The Indian political and economic circle at present is running tough grounds with a viral of reforms unable to bring the required growth momentum and a variety of scams bringing down public trust in the democracy.
The common man is at odds about whom to trust and whether a truth breaker has aligned motives or not. Immediately after he forms an opinion, another one with an equally strong and opposite reasons is thrown at him and he either just turns ignorant to the whole situation thinking of it as a chaos or completely against all the involved parties as each one of them having aligned motives. In a way, we turn that interested citizen into a disinterested one and this hampers the economy at a lot many direct and indirect levels.
The constitution calls India by the people, for the people and of the people. But then, it is slowly turning these very people essentially outwards to the lesser important periphery. It’s a situation widely referred to as a policy paralysis but what the current situation resembles more to is policy ignorance. This is because most of our policies at present are set at short term prerogatives and quick-fix solutions. Though we have never been scared to open ourselves to the global economy, even though precariously and in fact, intelligently and have brought with that a lot of growth and potential to the economy—sadly we have not been as active in anticipating what this might bring to us in the future. This brings us to the current situation, where the economy is fighting against a rising inflation level coupled with a growth paralysis.
So there have been policies, there always have been, but these policies have ignored a lot many essential areas of potential. If we have to bring growth and that, which is robust and continuous in nature, we cannot afford to bring solutionary policies but what we need are preventive policies. The recent much-debated and still in the docks FDI in retail is looked by a lot of economists as a quick solution to the dismal investment environment of the country and though there are different opinions of its possible effects in the years to come, what shall explain the timing of such a policy? Sure, it shall do a lot good to the economy but essentially, it is a solution-[good or bad]-not a foresighted preventive decision.
The current situation and also a proximal understanding of what the future might bring to us calls for a huge need for investment in our own people in the form of skill development, education and the means to sustain themselves and hence, the country, in a robust and largely risk-free manner. Focusing on growth figures is undoubtedly the most popular measure of our successful development but by no means is it the most accurate.
The need of the hour is to focus on inclusive growth so that the weight of a crisis situation (which many a times is unavoidable) falls equally on each one’s shoulders. We have a large young population and the least we need to do is to make all of them contributors to the growth of India in the years to come. We do not want to lose our biggest asset in the form of more than half a billion young minds who if given the proper skills, shall make sure that we do not face any crisis for many years to come. And though we keep running the essential quick fixes and the unavoidable hard decisions as part of being the decision maker of the country’s future, we need to focus our attention towards the much ignored area of Education. This so called “Fundamental Right” is sadly frequently ignored at the helm of political affairs and with a myriad of scams every now and then, it seems to sit in a corner waiting for attention by even the Media.
It is very surprising that in a country where about 30% of its population is less than 14 years of age, the average spending on education as a proportion of total public spending is just 12.7% whereas countries like Thailand and Hong Kong which have similar(but still less young) demographics are spending much higher at the rate of 25%. If we look at the corresponding figures for primary education, it comes to be a dismal 4.8% which seems rather shocking. To complement this rather unfortunately, the average years of schooling of people aged above 15 years of age is just 5. There are many other parameters which are equally sad and dismal but what is the question here is that where exactly are we lacking.
Firstly, we lack at the initiative level. As a government and as a policy maker, there is just not enough being done in this area. We have a paucity of schools as against the number of children. Completely forgetting the requisite infrastructure or number or quality of the teachers, at the most basic level, we just lack good number of schools. We have 60 million (20% of the 1.2 billion population) children within the age group of 5-15 years and they receive only 4.8% of the government expenditure devoted to their education. This is turning a complete blind eye to the most important aspect of not only their future but also India’s.
Now, even after such a dismal level of expenditure, we still have a net enrollment ratio of 90% which says that 90% of kids actually get enrolled in primary school. This is a happy surprise and says a lot about how the people of India are recognizing the importance of education in their children’s life.
And this brings us to the second problem. Only about 68% of these kids actually reach grade 5, and a much lesser figure goes high school. But what explains this? There are many different reasons to this with the most important being the low standards of education which do not provide for enough incentives to the usually poor parents which send their kids to schools at huge opportunity costs.
In a way, the government though is successful in carving a way or jet starting the road towards universal education by providing for schools but falls flat in incentivizing for its consistency. Started is half the goal achieved, but started and ignored is half job wasted and a full goal lost. From here, there are a multitude of problems which follow. So where do we start from and where do we go?
The first thing which needs to be identified is easing of bureaucratic approvals for coming up with a school. We need to pay strong attention to the density of schools in rural areas compared with the children’s population. This shall give the kids a better chance at learning what they are being taught and shall act as the first level of incentive for continuing education. It is very sad that many of the schools in rural areas and even small towns are driven not by the quality of their education but by the stature of their affiliation to a particular Board. Though achieving standardization is good but this should be followed by the quality of the institution and not preceded by it. This results in many kids being enrolled in the school but is followed by quick dropping out due to lack of quality teaching.
Thirdly, we need to provide proper incentives to the teachers so that they feel more capable and are driven by the essentiality of their job. Unless the teachers themselves realize the significance of their jobs, they shall not be able to do justice to it. Increased salary structure for teachers is just one way to realize this end, the more important is proper job training to help them perform their roles in a better way. A lot of investment is needed here in the form of increased salary structures to attract better teaching facilities besides a significant investment required in building adequate infrastructure for a comfortable and able learning environment.
Lastly and most importantly, we need to focus on correct incentives and at the same time guard ourselves against “wrong incentives”. To take an example to this, many political parties award students belonging to some particular communities with cash vouchers if they pass a certain standard. This creates a market for amoral ways of getting a “Pass” on their certificate. Incentives should be given keeping in mind the future, not the figures to support a self-motivated electoral opinion. This creates a loss at two levels. First, wastage of resources spent; second, creating wrong incentives and sad outcomes for the future. This can be done away with only the Centre assuming responsibility for the same. Possible good incentives could be doles for parents of children falling under a particular age bracket but the method of providing for the same should be clearly researched upon so that it impacts at the actual goal and does not lead to a temporary and inconsistent results. Of course, all these incentives should be preceded by generous and well-thought out investments in the basics of teacher skills and infrastructure. We should definitely encourage the idea of giving scholarships to attract a better future but we need not forget that the idea is to build a strong educated population and not to feed in the political propaganda.
Education is an area which is largely socially motivated and hence its responsibility can be taken ably only by Government and not the private players. This calls for a much more intensive, enthusiastic and policy-oriented role by the government. India is growing at a level the developed counterparts in the West can only dream of but also at the level which is nothing short of a sad amazement for the people who are being weeded out of this growth trajectory like a deadweight loss. 65% of India’s population falls under the 0-35 year age band and we have a lot more left in us. What we need at present is a strong policy revamp to come out of this ignorance and realize our true potential.
**Source: Human Development Report, 2011
World Bank Development Indicators
–Ridhima Sodhi
Ridhima is a Policy Officer at Youth for Policy and Dialogue and contributes to the Economics & Finance Initiative of the organization. She can be reached at ridhimasodhi@gmail.com.
Policy Pit 