GS Paper II

News Excerpt:

The base of primary education has widened in India but we still lack capacity for higher-level schooling, with enrollment showing pyramidal attrition as children turn into teenagers.

 Why is investing in Education important?

• During rapid industrialization, the emphasis on education significantly improves literacy rates and provides the necessary skills for industrial and technological sectors.
• According to World Bank studies, each additional year of schooling is associated with up to a 10% increase in individual earnings, and countries prioritizing educational quality generally exhibit higher economic growth rates.
  • Empirical research supports the notion that educational investment is positively correlated with economic growth.
• According to a study by Unicef, each additional year of schooling is associated with an increase of 0.37 percentage points in GDP growth. This can rise up to 1 percentage point with improved learning outcomes.
• As the demographic window narrows with time, the elderly population’s proportion is set to rise, gradually diminishing the dividend.
  • Investing in public education systems is crucial for countries seeking to leverage their demographic dividend.
  • This transient nature of a demographic advantage underscores the urgency for strategic interventions to harness its potential before the contours shift towards an older demographic profile.
  • To further harness the demographic dividend, state-level educational reforms are crucial, given education’s place in the concurrent list of India’s Constitution. 

Progress made in education field:

• Data for 2023 from the Unified Digital Information on School Education (UDISE+) tracker under the Union education ministry shows the following: 
• Between 2014 and 2023, there were significant advancements in structural and gender parity aspects. 
• The pupil-teacher ratio (PTR), a crucial indicator, has seen a remarkable decrease across all levels of education, signifying smaller class sizes and more individualized attention to students. 
• There has been PTR reduction from 29 to 23 at the primary level, 26 to 18 at the upper-primary, 26 to 17 at the secondary and 38 to 26 at the higher-secondary levels, reflecting a concerted effort to improve the quality of education through increased teacher recruitment. 
• Further, the teaching staff has attained a gender balance, with female teachers now comprising 52.3% of the workforce in 2022-23, up from 46.9% in 2014-15, thanks to the hiring of over 4.1 million new teachers, 60% of whom are female.
• Along with infrastructural improvements, there has been a qualitative leap in student outcomes, particularly in secondary and higher- secondary board exams.
• There are also major gains among female students, whose pass rates rose by 72% in Class 10 and 87% in Class 12, surpassing the improvement rates of their male counterparts.

Importance of mother tongue in primary schools:

• Early education in the mother tongue could serve as a crucial factor in learning new languages, fostering understanding, confidence and a love for learning. 
• • It enables a deeper grasp of concepts, encourages critical thinking and strengthens cultural connections. 
  • This approach is likely to notably reduce drop-out rates, as evidenced by the research findings.
• Educating children in their mother tongue will also build a strong home-school partnership in their learning. 
  • Parents will be able to participate in their child’s education and make the experience of learning for the students more wholesome.
• India being home to varied languages, an understanding of the language contexts in schools and classrooms is a prerequisite for developing apt strategies for inclusion of children’s mother tongue in teaching processes. 
  • Socio-linguistic mapping becomes crucial for devising effective strategies for imparting quality education at the primary level.
• UNESCO calls on all member countries to implement mother language-based education and pursue a policy of multilingual education. 
• India’s National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 recognizes the significance of learning in one’s mother tongue. 
  • The NEP 2020 focuses on multilingualism and the use of familiar language for learning until at least Grade 5, but preferably till Grade 8 and beyond. 
  • The policy recommends preparing textbooks and related reading material in home-languages and asks teachers to use them for communication in the classroom.
• The National Achievement Survey 2021 and Foundational Learning Study 2022, conducted by the ministry of education shows that children from Tribal communities perform poorly in school compared to others.
• UNICEF supports state governments in Assam, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha and Rajasthan to promote inclusivity and facilitate learning experiences for children by aligning educational material with linguistic backgrounds. 

The Pyramidal Structure of Education system:

• The Right to Education (RTE) Act’s focus on elementary education has inadvertently led to a relative scarcity of secondary and higher secondary schools in some states. 
• • Resources have thus been disproportionately allocated for elementary schooling, often at the expense of developing secondary and higher-secondary infrastructure.
• UDISE+ data reveals a stark decline in enrolments within India’s public education system: from 122.5 million in primary schools.
  • It plummets to 63.5 million in upper-primary, further dwindling to 38 million at the secondary level, with a mere 27.8 million at the higher-secondary level, illustrating a severe pyramidal attrition as educational levels advance.
  • This imbalance creates a bottleneck effect, where the capacity to accommodate students in the public education system drastically reduces as they climb higher.

What should be done to address pyramidal structure:

• The current educational bottleneck, highlighted by a mere 44% retention rate to higher-secondary levels against the National Education Policy’s 100% goal, underscores the urgency for systemic reforms. 
• This stark drop-off, indicative of potential drop-out spikes at key transition stages, necessitates a comprehensive overhaul. 
• It must include increasing secondary and higher-secondary seats, enhancing educational access, and ensuring a smooth progression with sufficient infrastructure and teachers at the state level. 
• Addressing this pyramidal shrinkage is crucial for us to tackle educational disparities and unlock India’s human capital potential. 
• The onus is on state governments, despite Union support via theSamagra Shiksha Abhiyan, to implement these critical steps.

Way Forward:

• In India, a multilingual educational approach that uses familiar languages as a foundation could deliver positive outcomes. 
• Effective implementation on the ground requires sustained efforts from diverse stakeholders. 
• Empowering teachers through multilingual training, developing mother tongue-based learning materials that are engaging, and supporting local communities in the advocacy of their languages are all crucial steps. 
• By learning from initiatives like Chhattisgarh’s and Rajasthan’s language mapping and by embracing the linguistic tapestry of India, we can unlock the potential of every child, ensuring that they find expression, understanding and joy in the language they know best.

Conclusion:

India's education system faces a pyramidal attrition, with a significant drop in enrollment as students progress to higher levels. To address this, there is an urgent need for systemic reforms, including increasing seats at secondary and higher-secondary levels, enhancing access, and ensuring adequate infrastructure and teachers. State governments, supported by Union initiatives, must take decisive action to unlock India's human capital potential and reduce educational disparities.