World Watch: A surging demand for education in India
Before the golden goose of globalization laid its eggs in India, the poor thought twice about sending their kids to school. Sons needed to work to earn extra money for the household. And daughters, they figured, didn't need an education to cook, clean, and take care of younger siblings.
But with economic opportunities burgeoning there in the past decade, the poor have begun to taste the sweetness of social mobility. Now education isn't the prerogative of just the middle classes–even the poor, whether rural or urban, want their kids to learn so they can earn more money and lead better lives.
It isn't surprising that in the past few years, both the supply of and demand for education have swelled. Primary education, perhaps the most important rung of the knowledge ladder, has experienced the most significant change. A study published in the International Monetary Fund's latest Finance & Development journal commends India's elementary education programs and holds them up as a model for other developing countries, dubbing its effort to achieve universal elementary education as "The Quiet Revolution."
Ninety-five percent of children eligible for grades 1-5 are now enrolled in schools, compared with about 82 percent in the early 1990s, according to estimates in the study.
So, what did India do to induce this "quiet revolution"? Apart from the natural increase in demand for primary education caused by new economic opportunities, demand has gone up because of clever, and immensely successful, incentives like the midday-meal scheme. To encourage poor parents, many already eager to enroll their children in schools, and in an effort to give kids nutritious food, many states provide free daily meals to primary-school students.
"The program has had a significant impact on enrollment in primary education–wherever cooked meals were served, attendance increased," says Venita Kaul, a senior education specialist at the World Bank and one of the authors of the study. In 2001, India also launched a nationwide elementary-education program that finances, among other things, teacher salaries and training, construction and renovation of school buildings, and subsidized textbooks (particularly for girls and low-caste children).
The rosy picture, however, does have some dark spots. Although the enrollment rate has rapidly risen in the past few years, the dropout rate has shown little improvement: Fewer than half of those enrolled in the first grade reach eighth grade, and there has been a decline of only about 3.5 percentage points in the rate in the past decade, according to government statistics. And of the kids who drop out, many are girls from marginalized socioeconomic groups. The quality and availability of teacher training and textbooks require scrutiny, as well. A recent report released by India's National Council of Educational Research and Training says that proper study aids exist in less than a quarter of schools spread across the country.
India's large, and largely inefficient, bureaucracy presents yet another drawback. Red tape and corruption are "endemic in the system," says Deepa Sankar, an education economist at the World Bank and co-author of the study. However, in the elementary education sector, "leakage is expected to be less," she says, because "over 60 percent of the procurement [of classroom materials] is at the decentralized village and school levels, with the financing going directly to the districts through a state society."
Despite systemic flaws, demand for education remains unabated. And on the supply side, decentralization, the meal scheme, and a strong commitment of resources from the government have made progress toward universal primary education inexorable, the study says. Of course, "complete universalization, in terms of school completion and satisfactory learning levels, will take time," Kaul says. Until then, the revolution will have to quietly continue.
World Watch reports on issues and events from around the globe for usnews.com readers.
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