Quality Education

Authors:

B19088 N Nikhil Jain

B19094 Radhika Garg

B19098 Dilip Chandra Santhosh Revuluri

B19106 Shashwat Dharmadhikari

B19108 Shounak Ghosh

B19115 Umang Tharad

Education shapes the personality and future of an individual which leads to the overall socio-economic development of the nation. It is a force multiplier which promotes economic growth by enhancing appropriate skill development and encourage self-reliance by empowering people to achieve success and improve their life by opening up vistas for better livelihood.

Due to challenges like high poverty in poor and developing countries, achieving inclusive and quality education is tough. Developing countries have seen a 91% enrollment in primary education, but still, 57 million children are out of school. Out of these 57 million, 28 million out-of-school children are living in conflict-affected areas. Around 103 million youngsters worldwide are still illiterate out of which 60% are female. [1]

The minimum proficiency standards in mathematics and language reading are not met by more than half of the children and adolescent population worldwide. Sub Saharan Africa and different parts of Central and Southern Asia have an educational opportunity and outcome disparity because of which they lag behind in development.

Today, India is competing globally and has gained success at a higher level, in terms of technology and innovation; however, there is a darker side to it. Compared to other developing and developed nations, higher education in India needs to be improved considerably. Many developing and developed countries not only have higher GDP than us but also have a much higher overall percentage of the number of students pursuing higher education. Only 13% of total students in India pursue higher education which goes up to 90% in some developed countries. According to the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, 21% of the world’s achievement gap of the quality education goal is from India. Many developing South-East Asian countries like Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia and Indonesia have a higher literacy rate than India. [2]

Quality education acts as a foundation for sustainable development of the nation, and therefore sustainable development goal of quality education was brought forward, which aims to provide complete free primary and secondary school education by 2030. [3]

Objectives of Quality Education

The SDG on Quality Education has laid down targets with a time horizon of 2030 to ensure the following [4]

All children, boys and girls, complete free and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes.
Prior to joining primary schooling, they should have access to early childhood development and care.
All women and men have access to quality and affordable technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university education.
Adults and youth have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship.
Equal access to education and vocational training irrespective of gender and including the vulnerable sections of the society (persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples and children in vulnerable situations)
All youth and a significant percentage of adults, both men and women, achieve literacy and numeracy.
All learners acquire the knowledge to promote sustainable development, through education for sustainable development, valuing human rights, gender equality, promotion of peace and global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity, among others.
Focus on education infrastructure that are child, disability and gender sensitive for a conducive learning environment and provide safe, nonviolent and inclusive conditions.
Increase the scholarships available to developing countries and least developed countries for enrolment in higher education. In developed countries and other developing countries push in scholarship for technical and vocational education.
Increase the number of qualified teachers, including through teacher training in developing countries, especially the least developed countries and small island developing states.

Source: [5]

Challenges for India

Some of the key challenges in facilitating quality education in India are as follows:

Lack of infrastructure and tertiary facilities: Majorly an issue in rural schools, a good infrastructure is a big incentive for poor families to send their children to schools. According to the 2016 Annual Status of Education Report, only 68.7% of schools had usable toilet facilities. Even worse, the percentage of schools with libraries had decreased from 78.1% in 2014 to 75.5% in 2016. Only 74.1% of schools had potable water facilities.[6]
Lack of quality education: Because of high-income inequality, only a fraction of the families can afford to send their children to private English medium schools, some of which are internationally accredited and offer a high quality of education. The poorly managed government schools, which cater to the majority, lack infrastructure and quality access to education. Even among the top institutes, very few share the limelight on the global stage. There isn’t a single technical institution in the top 250 list in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings since 2012.
Absence of relevant curriculum: Owing to numerous state boards as well as national boards like CBSE and ICSE, the syllabus is highly varied across boards. This extends to undergraduate education as well, and the curriculum in many of the boards is contextually outdated in today’s dynamic world. The National Curriculum Framework (NCF) has only been revised four times so far - 1975, 1988, 2000 and 2005. In the current fast-paced scenario, there needs to be more frequent modifications being made to the framework to equip the students to tackle challenges of the future.
Illiteracy: According to the UNESCO 2017-18 report, 37% [7] of the world’s illiterate population stays in India. The overall literacy rate, as per MHRD in 2018, is 69.1% (both in rural and urban regions). In rural India, the rate is 64.7% while it is 79.5% in urban areas [8]. The dreadful effects cascade beyond literacy to other parameters of human development as well (for example, literacy and fertility rates are correlated. States with lowest literacy rates have been found to have the highest fertility rates). Moreover, the disparity between male and female literacy rates is wider in rural than in urban areas (15.5% and 8.9% respectively).
Ambiguity in defining targets precisely: Some targets set forth in SDG 4 are not clearly defined. For example, in Target 4.2: ‘Quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education’, there is no global definition of ‘developmentally on track’ and consequently, there are no further definitions of this indicator.

Current Policies and Initiatives

Achieving quality education for all requires resources backed by political will and financial strength.

Government Schemes

Right to Education (RTE): RTE Act aims to provide free and compulsory education to all children in the age group of 6 to 14. While this has improved the enrolment ratio, challenges are student-teacher ratio, dropout ratio and quality of education. Also, many criticise this Act for leaving out ages 14-18, which are important in determining the careers of students.
Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao (BBBP): It was started by GoI in 2015 in 100 districts with critical sex ratios. With the intention to challenge the deep-rooted patriarchal mindset, a national level campaign was created for communicating to people about the equality of a girl child and to encourage her for education. An innovative social media campaign that captured people’s attention was #SelfieWithDaughter. Today, 600+ districts are being covered under the programme.
Others: Mid-day meals, e-Pathshala, Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan, setting up new institutes for higher education and several other schemes are well-intentioned moves but their implementation needs to be carefully monitored.

Involvement of organisations

Boston Consulting Group (BCG): The firm is coordinating with the government to transform schools in hinterlands of Jharkhand, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh [9]. After careful study of the system, BCG has developed a 45-day booster program called “Gnan Sethu” wherein students are divided into 3 groups - Lakshya (lowest performers), Sugam (intermediate) and Subodh (top performers). The curriculum, reference books and methodology are all developed based on recommendation by BCG. Besides, they found that isolated schools with a smaller number of students and teachers are demotivating for everyone involved and so they implemented school mergers. Lastly, as the consulting firm’s project contract is ending in 2020, it is taking steps to ensure that the changes and roadmaps they have developed would sustain even after their involvement in the project ends.
Stir Education: It is an international organisation which aims to bring a change in “intrinsic motivation” for teachers by connecting teachers and making them see themselves as agents of change. In India, Stir has reached out to 200,000 teachers. Typically, 20-30 teachers meet every month to share knowledge and best practises that have enabled them to improve academic performance of students [10].
P&G Shiksha: The CSR campaign of FMCG giant transfers a small amount from what customers pay while purchasing its brands to P&G Shiksha program. It has impacted 1.4 million school children till date. It has worked extensively in improving school infrastructure by building classrooms and toilets, providing clean drinking water and setting up playgrounds. [11]P&G launched a heartwarming video campaign #DontLetDreamsWait on how it is helping improve education:

P&G Shiksha presents the story of Bittu | #DontLetDreamsWait

Way Ahead

Quality through Innovation

In India, innovation is required both in terms of technology and teaching methodology.

Increase the frequency of updating syllabi: Most of the universities' curriculum is obsolete and doesn't impart the necessary skills to the students for employability. One of the ways to address this issue is for the universities or school boards to regularly update their curriculum with crucial inputs from experts in different fields and industriess.
Enablement through technology: State governments are providing laptops, tablets etc. for students for free which give them access to learn from various resources online. Although access to quality devices is crucial, it is only a means to the end of acquiring knowledge. The devices provided are only a shopfront to the content. Most of the content available online is in English, which is a problem, especially for high school students who aren't as proficient in English as they are in their native languages. One of the ways to solve this problem is for the government to provide incentives to local publishers, authors to digitise their content and make it available to students.
Impart employable skills: In addition to imparting technical skills and vocational skills, which are required for employability, focus should also be on enhancing basic skills in entrepreneurship especially regarding unorganized sectors and self-employment.

Increase Affordability of Education

To reach all deserving students, education should be made accessible. Even though fees in government/state-sponsored institutions is of low cost, the same can’t be said about the private institutions. Despite the guidelines prescribed by the government, the fee structure in many of the private institutions remains prohibitively expensive. A variable fee structure can be adopted in these institutions, depending on the economic background of the students.

Government spending in India is also very less. The Indian government spends a mere 3% of its GDP on education. (India stands at 154th position out of 195 countries). Increase in government can lead to making education more affordable by giving scholarships, interest-free loans, etc.

CONCLUSION

This goal can only be achieved with the participation of all stakeholders- the government, private organisations, institutes and citizens as well. Improving the quality of education and imparting employable skills will not only lead to faster growth but also a more sustainable way of development of both the country and its people.

References

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XLRI Students' Blog on Corporate Sustainability

Quality Education - SDG 4

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