How efficient is Indian education?
There
is a need for measuring the ability of educational systems across states to
convert inputs to outputs
The
Right to Education (RTE) Act has been a cornerstone in changing the education
landscape in India. With the introduction of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, the
goal of ensuring universal primary education was aggressively pursued, and a
significant quantitative impact in terms of the enrolment ratio has been seen.
For the past six years now, enrolment in the country has been around 96%, which
may seem a great feat. However, an assessment of the actual learning levels
reveals the flip side of the coin. It is almost as if the common ‘volume versus
quality’ trade-off has played its part in this scenario too, like any other.
The
Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2014 indicates how this linear
approach hasn’t reaped the benefits it should have; learning levels of students
are still a huge concern. According to the survey, almost 50% of Class V
students were not able to read basic sentences, and more than 70% were unable
to perform simple division.
Thus,
it is important for state administrations to realize that improving
infrastructure and resources should be accompanied by commensurate learning
levels of students. Thus, the need for a measure of efficiency emerges in order
to assess education systems in their ability to convert educational inputs to
outputs. This can help provide an objective way for states to get feedback on
their education delivery process and do away with the practice of judging the
performance of states based solely on their inputs, or outputs.
The
objective of this work, therefore, is to develop a methodology to measure the
relative efficiency of the education delivery process and provide insights on
what states can learn from peer-to-peer exchanges. Since there are multiple
inputs and outputs, the conventional notion of efficiency defined as the ratio
of output to input would not work here. The field of Operations Research
provides a suitable methodology in the form of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA),
which has been used extensively in several investigations and researches across
countries and sectors for efficiency analyses. DEA compares each entity (states
in this case) with its peers in the set, and assigns a relative efficiency to
it. For states that are marked efficient, it does not imply that there isn’t
room for improvement; it simply means that in ‘relative’ terms, there is no
other state performing better than the given one.
The
first step in efficiency measurement using DEA is to identify relevant inputs
and outputs for the educational process. The learning outcomes reported by ASER
are used as outputs, namely reading levels in local language, basic arithmetic
ability and learning levels in English. Similarly, the resources and
infrastructure provided by state authorities to facilitate education are the
quantifiable inputs.
The
RTE lays down certain minimum requirements, and the percentage of schools
adhering to those norms serve as input values in this method. The seven
factors, as mandated by RTE, considered in this analysis are pupil-teacher
ratio, classroom-teacher ratio, availability of drinking water, availability of
usable toilets, availability of buildings and playgrounds, availability of
library with books and mid-day meals being served. Two additional inputs to
represent the socioeconomic background of students as well as the local village
infrastructure are also used. These account for the specific conditions within
a state. The data is obtained from ASER reports of 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014.
The
findings presented here are based on research conducted by our team at IIT
Delhi, and a detailed research paper elaborating a part of this research is
under consideration for publication. Interesting insights about the standing of
various states with respect to each other emerge from the analysis. While there
are 12 inefficient states from the 2014 data, an extension of the same to
previous years (2011-13) yields a few patterns. Gujarat, Jammu & Kashmir,
Karnataka, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu have consistently been performing poorly,
and are inefficient across all four years. Punjab had been performing
efficiently until 2014, when it slipped slightly. On the contrary, Uttar
Pradesh used to be inefficient in 2011- 12, but has remained in the efficient
group since 2013, indicating improvement in its education delivery.
Since
DEA compares each state to all others while computing efficiency, some states
act as the superior efficient peers, whose better performance results in
inefficiency of others. Himachal Pradesh and Manipur are two states that have
consistently been the efficient peers for the most number of inefficient
states.
For
each of the inefficient states, it is also possible to highlight the output
attribute that needs particular attention, improvement in which will lead to
the maximum rise in efficiency. The importance of comparing performance on
grounds of efficiency as opposed to merely outcomes is reinforced by the fact
that while outcome-oriented rankings would classify Punjab and Sikkim as
high-performers, the analysis shows that they are not performing to their
fullest potential. Similarly, from an input-oriented perspective, Gujarat,
Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu are seemingly providing good
resources, but are not able to translate them to equally good learning
achievements.
Hence,
in order to not trade off quality against volume, as recently emphasized by the
prime minister, a careful inclusion of inputs as well as outputs is needed in
assessment of the status quo, and data-driven insights need to be drawn to
identify the right focus areas for improvement. DEA fulfils all such
requirements, and can aid in the policymaking process in other sectors too. A
sound elementary education system is essential for our country to tap the
potential of its vast human resource, and the importance of data-driven policy
in this context can never be overemphasized.
Source | Mint – The Wall Street Journal | 6 May 2016
Regards
Pralhad
Jadhav
Senior
Manager @ Library
Khaitan
& Co
Best
Paper Award | Received the Best Paper Award at TIFR-BOSLA National Conference on
Future Librarianship: Innovation for Excellence (NCFL 2016) on April 23,
2016. The title of the paper is “Removing
Barriers to Literacy: Marrakesh VIP Treaty”
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