Under this model, rapidly expanding in the US, government transfers the management of its schools to proven education NGOs and/or private educationists, paying them the per student cost incurred by it EVERYBODY WHO KNOWS THE first thing about the near-collapsed Indian education system, knows that its deadweight — which has dragged not only post-independence India’s education superstructure, but also the country’s economy to the depths — is the country’s 1.2 million mainly state government primary (class I-VIII) schools. Defined by decrepit buildings with leaking roofs, rickety if any, furniture, multi-grade teaching in single classrooms (20 percent), and lack of toilet facilities (13 percent) with over 20 percent unable to provide separate toilets for girl children, ill-conceived, outdated syllabuses and curriculums and 25 percent (1 million) teachers absent every day, India’s government primaries which have an estimated 140 million children on their tattered muster-rolls, are a national disgrace. Ramshackle infrastructure facilities in government primaries are made worse by severely deficient learning outcomes. According to the authoritative Annual Status of Education Report 2013 covering rural primaries published by the highly-respected Mumbai-based NGO Pratham (estb.1994) early this year, nationally, the proportion of all children in class V who can read and comprehend a class II level text is a mere 47 percent. “This proportion decreased each year from 2009 to 2012, dropping from 52 percent in 2009 to 46.9 percent in 2012. Among class V children enrolled in government schools, the percentage of children able to read class II level texts decreased from 50.3 percent (2009) to 43.8 percent (2011) to 41.1 (2013),” comment the authors of ASER 2013. In sum, against the backdrop of the ill-formulated Right to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 which became operational in 2010 and mandated that no child in primary school is obliged to repeat a year in the same class, i.e, automatically promoted, learning outcomes in primary education dominated by government schools, are continuously falling. And if literacy outcomes in government primaries are depressing, numeracy education is even more so. “In 2010, 33.2 percent of children of class III in government schools could at least do subtraction, as compared to 47.8 percent in private schools. The gap between children in government and private schools has widened over time. In 2013, 18.9 percent of class III students in government schools were able to do basic subtraction or more, as compared to 44.6 percent of class III children in private schools,” reveals ASER 2013 in a damning indictment of teaching-learning standards in primary education, and government schools in particular. Little wonder 53 percent of children drop out of school before completing primary/elementary (up to class VIII) education. Yet typically, instead of appreciating the massive voluntary effort — 25,000 volunteers testing 700,000 children in the age group 3-16 in the country’s rural outbacks — and learning from it, the Central government’s National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) conducts its own survey which presents a diametrically opposite picture described by Pratham’s CEO Madhav Chavan as “unacceptable”…
