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.
also, envee, it would be good if you are not anonymous. you are making serious accusations about the credibility of an organization, so it would also help to give some evidence.
Bytewords,
I agree with you on the report and Somini’s article, I feel she could have done a much better job at translating the report as most people will not read the 266 page report and her shoddy article is what they will see.
“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.”
Jyotsana,
Was this the school in Adyar, next to the Theosophical society?
Jyotsna # 44, you have quoted my comment (#42) by arbitrarily cutting it off in the middle making it look as if I didn’t mention the Nair and Ezhava run schools at all(or the Muslim schools), and claimed all the credit for the Christian schools. I do not know whether you stopped reading at that point of the comment taking offence, or you deliberately chose to ignore the rest of the sentence. I ordered the organiztions based on the number of schools each community run. Chrstian > Nair > Ezhava. The only part I am not sure of is whether the no. of Ezhava schools > Muslim schools or Muslim > Ezhava.
If it was my use of the word mid-20th century that ticked you off, well, I would consider the 1942 you mention (Bombay Ezhava boarding house) to be mid-20th century too.
As for claiming some credit for the first SC Indian president hailing from Christian dominant Kottayam: Dr. Narayanan attended X’ian schools and an X’ian college (for intermediate – 11th and 12th grade) and during the two years of his intermediate studies, since he couldn’t afford the hostel at the college, he stayed the nights for free at an X’ian lawyer’s office. Compare that with what happened after he graduatied from the Maharaja’s college in Trivandrum as a topper – he was denied the officer’s job he was eligible for in the Travancore Govt. because he belonged to a lower caste, and the upper caste Hindus who dominated the King’s Govt. didn’t feel comfortable having him in such a position. (Good for him – in objection he refused to accept the Bachelor’s degree certificate and left Kerala, via Bombay, to England and the rest is history.)
I guess you are a Malayalee too, but you mention going to school in Madras. Well, I grew up in Kerala, and I find it a little offensive that you hint at an evil communal angle to my comments, when I consider myself to be a secular Keralite and was just stating facts.
for starters, you could say how you happened to be there, where this school is.
this just doesn’t add up—you work for pratham, and you were there at this school. you knew nothing was happening, but you continued to work there. like you say for several years, before you knew something was up. you seem to be based outside india, given that you make financial mismanagement claims on fundraising—but you claim to work in india (field work for a decade?).
my comment #50 was a reflex—i thought i had been had by pratham, and that envee was supposedly speaking something true. i have been had, but more likely not by pratham.
should be:
this just doesn’t add up—you work for pratham, and you were there at this school. you knew no teaching was happening. but you say you worked for several years with pratham before you knew something was wrong with pratham.
One big difference is the proportion of subsidized private rural primary schools in Kerala. These schools are run primarily by religious groups which are in a position to influence parental decisions. Also the transportation subsidies help in providing parents with multiple options and in fostering market-driven competition. Kerala’s historical head-start and “rurban” setup help as well.
[link] (old data though — late 80s, early 90s)
Bytewords – maybe envee does not want to come out in the open on a forum such as this.
envee – I am involved in areas related to the same and would like to know more about this. I would really appreciate if you could drop me an email, use an anonymous account or whatever you feel comfortable with but I would really appreciate if we could discuss this more with some specifics etc which can be cross checked. Like Byteword said, if this is true, this will be serious since word spreads fast and their credibility with donors and funding organizations would be destroyed. I would be more than happy to share my personal details, the organizations I am involved with etc etc if that would make you comfortable discussing this, my email ID should be embedded in my name here.
@ardy,
that is what i thought. but the story by envee at the school makes no sense. (s)he has this story about kids in school given books when some media guy comes. so that implies envee was around then, otherwise, the whole thing would be fabricated, right?
so, let us say envee was there because of work with pratham—it was pratham’s school after all. which would mean, envee saw nothing was being taught. now envee claims (s)he was with pratham for a few years. this would imply that it was unknown to envee that this school was a fraud all the time—a few years—which is actually what is claimed by envee (her)himself. if this event happened at the beginning of her work with pratham, it is stupid to stay on claiming (s)he didn’t know pratham was a shady organization, right?
let us say she went on some legitimate work, instead of making sure everything went on well with the media guy, the latter case we will consider afterwards. then, it would imply sending someone to that school was routine, in the light of which, she had to know something was up with pratham (or everyone other than envee was corrupt, which is a little hard to believe). contradicts her/his story that (s)he thought it was a genuine organization.
now, let us say she was asked to make sure things were ok when the media guys went. which would imply that when media guys came, someone would prop up everything. again, in three years, only one case of the media going, or each time, someone else would go. the first case seems impossible, given annual reports pratham comes up with. if the rest of the time, others went to prop up the school, it would again imply a conspiracy hidden from envee.
so that story is very likely fabricated, or everyone there is corrupt while envee is a beacon of hope there. i would think the first is true in the absence of evidence and complete absence of specifics in envee’s comments.
citations to comment 59: envee, #48
envee #48
they seem to indicate either (i) corruption at all levels in pratham (ii) envee is making up the latter story. so, unless there is evidence, i would go with (ii).
bteword – let’s give envee a chance here. Maybe her involvement with Pratham was not in any of the ways which we are speculating and maybe she just happened to see something which she was not supposed to. And maybe she is not disclosing the details here because she does not want to get involved with Pratham in these matters and thus disclosing details may compromise her desire for the same. In any case, let us give her a chance – you are welcome to provide your contact information too and if envee feels ok, she can shed more light on this.
If she does not provide any more information, we will have to take her story with a pinch of salt, I have already contacted some friends and am waiting on their replies but from whatever I have heard, most people I know think Pratham is legit. Plus if charity monitor gives a good rating, we can just try to be more diligent when sponsoring a Pratham project but beyond that I think it would be unfair to take these allegations seriously unless something more gets known.
54 · Keralite said
I intended to quote the next section about other communities, but the nifty Quote feature then replaces the earlier quoted section completely. There’s nothing in what you have written that suggests [you] claim[ed] all the credit for the Christian schools. If anything early 20th century primary education in Southern Kerala tended to be non-parochial, with religious instruction happening at home. People dressed alike and talked alike as Malayalis. And no I am not Malayali.
WesternGhat,
No not Olcott or the Besant School. I went to a school in Gopalapuram. I had a friend who went to Besant School, who later went to IITM after he stood 30th in the JEE.
giving her a chance, while not giving pratham a chance (absence of a verdict here is a verdict against pratham since it creates doubts on the org) is not right, is it?
note her claim. it is unlikely the above is true, you are leading her on now.
the most charitable thing i can say towards envee is that she is making hearsay into her experiences. it is still not a good thing to malign an organization based on hearsay—we have seen this forum has a fairly large reader base. this is like the bush campaign, win by insinuation—and i don’t want to be part of it. i am pissed off since i believed her, till i realized her story has too many loopholes.
still, i want to see what envee has to say. i will send you my contact info so that you can forward any info envee sends you.
Pratham charges a fortune for schools to purchase their “textbooks” and education material. And yes, having also done a lot of work for them, I agree with Envee, I saw a LOT of disappearing funds, staff who just did not care about they did. What scared the most however, was the sheer ignorance of the staff many of whom had NEVER visited a government school in rural India.
Amardeep – if you’re looking for a worthwhile educational organisation, look at Pratibha Poshak or Prerana, Shikshana is also fantastic. Pratham is huge and very good at marketing themselves but definitely not as effective as they make themselves out to be.
Also, these pratham “surveys” and studies are often laced with figures to support their own funding requirements. There are other organisations with much less funding doing much better work, from my experience anyway.
Its really, really shameful how 800 years of muslim rule, 200 years of british rule and 60 years of democracy as an independent nation is not enough to uproot the pernicious, deeply entrenched brahminical/casteist cruel and ignorant culture that has turned India into a miserable hellhole for the vast majority of its population.
frank = prema?
I don’t want to divulge more than I have here. The way Pratham and many other organisations are structured – you have semi-skilled community organizers at lower levels, who report to a whole different set of people than the ones who design programs. I worked primarily with strategy (empty headed as that sounds) – and my work was to tell funders and potential partners how wonderful we were – based on the feedback from the people who were in direct contact with community organizers. The example I stated was the least controversial one. I’d never been to that school before and had been relying on reports from the people who were responsible for implementation. To read for months about how that particular area’s classroom transactions have improved, how learning has improved, how many children have their textbooks in place and then to face reality is shocking. I wasn’t a newbie, but I was still naive enough to believe a lot of the reports that came in.
But even more scary is the budgeting practice. Given the large numbers, even as increase of 50 paisa per child leads to inflated figures in the financial proposals that are presented. Some of the guys who design budgets have never stepped inside one of the schools. Add 50p per student, 5 rps per community organizer in the training program and what you see is funders giving them more money than Pratham actually spends. Institutional funders are usually smart enough to read this and tend to suddenly want to see schools in a different area than the “model one”. But international individual funders who still make a considerable donation often rely on annual reports, reviews and audio-visual presentations.
Can I substantiate this? Probably not, given it’s been a few years since I left the organiation and one isn’t allowed to carry proposals that one worked on. But I still have friends inside Pratham who aren’t very happy with what they see. I don’t claim to be a model of virtue, or someone who has never lied. But I can tell you that there are better organisations than Pratham, who do better work but don’t have the resources to showcase themselves or attract funding.
Regarding the allegations made by envee about Pratham, s/he also made allegations against the Naandi Foundation. Is the foundation started by Reddy Labs? If so, this is another very serious allegation against a respected organization. Accusations of large scale fraud, which is what envee is making, cannot be lightly thrown about, nor can they be made anonymously and with no corroborating data. I don’t think it’s enough to ask envee to send the details privately to this or that person. The accusation has been made (repeatedly!) in public, and thus, all the supporting details must be given publicly, also, and if envee feels s/he cannot do that for whatever reason, then the accusations must be withdrawn, publicly and in their entirety.
I’m sorry, but this practice of throwing vague accusations about, and repeating ad nauseum until they are taken to be true by the general public, is what Indian “journalism” has come to these days, and it has already damaged or destroyed many lives. Let us not add organizations doing worthwhile work to that list.
Envee, our comments crossed. But going by what you have said in your latest post, the important part to me is “Can I substantiate this? Probably not.”
Even accepting your statements at face value, however, what you have said is that you yourself were not doing your job diligently, by not taking the time or trouble to verify the claims you were making to your donors. As for the “scary” budgeting practices, it doesn’t sound any more “scary” to me than that the organization also had overhead costs of operation (for instance, the cost of paying your salary), which were part of the expenses charged against donations. What exactly is “scary” about this practice? This is standard practice for any organization. Unless all the staff are volunteers, their salaries and benefits, as well as other operational costs, such as your telephone charges, printing costs for the annual report, transportation for the site visits, even the writing and placing of publicity materials, all must come out of the organization’s budget. The question of concern is: What percentage of the total budget goes toward overhead costs, and what percentage goes directly toward helping the students? And “helping” the students directly also comes in many forms, whether it is in buying textbooks and other school supplies, buying furniture for the classrooms, hiring and training teachers and paying their salaries (and benefits), building schools, paying for food for the students, etc. Without a detailed breakdown from you, at this point I am left with the impression that you don’t understand how organizational budgets are structured and calculated.
As a guideline, a really lean operation would spend about 15% of their operational budget on operational costs. Up to 50% is still acceptable. Beyond that, it would indicate that there are inefficiencies in the operation that can be corrected and streamlined, but still no corruption or fraud. When we get up to 75% or more of the budget going toward operational costs, we need to start taking a closer look at the entire operation. But again, fraud may or may not be involved. Here’s a link that explains some of these basics: http://www.compasspoint.org/askgenie/details.php?id=60
I hope anyone who may have been alarmed by envee’s posts into withdrawing their support to Pratham will ask these types of questions before making their final decision. Incidentally, I have no connection with Pratham — I had not even heard of them before reading this article and the comments. But I could clearly see that unsubstantiated charges were being thrown about rather recklessly, and thought I must step in before they did any damage to the organization.
Frank @ 66 Its really, really shameful how 800 years of muslim rule, 200 years of british rule and 60 years of democracy as an independent nation is not enough to uproot the pernicious, deeply entrenched brahminical/casteist cruel and ignorant culture that has turned India into a miserable hellhole for the vast majority of its population.
Last I checked Bihar had not been “ruled” by the ignorant, casteist brahmins in a long long time, eh? And really, do you think that 4-7% of the population can keep the other 93% quaking in their chappals?
Ayyo! I was going to have my son volunteer with Pratham in Mysore this summer!
I don’t think this is particularly fair. Envee, thank you for following up. It sounds like some of what you’re alluding to could easily be standard practice (and not inherently problematic). While indices are not always helpful, I do think there’s a bit to be learned from resources like Charity Navigator or Guide Star [USA-only]. I could make a big argument for why “high overhead” is not inherently bad, but that’s another story for another time.
Back to schooling 🙂
Envee, thanks for taking the time to speak up/return to the thread/try and give your perspective, I appreciate your efforts. Like Camille, I don’t think some of the criticism getting lobbed your way is fair either, but I understand the desires of those who want links, information and proof.
If I had time, I’d take some kind of measure of Somini Sengupta’s track record of publishing negative stories in the NYTimes. I mean, where is the Hindustan Times correspondent covering West Virginia and East Harlem?
Amrita,
From what I remember she and Anand Giridhardas both have a history of writing nosensical articles about South Asia that appeal to Western sensibilities. I think it is the organization that like unsubstantiated BS. To put it in perspective Anand is based in Bombay and Somini is supposed to transition as the head of South Asian Bureau, so the shit will keep flowing.
What is nonsensical about this article? What is the officially recognized scoring system to determine “balance”?
I am not sure about official, Balanced for me is an accurate description of the Pratham Survey the article is based on which in my personal opinion this article is not.
The article is based on a survey and personal research by the reporters. I think every statement in the article was spot on, and did not misrepresent either the letter or the spirit of the state of primary and secondary education in India.
Visiting one school in Lathora is being passed on as personal research and that is what I have an issue with. If the research is thin and the article is largely based on the Pratham Survey, it should accurately describe the findings of the survey.
Rahul – This article is actually one of Somini’s better ones compared to her other crap . If you start looking at her past articles, every now and then she has these gems which are ignorant, badly researched and indulge in vapid exoticization or derogation of India.
Yes, she occasionally has crap, I agree. Is that an elephant grazing on MG road I see? But surely that nonsense isn’t Somini’s norm. As a quick search on NYT seems to confirm.
Oops.
Very interesting about schooling in Karnataka from Deccanherald. http://deccanherald.com/Content/Jan192008/scroll2008011947462.asp?section=updatenews
I understand overheads. However, under most bilateral regulations, salaries for the executive level may not be included in the budget at all. You can include salaries for community organisation staff and training, and perhaps include travel expenses for the executive level under review expenses, but nothing more. In fact, most funders expect that NGOs source their own funds when it comes to salaries – which raises its own issues. Sometimes funders provide for some salaries – but that is clearly for a particular program – and is spelled out as such. If you say a textbook costs 35 rupees – it is assumed that you have included the cost of the textbook, in fact even if you are transporting textbooks – you need to include those costs separately. Which is why it becomes harder to spot where exactly figures are inflated.
An operational budget includes costs. All sorts of costs. They might even have a Misc fund – but even that has to be usually accounted for. My problem with current accounting practice, especially with NGOs with large target numbers is that even a tiny amount added per person can add up to a lot. Was I doing my job sincerely? I don’t know. The boss seemed happy. The organisation liked the papers I was spinning out. Things always look different in retrospect, when you step back and examine your own role. But organisations have processes in place – and people get very pissed when you start bypassing standard protocols.
I don’t have a personal interest in Pratham doing well or not. I only hope that they make the best use of the funds at their disposal and not misrepresent their work to their funders. Don’t take my word for it – next time you want to donate money – make sure you scratch beyond the surface – that’s all.
Actually thinking like a capitalist/libertarian makes me wonder whether education itself can be made as a lucrative business (but socially useful ) just like selling planes, arms, nuclear fuel, consumer goods etc. etc.
this is pretty sad.
Yes the shape of early , primary , secondary and higher education in Bihar was very poor , partly due to inefficieny of Bihar politcal leaders and largely due to the Rest of india and the Central government discriminating aginst the poor State of Bihar , Most of the policies made by the Central govt since indian independence were against the interest of Bihar’s economic developement.
but the current State govt led by Nitish is putting all efforts to put things in a right direction in bihar and we hope Bihar will catch-up with the rest of India