From a recent New York Times article on India’s public education system, is a public school in Lahtora, which I believe is in the state of Bihar:
Ouch. (Click on the photo to see the original, larger version at the Times.)
Interestingly, the article (again by Somini Sengupta), shows that the problems in the system aren’t necessarily simply created by a lack of funds. Quite a bit of money is being spent by the central and state governments to improve government schools — this particular village had been allotted $15,000 to build a new school. The problem is that the funds often remain unspent, sometimes because of the famously thick and impenetrable Indian government bureaucracy, and sometimes simply because of corruption and nepotism at the local level.
Sengupta does sound some positive notes along the way. The sheer scale of the effort to improve the schools is mind-boggling:
India has lately begun investing in education. Public spending on schools has steadily increased over the last few years, and the government now proposes to triple its financial commitment over the next five years. At present, education spending is about 4 percent of the gross domestic product. Every village with more than 1,000 residents has a primary school. There is money for free lunch every day.
Even in a state like Bihar, which had an estimated population of 83 million in 2001 and where schools are in particularly bad shape, the scale of the effort is staggering. In the last year or so, 100,000 new teachers have been hired. Unemployed villagers are paid to recruit children who have never been to school. A village education committee has been created, in theory to keep the school and its principal accountable to the community. And buckets of money have been thrown at education, to buy swings and benches, to paint classrooms, even to put up fences around the campus to keep children from running away. (link)
It doesn’t always help. The free lunch program in this village, for instance, doesn’t work because the principal says the rice he’s been sent (lying in stacks in the classroom) isn’t “officially reflected in his books.” But the recently released Pratham study finds that free lunch is working in 90% of schools, which is pretty good — again if you consider the scale of the project.
Incidentally, some Indian newspapers have also covered the findings of this year’s Pratham survey, in somewhat rosier terms — and, needless to say, no reporters or photographers going out to see actual village schools. The Economic Times, for instance, is impressed that teacher attendance has improved from 38% in 2005, to 53% in 2007. Improvement is great, but it’s still hard to imagine children learning very much when their teachers only show up every other day!
Finally, the full 2007 Pratham Survey is here (PDF); I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet. Overall, Pratham looks like an important NGO; I’m considering donating something to them to support their efforts.
Wow, brings back memories. Especially what looks like firewood in the back. Half of 7th grade classroom used to befilled with broken down chairs and tables 🙂
Shoot. My above comment should read as follows:
Wow, brings back memories. Especially what looks like firewood in the back. Half of my 7th grade classroom used to be filled with broken down chairs and tables 🙂
I’m not fully knowledgeable about this particular question I’m asking and am hoping that someone would be able to shed some light. Isn’t there a way for India to understand and study Kerala as a fantastic example of literacy rates? What is Kerala doing right that is lacking in other states desperate for emphasis on education? Is it cultural? Less corruption?
JOAT,
For starters I believe the population of Kerala is about 31 million compared to 82 million in Bihar. Bihar has definitely been more corrupt and I am not sure if it factors in Kerala had a communist government and EMS Namboodiripad was instrumental in starting the Kerala Literacy Movement. More on EMS here.
Along with literacy, Kerala also has the highest rate of suicide in India.
For starters I believe the population of Kerala is about 31 million compared to 82 million in Bihar. Bihar has definitely been more corrupt and I am not sure if it factors in Kerala had a communist government and EMS Namboodiripad was instrumental in starting the Kerala Literacy Movement. More on EMS here.
It is more complicated than that. Kerala has had for centuries, kings, and rulers that valued education, and initiated various reform movements.
As you said, Kerala is not as populated as Bihar or other states.
I think difference is the women in the two states. Kerala has strong matrilineal traditions and probably the women there are more empowered than those in Bihar, for example. If the mother is educated, chances are so will her family. That’s why emphasis on educating girls is key in solving many of the systemic problems India faces.
:getting off my soapbox now, thanks for listening.
3 · Janeofalltrades said
Remittances are huge:
Should add that it’s a legacy of remittances:
I imagine other states are closing the remittance gap now under present migration patterns.
No Von Mises,
I think this is a good point, and it will be good to hear from natives of both the places.
What are the standards or requirements to be condsidered literate? Is it just the ability to write your name or reading & writing at a certain grade level? Does Kerala have the same standards of literacy as Bihar or any other Indian state?
Now, this was an excellent article. No rambling about elephants and bullocks roaming through Bihar’s wilds, but on point, with detailed statistics, and telling anecdotes. Was it that hard? (Ok, maybe it was, as compared to hunting for imaginary animals).
I was aware of the Pratham report through some friends who have been looking into various aspects of the education situation in India. Have heard very good things about Pratham from them.
7 · Yogi said
NYT:
Yep. To put it into perspective Kerala is more dependent on remittances than most of the mid-east is on oil.
The other significant factor is the prevalence of feudalism and sharecropping in rural Bihar where a large section of the population lives.
.
This is interesting. This sobering statistic is oft-quoted by detractors (and often those realist Keralites. Just like the realists who point to India’s problems with ‘eveteasing’ etc. Come now, must we dwell on such trivialities?? India Shining and all that) upon my extolling the glories of Kerala’s pristine literacy record. This is often my cue to quite quickly retreat to my pretention of being the strong silent type.
Anywhoo, I ramble… I can only unscientifically propose (don’t pounce please, HMF) that maybe the privilege of education brings with it the realization that the state’s industry, infrastructure etc lie in disrepair and does not afford many career opportunities even for bright graduates with double MAs etc. Save for the Keralites who have braved the seven seas to seek opportunities abroad, especially the Gulf. Only to realize the harsh realities of the the so-called Gulf dream. Its not shocking to see ‘gulf malayalees’ with an engineering degree to be toiling in the ridiculously torturous middle east heat as a laborer. I have been to some of these construction sites. The living conditions are just atrocious. Dubai Inc., if it wants the first world calling card it so lusts for, it will have to fix these injustices. But, the remittances from these gulf malayalees do keep afloat many an estranged families that live back home away from their sole breadwinner who only they might see once in two years.
Also interesting is that a certain percentage of suicide result from the crushing weight of parental expectations for performance in these career defining board exams. I wouldnt be surprised to see suicide rates go up around the time the results are announced. Again, I am not sure if these suicides are a significant percent of the overall number of suicides.
I will now return to strong, silent mode.
As has been pointed out – Kerala has an excellent government school system. But there’s another factor that plays a huge rule. Even the most remote parts of Kerala are far more urbanized than the peri-urban parts of Bihar. What this means is that beyond primary school, kids have a much better chance of attending secondary school because of the infrastructure. I don’t have the stats on me right now – but Infant Mortality Rate is lower in Kerala – indicating that access to health in Kerala is superior. Children are less likely to fall ill, and more likely to attend school. Similarly, the birth rate in Kerala is lower than the birth rate in Bihar – so kids don’t have to fight for school infrastructure. The average age of first-pregnancy in Kerala is more, so women spend more time in school.
So here’s the story. When a kid is born in Kerala – she is less likely to fall chronically ill, less likely to miss school because she has too many siblings to take care of, less likely to not attend secondary school because there’s no bus going to school and less likely to marry too young.
And btw, Pratham is an awful organisation. I’ve worked for them and they’re extremely corrupt. I remember instances of funds disappearing – funds which were meant for buying textbooks. But they take nice pictures of kids for their annual report and have an excellent international fund raising network. Having worked in the field for a decade, I can think of much more deserving organisations.
Oh wow. This is awful to hear. I will let my friends know, and sorry if my earlier second-hand statement was incorrect.
Please do. I work with some organizations that support Pratham projects and they have said good things about Pratham. Another organization whose founder I have met and have been very impressed with since is Shikshana. Mr E S Ramamoorthy of Shikshana worked in the corporate world for many years and post retirement started Shikshana. His prime focus so far has not been to start new schools but to improve Govt. run ones and he has been quite successful at that. He also pays a lot of attention on how to bring about accountability and how to monitor the quality of the education imparted.
Oh well, you learn something new everyday. I guess I need to bring this to the attention of my friends who work with Pratham so that they can look into it and find out if this really is the case.
Ardy, if you do hear back, please do let me know. I’d like to hear as many perspectives as possible before making a decision either way. It is distressing to hear from envee that corruption might be a problem for them.
If/When I go to India this coming summer as planned, I might try and make an appointment with someone at their Mumbai office to get a sense of the org. first-hand.
it may turn out that high levels of education are correlated with suicide, or suicide tracks stress brought on by changing family structures because of migration, or even terrible weather. prima facie, the suicide statistic suggests very little about government or anything else in kerala, unless it is coupled with another story. perhaps poor provision of mental health services? or terrible job prospects unless one goes abroad? i don’t know; but that statistic is not illuminating by itself.
Amardeep – sure, I’ll do that. However, in the meantime I would suggest you look at other organizations too, you never know if something would interest you more. If child nutrition and such issues are your concern along with primary education, look at Vibha (www.vibha.org); if education is your interest look at Asha; if people movements/anti corruption/activism or general development then I have already pitched AID (www.aidindia.org) before. Plus there are various other such funding and monitoring organizations.
The reason I suggest these organizations is because instead of contributing to just one NGO, you will contribute to these organizations which then support NGOs on a per project basis. Thus your money gets so to say distributed and thus even if one of their beneficiaries is corrupt, at least they all are not. And all these organizations have so far better records with regards to corruption since they usually decentralized and volunteer run.
Some other more focused organizations I can think of and have heard good things about include the Sankara Eye Foundation (eye care), SHAII (AIDS), etc
I think I have read reports related to the same and that a part of the reason is families having the earning member elsewhere due to a dearth of opportunities in Kerala itself.
4 · brown said
The efforts to reorganise schooling in Kerala were over a century old by the time EMS came on the scene. India had a fairly well organised system of schooling in hte early 1800s. Check out Dharampal’s Beautiful Tree some time.
Bihar may not have had communism, but it had that progressives’ darling Lallu for over 15 years. That’s equivalent to a step backwards in time of about 150 years!
This is ridiculously sad… When the system fails, the children suffer and what have they done wrong? There has to be another way. I understand that it can’t be fixed overnight, but there’s got to be some solution.
From my experience (growing up in really tiny villages of Andhra Pradesh), emphasis on education has always been thought of in terms of return on investment. Landed classes, to which I belong, till the generation before mine saw agriculture as the best way to generate wealth for the family and little to no focus was put on education.
With well-off families thinking like this, there was no chance for people on the lower rungs of the society to emphasize education.
But as earning opportunities shift from agriculture to industries, literacy levels will automatically go up. Until that shift happens, no amount of hand wringing about bad facilities at pulic schools will raise lieteracy levels, IMO.
I just returned from India and heard about a school in a nearby impoverished village where the poor children do not get the government-sanctioned mid-day meals even though they see the sacks of rice being transported to the school. I am pretty sure that the corrupt school officials are selling it elsewhere. Any idea what can be done so that the children get their rightful share ?
Jyotsana,
I felt EMS’ contribution is important to note because of the Kerala Literacy movement and for communist governments, I acknowleded in my comment that I wasn’t sure how it factored in. If India had a great school system in the 1800s and Kerala leveraged that more than any other state there is more at play than what meets the eye. Thank you for the tip about the book, I will definitely check it out.
From this article it seems like the state of Kerala spends about 37% of their budget on education, the article briefly touches about what Kush and Jyotsana mentioned about the Cochin rulers and stress on education.
If India had a great school system in the 1800s and Kerala leveraged that more than any other state there is more at play than what meets the eye.
This might give some clues.
envee, can you substantiate your claim re: Pratham? I have had several friends/colleagues work with them in partnership through J-PAL, and I’ve never heard anyone echo your argument.
Amardeep, another source of frustration in school funding (in India) is the number of schools that provide an “education” but then do not offer any kind of employment that allows for a valuable return to ed when measured against the opp. cost of child labor. With the intensely limited access to higher education and secondary education, many children and their families see no potential for class mobility.
Thanks Kush, the article you linked helps put things in perspective.
You will need to find an activist or some educated interested person in the area. What you can do is file and RTI for disclosures of how much rice, etc or money for food was supplied to the school and you can also ask for records on how much was used. The local Information officer will be liable by law to provide you a reply with the information of reasons why the information cannot be provided within 30 days. Once you have this information, it will clearly show which day how much rice was distributed and can be verified against what actually was being done. Then the matter can be taken up with the Panchayat.
Camille, I agree with what you said above (I tried voicing the same thought here, only less eloquently). I will also go the extra step of calling this ROI aspect the main obstacle to higher literacy levels.
My hope is that with Indian economy finally pointed in the right direction over sustained period of time, the associated job creation will have a positive impact on literacy levels quickly.
If/When I go to India this coming summer as planned, I might try and make an appointment with someone at their Mumbai office to get a sense of the org. first-hand.
Amardeep if you are in Bombay I would also suggest Akanksha Foundation http://www.akanksha.org they are absolutely fantastic.I have been supporting them for the last five years they are very transparent and accountable. They will be glad to show you there good work.
I am a Bihari and I am here to learn.
as far as Kerala’s success goes, a lot of people have studied it, Amartya Sen being one of them. But the reasons for Bihar lagging behind or Kerala doing very well on literacy are varied and complex. Others have pointed out a long line of rulers of kingdoms in Kerala (Travancore, Cochin etc) who paid a lot of attention to education. The land reforms post independence that eliminated large, feudal landlords played a big role (but there has been much discussion on why it wasn’t nearly as successful in the similarly communist West Bengal). The matrilineal (and not matriarchal, which many people often mistake it to be) tradition helped, in often having higher rates of womens education. But a better comparison can be Kerala’s neighbor Tamil Nadu and Bihar. At independence, both states were at similar levels of (abysmal) literacy. Tamil Nadu now has close to 80% literacy, while Bihar still struggles. There were a host of changes in TN in the 70s and 80s that caused these changes. The then government started a populist mid-day meals scheme in schools (purely for gathering votes), around 1983. However that actually resulted in dramatically improving school attendance and reducing drop-out rates. The second factor was a rapid proliferation of private schools and colleges (even today the vast majority of private schools and colleges are in South India). Again, this was partly because politicians had an investment/stake in most of these. But the effect was in dramatically improving both school and college accessibility. The third factor was rapid urbanization and industrialization of the state (while Bihar remains feudal and agricultural). This automatically required an increased supply of semi-skilled workers, who needed to have at least a basic education. So parents would send their kids to school. Also, the governments in the 70s and 80s invested heavily in building schools within walking distance of all villages. The effect is being seen now. Finally, Jayalalitha (for all her faults and megalomania) pulled off a bunch of populist schemes like providing girl students with bicycles to get to school with and such like. This dramatically improved literacy amongst girls. Bihar (and numerous other north Indian states, usually clubbed together as BIMARU) did not, so the effects today are dramatic.
A more quiet modern “success” story might be Rajasthan, which was a national laggard next only to Bihar on the education front. Over the past 10 years or so they have made dramatic improvements in literacy and education (particularly for girls), with ~90% literacy rates for kids under 14 years of age. They have tried to replicate the model of their neighbor, himachal pradesh, which has a superb record for primary education.
Phew…that’s a long post. As far as NGOs go, Pratham largely has a good name (I’ve worked with them through Asha for Education), so I’d like to see some substantiation of those allegations. And you can use resources like charity navigator to find American charities working mostly in India (like Asha, AID, Vibha and many more). They usually partner with groups like Akshara or Pratham or many more, with a long track record. They would be a good place to go to both find out about these organizations or get involved yourself.
Statistics coming out of india should be read with caution. One reason for the percieved high suicide rate in kerala is that it is being reported, elsewhere who is keeping track of those. This is also the case with percieved safety in Mumbai, lots of stuff go unreported giving an artificial high rating.
i read the pratham survey—and contrary to somini, they are actually positive about what the progress they saw. it is not the indian newspapers that were overly optimistic, it is somini who chooses to see the worst.
i think the core thing they identify is that it is no longer mainly about infrastructure and corruption—which is remarkable by itself. this is sort of opposite to what somini conveys.
but getting back to the report, while some places do lack in infrastructure, it is the achievement level that is the critical concern, it is lower than it should be. but close to 90% of teachers do attend, 75% of students attend regularly, and 92% of schools implement midday meals, even considering nationwide statistics. the problem is, therefore, probably not about lazy teachers or corruption that makes the food go elsewhere.
the problem is to improve teaching standards and improving attendance among students—this has more to do with training teachers better imo, than hand wringing. about drinking water/proper toilets, yes, they are important but not critically so. ppl who grew up in the US will not agree with me, but quite frankly, my school had no drinking water either—and it was a private school ppl wrote tests (in lower kg) to get into.
imo, i would push for training programs for teachers if you work with any education organization.
re: pratham being corrupt, i am inclined to let anecdotal corruption get resolved internally than withhold funds. it may have been just accounting glitches (assigning money marked for x to y because someone didn’t know—i have seen this happen several times in ASHA as well), or it may have been one or two people—in which case, find them. but it is not right to bring down an organization on circumstantial evidence.
Whoever said something about Kerala’s emphasis on the condition of women nailed it.
Much of this forum seems to have become an analysis of the “Kerala Miracle”. Yes, the state has an exemplary record in education, literacy, and health.
But, the suicide statistic (if it is true) is actually an indicator of something that is not often discussed, the state’s poor track record in generating EMPLOYMENT and OPPORTUNITY.
I think the NYT had to look into the ‘education in India’ thing after that article on the Japanese admiring Indian education. This is a much more realistic picture. Interestingly, in the discussion forum on that article, they did not post my comments about education–I’m always brutal when it comes to stupidity.
Here’s my take on the article and the state of policy toward education. All the stuff about Indian education, glorious IIT’s, ‘most scientists and engineers’, etc. is actually a veneer to hide the reality that UNIVERSAL PRIMARY SCHOOL EDUCATION has been neglected since the time of Nehru.
It was a policy calculation and a difficult choice, I’m sure… but tertiary education was where they felt India’s future would emerge quicker. But, the beneficiaries of those policies (now residing in the west) have not really understood how much they benefited from the socialist policies (which they are full of nothing but criticism for).
So, the “massive attention” that this issue is receiving now is actually a desperate effort to make up for DECADES of shameful neglect.
elaborating more on the report, they also identify that “multigrade” (their term) classes are common—students of many grades sit together. i am not sure whether it is possible to get rid of this phenomenon easily (they do not say why they think this is so). to me, a better strategy would be to deal with it at the teacher level. also it doesn’t seem that students are as equipped as they should be (75% had books—too low as far as i am concerned).
the biggest flaw in the study is that we do not really know the margin for error in the study—whether they are statistically significant. while it is reasonable to expect, given the large sample size, that they are not too way off, we should look out for next year studies on whether these are accurate (if it matches up more or less). are there other studies along these lines?
The role played by religious institutions in Kerala’s education cannot be ignored either. It is no coincidence that the first Scheduled Caste President of India (Dr. K.R. Narayanan) and the first Scheduled Caste Supreme Court Chief Justice of India(the current Chief Justice) came from Kottayam, the Christian dominant district of Kerala (Anna’s parents’ hometown, mine too, allow me to boast :D)
The presence of a sizeable Christian community in the region meant many Christian missionary schools in the late 19th and early 20th century, followed, mostly during mid 20th century, by schools run by the various native Christian churches such as the Syrian Orthodox, upper caste Hindu Nair Service Society, backward caste Hindu Ezhava’s SNDP, Muslim Educational Society etc. (Admissions are not religion based, though there is preference to community members in teacher and other staff appointments). These schools called ‘Aided’ (after a semi-nationalization drive by the communists in the 60’s after which the religious organizations take care of the infrastructure, the Govt. pay the salaries, and students learn for free!) still form the majority.
bytewords @ 41 wrote:
Is this a bad thing? There are many expensive private schools in the US that advocate multigrade learning, because it encourages older students to teach the younger students and thereby re-inforce what they have been taught. Younger students learn to occupy themselves while the older students learn other concepts. I don’t have experience with this, just repeating the marketing from some of these schools. I would be interested in your perspective.
37 · Sunil said
The mid-day meals program dates back to Kamaraj in the late 50s. There have been some sort of plan or the other in TN for a very long time.
Kerala – most of Travancore i.e., had a fairly well developed non-parochial public school system well before 1947. Almost every Hindu community – notably the Ezhavas and Nairs – had by the mid-20th century established a network of institutions to support its members. Bombay’s first mens’ boarding house for Ezhavas was already up and running in 1942.
I went to school in Madras, and had a frugally built classroom. The ‘school’ was housed in a very large house (a very large one even by American standards) with a few classrooms within the house and many of them being little more than palm thatched sheds. our classrooms did not have fans for many years, the blackboard was simply a black rectangle painted on the wall. We did not have desks till I was in high school, only benches. If the classroom you see in the NYT story were to be tidied up a little, it wouldn’t look very different from the classrooms I studied in. But then who cared? We knew what we were working toward. That’s all that mattered. It’s when I went to college I met classmates who had been through even less well appointed schools than mine. One of them (who is now a very successful IT consultant in the US) went to a school where children sat on the floor. It is foolish to imagine that a vastly less affluent country like India can afford the sort of facilities that are taken for granted here in the US. But certainly it is not difficult to to have a clean if sparsely furnished school. It simply takes commitment and integrity. Now if only the progressives had cared to visit Bihar when their darling Lalloo and his Lalless lorded over the state for 15 years long years. Pandrah saal, bura haal
There is a difference though. The multi-grade schools are because of the lack of teachers, and not used as a novel technique as I presume in the US.
Even though the classroom looks dirty I’m actually happy to see the students sitting in benches. There are still (I think) hundreds of thousands of schools without any infrastructure to protect them from rain or to offer seating capabilities.
no it isn’t bad per-se, if the teachers are trained to handle it. i didn’t mean to convey this as a negative by itself, which is why my next sentence was:
also, if you have learnt music (classical, desi), this is the preferred method of teaching—lumping multiple, approximately equal (2 or 3 years difference) levels together. but the teaching method is also geared towards this principle, students are expected to watch and learn from their more advanced colleagues and not just the teacher. it also makes sure more advanced students don’t lose touch with basics.
it could also be very few students in the school. there is a school for every 1000 people, which would imply that not more than about 300 are children. maybe they have just about 30 or 40 in grades 1 and 2, it is probably more practical to lump them together. but it is speculation. like i mention, the report doesn’t say why there are multigrade classes.
I won’t fully assign the blame Laloo or any politican. My mom was a government school teacher and was teaching in the suburbs of Chennai. I don’t know if the situation has improved in the last 10 years, but before that the students were still sitting in the floors, no benches/chairs. It is just that no one cares for the kids. They don’t vote right away and their parents have other concerns.
I joined a small group of people, contribute some money every quarter and we just focus on donating benches/chairs to the needy schools. Because it is personal (it’s mostly done through relatives/acquaintances) we don’t have to worry about whether the things are getting done and the money is not siphoned off. Though that model is not extensible, it is a good one for those who would like to contribute and have the satisfaction that it is being done right.
I wish I could whip out financial details and such. The trouble is that there is a big mismatch between the way Pratham sees themselves (especially from Top-Down) and the way they actually work. I remember one time, when some media guy had come in to take a few pictures of a school that Pratham was supposed to be running. (This was in 2004). The kids who were till then just rolling about, having not had a single fruitful hour with the teacher, where suddenly handed books for class five (they were in class two) – and asked to hold them and look at the pictures in the book. Photograph taken, some more details written about – the media guy left and things were back to their abysmal self.
Not that Pratham is the only one that does it. Look out for this organisation called Naandi Foundation – they do some good work – I give them that – however, the amount of money disappearing is tremendous. But they network well, hire all the right people at the executive level who come from the right institutes. And their review process is incredible. The same people that review them on behalf of the DFID are also paid as consultants by the organisation. Some objectivity that.
I worked at Pratham and was mostly unaware for about three years about the sheer web of lies we were spinning when reporting the quality of our work. I can imagine how misleading it is for someone outside the system.
amardeep, the pratham report says teacher attendance is 90% (page 61, columns 1 and 2). the caveat is, as i mentioned earlier, the margin for error is not reported. but it is a large sample, it is reasonable to believe this is not a bad estimate.
uncalled for. they don’t pass it off as their observations either—they mention that report xyz says it. as for “rosier” terms, they better reflect pratham’s tone.
to be frank, somini has just highlighted the bottom end everyone knows exists—in fact, that isn’t right either—most people would argue the bottom is even worse than what her article says. in that sense, her article is fairly useless in terms of statistically useful conclusions but she is usually more into sensationalism than useful articles. it is like the elephant story—see one elephant, say indian streets are overrun with elephants. it is about as useful as saying american highways are overrun with trash/mattresses fallen off from vehicles.
so the whole survey is bogus? the survey doesn’t just go after pratham’s schools, it is mainly govt ones. but if this is the level of their credibility, i am not sure there is any point believing their conclusions. maybe i was too quick in judging somini after all.
is there any survey that is reliable?