Dropping out

AN EDUCATION VOLUNTEER teaching children of a migrant community at an Integerated Residential Centre near Madurai, Tamil Nadu. - K. GANESAN

The 11th Plan draft approach paper sees education not as a human right but as an instrument to enhance growth rates.

FIFTEEN years into the period of neoliberal reforms and two years after a popular verdict against its impact on the lives of the majority of the Indian people, the Planning Commission of India has placed a draft approach paper (DAP) to the Eleventh Plan (2007-2012) in the public domain for wide discussion. This is to be welcomed. It must be noted, however, that the process by which the Planning Commission is constituted and its composition suffer from a deficit of democracy insofar as the elected State governments, which are surely affected by its decisions, have no say in these processes. We will not allude to this deficit in what follows, but only flag the issue for reflection. What is noteworthy, however, is that the DAP is in many respects remarkably similar to its Tenth Plan predecessor, meaning that it is not especially informed by the people's verdict in the parliamentary elections of 2004. This particular instance of democratic deficit is the present Commission's responsibility.

It is best to begin with some brief summary observations on the record of neoliberal reforms before taking up the treatment of education in the DAP. First, despite the euphoria over the 7.5-8.5 per cent gross domestic product (GDP) growth rates (on a new base year, it needs to be noted) of the last three years, the official data on poverty and unemployment lend little support to any benign view of the impact of neoliberal reforms on the people. The DAP tells us, although rather gingerly, that the critics of the official estimate of the proportion of households below the poverty line (BPL) arrived at on the basis of the 55th round of the National Sample Survey (NSS) may be right after all. We now have it officially that the proportion declined from 36 per cent in 1993-94 to 28 per cent in 2004-05, a decline of eight percentage points over 11 years, rather than by nine percentage points (from 36 per cent in 1993-94 to 27 per cent by 1999-2000) in five years as claimed repeatedly by official spokespersons and neoliberal economists.

Abysmal as the official poverty line is, being essentially a survival line or non-death line, this confession is to be seen against the record of the period preceding neoliberal reforms from 1977-78 until 1990-91, when the percentage of BPL households declined twice as rapidly in terms of percentage points a year. Secondly, using the official nutritional norms for the poverty line, more than 70 per cent of the Indian population would have to be considered poor. Thirdly, the rate of rural unemployment, as measured by current daily status, rose from 5.6 per cent in 1993-94 to 9 per cent in 2004 for males and from 5.6 per cent to 9.3 per cent for females over the same period. Urban unemployment rates too, rose. With the basic problems of mass poverty and unemployment showing no signs of abating despite a claimed compound rate of growth of GDP of over 6 per cent per annum over the reform period, one would have thought that the Planning Commission would have tried to plan for a reduction in poverty and unemployment to specified desirable levels rather than for target growth rates of GDP. Yet the DAP is obsessed with alternative target rates of growth, the emphasis being on faster growth per se. Political constraints do compel the DAP to add the phrase "more inclusive", but the strategy for achieving such inclusiveness is entirely absent.

The DAP takes an instrumentalist view on education. It sees education (and health) as desirable because "improved levels of health and education are in fact critical inputs that determine the growth potential in the longer term" (DAP, page 2). Further, the concern is that there are "... clear signs of an emerging shortage of the high-quality skills that are needed in knowledge-intensive industries" (Ibid, page 6).

The DAP recognises, albeit partially, some aspects of the poor performance in education so far. It does talk of the need for significant public financing, but not necessarily of public provisioning. The main thrust of its argument is, however, on issues of "governance" and "accountability" in relation to the "service provider", seen in this instance as the individual health worker or teacher.

It does not show sufficient awareness of the seriousness of the situation on the ground in relation to educational deprivation when it makes a somewhat complacent reference to improvements in literacy and school enrolment over the last decade or so. It asserts: "There has been considerable progress in enrolment and near 100 per cent enrolment of 6-14-year-olds is likely to be achieved by the end of the 10th Plan" (DAP, page 45). What is the reality? Just to refer to a very basic (minimalist) indicator, the rural female literacy rate as per the 2001 Census was below 50 per cent in 11 out of 17 major States (defined here as those with a population exceeding 20 million in 2001. These include not just the so-called BIMARU States (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh) but even such "advanced" States as Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. At the district level, more than 170 districts had a rural literacy rate below 40 per cent. At the other end, only 16 districts - 14 from Kerala, and one each from Tamil Nadu and Mizoram - had an overall district literacy rate in excess of 80 per cent. As for enrolment, a recent World Bank document (Attaining the Millennium Development Goals in India by Anil B. Deolalikar, World Bank and Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2005) notes that data from the 55th round of the NSS "... suggest that only 78 per cent of children aged 6-11 years were attending school in 1999-2000". The report further states: "At 52.5 per cent, the net primary enrolment was significantly lower" (Ibid, page 67). The DAP itself notes that in 2003-04, the national drop-out rate in primary schools was 31 per cent, very likely an underestimate. Less than 10 per cent of those who enrol pass Class 12. Eighty per cent of Scheduled Caste (S.C.) and 90 per cent of Scheduled Tribe (S.T.) girls do not complete even Class 10.

It is not just that the DAP is rather complacent about the achievements so far. When it comes to diagnosis of the ills of the system and how these may be addressed, it singles out teachers as the problem. We are told that teachers are low on "quality, accountability and motivation". After a customary bow in the direction of greater panchayat and local body involvement to enhance teacher accountability, the DAP proposes a remedy that is as absurd as it is audacious. It says: "A more powerful method of enforcing accountability is to enable parents to choose the schools where they will send their children. Enabling people to choose between available public or private schools (by giving them suitable entitlements reimbursable to the school) and thus creating competition among schools could be considered" (DAP, page 46). Whatever happened to the Kothari Commission's recommendation of a common school system with neighbourhood admissions policy, which has been the accepted ideal even if its implementation has been a non-starter because of the power of the elite?

The DAP pursues its scheme of providing incentives for privatisation of schooling at the level of secondary education as well. After noting that private and unaided schools now account for the majority of secondary schools and that their proportion was increasing, and attributing this to the failure of State governments to increase funding for public and aided secondary schools, the DAP states: "There is a feeling (sic) that voucher schemes can help promote both equity and quality in schooling in areas where adequate private supply exists, provided it is combined with strict requirements on private schools to give freeships to students in economic need" (DAP, page 48). It then adds gratuitously: "However, the government must ensure that public schools are available to provide competition to private schools and of course in areas underserved by private schools" (ibid). This is a breathtaking inversion of the relative priorities between private and public provision of education that has thus far been official policy, though not always official practice. There is no effort to come to grips with the horrendous situation that prevails in most parts of our country with regard to the quality of private schools, just a blithe, unstated assumption that they are necessarily better than public schools. It is important to remember that these suggestions are made in a social context, not only of mass educational deprivation, but also of the complete inability of the state to impose even the minimum discipline or regulation on private schools - witness the fiasco of the directive to ensure 25 per cent admission for the poor in -Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) schools.

A not very sophisticated neoliberal game is played out here: mention the need for inclusiveness, include a few sentimental lines on how "development of children is at the centre of the 11th Plan" (DAP, box, page 47), but ensure that education remains open to commerce right from the primary stage.

The inversion of priorities established on the basis of a wide political consensus continues apace when it comes to the DAP on higher education. Thus we learn: "The recent decision to extend reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in Central educational institutions has highlighted the issue of inadequate capacity for non-OBC, non-S.C./S.T. students in high quality institutions. The government has assured that there will be sufficient expansion in the total number of seats to avoid any reduction in seats available for non-OBC, non-S.C./S.T. students. This expansion is long overdue" (DAP, page 50). While there cannot be two opinions on the need to expand access to high-quality education for all, the issue is being posed in terms of ensuring no reduction in access for the socially and educationally privileged. Further, the bogey of quality dilution, a la anti-reservationists, is raised immediately. We are told that the 11th Plan must address the issue of expansion "...in a manner that ensures that general quality will not be compromised". Again, that quality must be preserved and enhanced is beyond dispute, but linking it with expansion to serve the needs of social and economic justice smacks of an attitude that is reluctant to accept the right of the less privileged to decent higher education.

In fact, this is the consistent feature of the DAP on education. Also, for the DAP, the teachers are the villains of the piece. Access to quality education is not seen as being significantly constrained, for instance, by the failure of the state to provide adequate resources for decent school infrastructure or reasonable teacher-student ratios. The simplistic one-line response to the crisis in school education is that the problem is teacher absenteeism, and that it can be mended by disciplining teachers, or better still, by giving parents "choice" of which school to send their children through appropriate subsidies to private schools.

Then, there is the final villain: the State governments. While it is conceded that the Central government must provide resources to assist the States to achieve the necessary expansion in schooling facilities, it is also argued that since much of the expenditure on education, consisting mainly of salaries to personnel, is of a non-Plan nature, "... adequate provision must be made by the State governments on the non-pPlan side" (DAP, page 75). How and from where the State governments will mobilise additional resources when the recent Finance Commission awards as well as the neoliberal policy thrusts had weakened their finances considerably is not spelt out. Moreover, we are told: "... There is also the serious problem of the poor quality of government staff, reflecting lack of accountability in the system." There is no attempt to substantiate sweeping assertions on the lack of efficiency and accountability of government staff and the implicit presumption that accountability can be ensured by wielding the stick via the panchayats. Besides the touching faith in the efficiency of the private sector, there is also the presumption that non-governmental organisations (NGOs) can ensure credibility and accountability. In sum, despite the reference to "inclusive growth" in its title, the DAP remains deeply mired in the neoliberal framework. This comes out not only in its very procedure of starting with GDP growth targets rather than specified social objectives such as ensuring health, education, employment and decent living standards for all, but also in its sectoral prescriptions in the area of education. For the DAP, education is not a human right. It is, at best, of instrumental value in achieving sustained growth of GDP. At worst, there has to be some rhetoric on public financing (and not necessarily provisioning) of education because political constraints, namely, the commitments written into the National Common Minimum Programme under pressure from the Left and progressive forces in the aftermath of the electoral verdict of the 2004 parliamentary elections, mandate such rhetoric. Truly, inclusive growth will require much more than rhetoric. In relation to the human development arena, it will require much larger financial allocations for education if the promises made in the NCMP are to be met.