India alongwith Bangladesh and Brazil are on track to achieve net enrolment rates (NRE) in primary education in excess of 97 per cent by 2015 as per the 'The Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report' of the Unesco released today.
These are the only countries hoping to achieve this target among the 17 countries with most children out of school, the seventh EFA report said.
The NER in India now is 94 per cent while that of Bangladesh is 89 per cent. On the other hand, the enrolment in secondary education in India has increased from 39 per cent in 1999 to 43 per cent in 2006.
In Bangladesh, it is slightly better improving from 49 per cent to 50 per cent. In Brazil, the rate is 52 per cent.
It attributed rising wage inequalities in India, Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam to widening gaps between those with tertiary education and those with lower education attainment levels. But it said that progress towards the EFA has benefited the poorest most with a decrease in difference between richest and poorest in India, Nepal and Ethiopia as much as 15 per cent.
The report also undelines the role of the private sector in the fast spreading reach of education though in an unregulated manner.
It says that with the share of government expenditure on education dropping between 1999 and 2006 in 40 countries including India (by one per centage point) low fee private primary sechools were filling the slot. Poor quality in government provision and a lack of public schools are important factors in this growth, it said.
It refers to the trend of hiring para teachers on contaract in India and said that they are often less qualified and more inexperienced than the government teachers and raised the concern about providing teaching of equal quality to all sections of people.
While it raises questions about the quality of often unregulated private schools, the report says the low fee schools are not catering for real demand.
It says that there is no evidence in India that poor parents are involved in decision making in these schools and or that teachers are less likely to be absent. The growth of these schools does suggest that parents are willing to pay, but it says the burden on the rural poor is backbreaking.
