Am launching the findings of the IndiaGoverns Research Institute's analysis of government data about the primary education sector this morning at the press club, along with Prof Chandan Gowda from APU. Some key findings from this analysis ...
- In the last two years, nearly three lakh children from primary school (i.e. classes 1 to 5) have left school. We have been telling ourselves that dropping out is a high school phenomenon. But what we see now is that even children in lower grades are exiting the school system. And almost half of them are from SC/ST families, which tells us that we still have a long way to go in delivering the promise of equality to disadvantaged groups.
- The gender ratio in schools reflects the gender ratio in the general population, but in some MLA constituencies (the data has been sifted constituency-wise) it is particularly shocking. In Tumkur Rural, for example, there are only 75 girls per 100 boys in primary school. Such extremes must be looked at more carefully, and addressed.
- The private sector now caters to 45% of children in classes 1 to 8, compared with 35% only five years ago. We have always known that parents prefer private schools in many places, but what we are seeing now is an exodus. This is despite the fact that since the advent of RTE there are fewer private schools being set up.
- Toilets are water connections are now being sorted out in most places, but the quality of the infrastructure is not great. Nearly 35,000 schools need major repairs. My own anecdotal experience of visits to schools confirms this - we go through some construction contracts to establish infrastructure, but a lot of what is put up isn't really of good quality. A few rains seem to bring out all the cracks in most places.
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A few observations about the work itself - such analysis of data is a useful starting point for development discussions. Media should also ask for more and more data from government. So should NGOs. Good data allows everyone to think about the problems, and to think about solutions to the problems also. Good data allows us to see where the successes are, and that will help us reproduce those successes elsewhere too.
It is important to remember that these findings are from government data, and IGI has only done the analysis of it. Such data is available all the time with the government, so it should be quite simple for the government itself - not only here in Karnataka, but everywhere - to do this kind of analysis of the data. But that is almost never done, so we never get to work on solutions. The problems remain, whether we see them or not. Looking away does not help.
One important thing that IGI has done is to translate the data into constituency-wise numbers. Government collects the data district-wise, but this is often not useful for elected representatives. It would be much better to put all our performance data in constituency-wise numbers, and that will make it easier for MLAs, corporators, MPs, even opposition parties to point to success and failure.
We also need to expand the scope of such interventions. This data provides a useful knowledge base in the education sector. But this kind of analysis can be used in many other sectors too - health, NREGA, water, sanitation, jobs and livelihoods. We have to move to a policy environment and budgetary framework that is driven by metrics and outcomes. Otherwise we will keep going through the years telling ourselves that we are doing something to solve public problems without any real chance of achieving that goal.
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