Private schools win

"...I defy anybody to fulfil a programme of compulsory primary education of these masses inside of a century. This very poor country of mine is ill able to sustain such an expensive method of [public] education. ..."
"" M. K. Gandhi at Chatham House, London, October 20, 1931

Despite the recognition of the inappropriateness of large publicly-funded and run school system for Indian conditions by the key opinion driver in the country, the debate on public versus non-public, costly vs cheaper, and so on, never took off.

Post-Independence India continued to follow a system that was considered to be seriously flawed not because of its colonial nature but because it was inappropriately structured and, as a result, extremely costly to run.

Needless to say that schools and enrolments have seen a manifold increase since Independence, and the bulk of this increase has been due to the expansion of public schooling.

However, data from the 1990s shows a phenomenal increase in private school education across the country. By 2001, three out of five schools at the post elementary level were private. And many of these were not even aided by the government.

Though state and Central government schools have been increasing at between 2 to 4 per cent per year, those funded by local governments have not really increased in any significant manner despite the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments.

Similarly, the cash strapped state governments have also not been able to increase aid to private schools, thereby contributing to the low growth rates in the private but government-aided schools.

The major growth has occurred among private registered schools that are not aided by the government. Why are private schools growing so rapidly? One, they are easier to access. Two, many private schools promise an education in English. Three, infrastructure and services tend to be better in private schools.

But the most important reason is: government and local body schools are simply badly administered. This gets reflected in bad teaching, poor infrastructure, and general apathy.

Private schools may not be better, but they are perceived to provide better services (for instance, classes being held) that are more in line with what the users demand (for instance, English as a medium).

So what should our education policy be? Allow private schools to flourish, but provide the people, especially the poor, with a real choice. This can only be ensured when the quality of education in government and local body schools is improved. And that is only possible when the government schooling administration is improved.

Gandhiji was right "" it is highly centralised, highly bureaucratic, rigidly structured, and of the command and control type. This increases not only increases its cost for the government, but also reduces its benefits to the students. And children are therefore turning away from it.

The author is Director, Indicus Analytics, an economics research firm