Governance of schools in India and cooperative model for the future

Abstract

Education is the single most important instrument for social and economic transformation. A well educated population, adequately equipped with knowledge and skill is not only essential to support economic growth, but is also a precondition for growth to be inclusive since it is the educated and skilled person who can stand to benefit most from the employment opportunities which growth will provide1 . Realizing the importance of education, there have been gigantic efforts to take primary education to every child in India. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan has been instrumental in Universalization of primary school education and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyaan is aiming for the same level of achievement in secondary school education. At the heart of it, the current Indian education policy is about the three E’s. These three E’s are Expansion, Equity and Excellence. Having achieved expansion to a significant level in 11th plan, the focus is now towards the excellence and quality improvement. Also, there has been a fundamental change in the outlook towards education with shift of focus from input-based improvement to measurement of outcomes. Most of these changes are welcome, or at least the spirit with which they are being promoted is fair. To improve quality, there are efforts required on multiple fronts. First of all, the quality improvement requires scalable models of teaching. One of the biggest bottlenecks in teaching quality improvements has been the lack of training for the teachers. Given the daunting task of providing quality education to millions of children in a short span of time, use of technology has become essential. Technology will also provide with scalable models of teaching. For example, private schools are moving from traditional black board to digital content to enhance effectiveness of teaching. Some of the schools have outsourced installation and maintenance of IT hardware, content and training to private parties on BOOT model. Technology will also have a great impact in measurement of outcomes as well with large scale transparent assessments becoming a possibility. However, there are major challenges on the supply side, especially related to governance in schools. As has been often said, the Indian education system is over-regulated & under-governed. Because of education being in the concurrent list, there has been multiplicity of authorities and boards each doing its own thing. In fact, a common national curricular framework was not arrived at until 2005. It is true that accountability is necessary to ensure performance of schools. However, for the most part, a strict process approach has been taken instead of measurements of outcomes. In fact, while India has been proactive on liberalization, education has remained largely untouched by the meaningful reforms. Out of the 1 Million schools that run currently, only 75,000 are in private hands with far higher enrolment per school ratio compared to govt. schools (ratio: 1200 vs. 175). While the quality of teachers is in question on one hand, the quality of school management is another grey area. Because of the non-profit nature of the school education in most of the states, all kinds of creative solutions are being used to subvert this rule. Yet the quality of schools has not gone up despite growing fees and secretly taken capitation fees. Some of these schools are run by politicians and lack of professional management affects quality. It is widely accepted that the role of the local community is minimal in ensuring the quality of education. National Knowledge Commission, in its letter to Dr Man Mohan Singh, says that the current inspection system is overburdened and inadequate, with a small number of inspectors required to cover a large number of schools, often spread over wide physical areas. The solution does not lie in simply expanding the system – rather, we need to develop systems to ensure meaningful monitoring. The strategy for the revitalization of the school inspection system should include local stakeholders in the monitoring of schools, whether in the form of Village Education Committees, parent associations, or other such bodies2 . In this report, we will first look at the different governing structures present in the country today and then will explore a possible role for cooperatives to take quality education to every nook and corner of the country.