dna edit: No time to lose; act now

Year after year, the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), authored by Pratham, a non-governmental organisation, underscores the poor quality of primary education imparted to disadvantaged students in classrooms across India. True, some states perform better than others. But the overall quality of education, no doubt, continues to be a source of grave concern.

Taking note of this continued slide in basic learning levels among Maharashtra’s school children, the 2012 ASER report states, “The decline does not happen in a year. It’s the result of the cumulative effects of neglect over the years.”

Read this with the recent revelation that more than 10,000 contractual school teachers in Bihar have failed a competency test. It shows once again how deeply skewed our education system is.

Two months ago, over 24 per cent of 43,477 primary and middle school contractual teachers recruited by the Bihar government failed the mandatory “competency test” executed on the basis of the syllabi of third to fifth standard classes. The eligibility examination is based on objective questions in Mathematics, English, Science, Hindi and General Knowledge. The applicants have two chances to clear the test.

Bihar needs to hire competent teachers. Following the launch of a massive teacher recruitment drive, the state government hired over 2.5 lakh teachers, a large chunk of them para teachers. The system of hiring para teachers on contract across states has been a subject of debate and criticism. According to a Planning Commission report, there are 8.1 lakh untrained teachers with four states — Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and West Bengal — accounting for 72 per cent of them. India has around 5.8 million teachers — 75 per cent of them untrained. Critics of para teachers have identified lower educational qualification and lack of training as reasons for the overall poor learning outcomes at primary and secondary school levels.

The paradox in India’s education narrative is too stark to ignore. Over the last three decades, education in India has dramatically expanded and improved, especially in student enrolment and attendance. But systemic flaws are impeding students from receiving quality education. Despite government school teachers getting adequate remuneration, teacher absenteeism is rampant.

UNESCO studies have shown that the annual statutory salary of primary school teachers in India with over a decade of experience was significantly higher in 2004 than the then annual salaries of teachers in China and Indonesia. Yet the quality of education has continued to suffer. 

The recent report from Bihar is alarming. A vast majority of students can only access poor quality education. The gap between the privileged students in public schools and disadvantaged students in government schools is not narrowing. The fundamentals of the education system remain weak. Inadequately trained themselves, teachers churn out students who, for no fault of their own, are  pushed to the margins of an increasingly knowledge-based economy. Essentially, teachers lack motivation. In rural areas, they are required to perform a whole range of extraneous duties such as supervising government programmes — census data-collection, polling station duty et al.

Under such circumstances, rote learning has been institutionalised. Often teachers are unable to explain the text to students. It’s hardly surprising that many students, even as they struggle to read separate words, can effortlessly copy entire paragraphs from textbooks. For India to reap the dividends of an improved education system, it must first improve the quality of education.