling to survive in this expensive society? Recently, the State Government has decided to hike the monthly honorarium of the Siksha Sahayaks from Rs 1500 to Rs 2000. This decision was taken at a high-level meeting presided over by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on October 20. This will cost the State Exchequer an additional Rs 25 crore per year. Obviously, zero percent credit goes to the State Government. Though Central Government is supporting 75 percent of the estimated expenditure, this additional hike will be added to the aided account. If Sarba Siksha Abhijan is become a flop programme, then the credit goes to the state government. The major barrier is deficiency of fund.

Conclusion

We are compromising in every step of our life. How many days will we live with ‘compromise’? Let us stop compromising with our future and with our future generation. At least the State Government should give up elementary education. Education makes man a right thinker. It tells man how to think and how to make decision. When the absolute number of literate people in the state is steadily rising year after year, then where are those instincts of a literate person? Where is your voice against the backward step of the government? But moving beyond educational programmes requires much political will and public pressure. Unfortunately, elementary education continues to receive low priority from those in power. While State Assembly discusses trivial issues, issues related to elementary education gathers dust. If government will not take any rigid step then all children of 6-14 years age group in school by 2003, all children to complete 5 years of schooling by 2007and all children to complete 8 years of schooling by 2010 will become a utopian dream for us.