Category Archives: Foundation Blog

A FAILED SCHOOL SYSTEM – FAILING INDIA’S CHILDREN

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Authored by
Dr. Urvashi Sahni
President and Chief Executive Officer
Study Hall Educational Foundation

The Delhi high courts verdict upholding the conviction of former chief minister of Haryana O.P. Chautala and others complicit with him in recruiting 3000 teachers after false interviews is very very heartening! Perhaps there is a ray of hope for the broken government school system. Pratham’s ASER report has been showing us every year, that children in our primary schools are NOT learning! Less than 50 % of Grade 5 children can read a Grade 2 text. They are not learning because the teachers do not attend school and when they do they teach for less than half the time they are there. What is even more shocking, this is no secret to the department, but they do nothing about it. To quote Justice Siddharth Mridul who said in his judgement that teachers who are “inducted through patronage, nepotism and corruption cannot morally, be higher than the methods that produced it and be free from the sins of its own origin.” Thank you sir! This is exactly the point. The poor performance of our children is not a pedagogical issue to be fixed by more teacher training, it is a governance issue, a corruption issue, which can only be fixed by stern action of the kind taken by the courts. No government has been successful in ensuring that teachers attend regularly and teach their students! The whole school system has been shamelessly politicised and corrupted. The only achievement of the government school system with over 300 billion rupees spent on it, seems to be the employment of over a million teachers. That these teachers deliver no results seems to be of no interest to the Government. Even a 10 years jail sentence is too little for the double defrauding that has happened! Firstly the tax payer has been defrauded by a misuse of her hard earned tax money, but even sadder and more criminal is the defrauding of innocent children, who have the right to an education.

Unless we demonstrate a strong political will by paying attention to the corruption of the school system and the entire education machinery – the administrative staff, the teachers and the politicians, ALL criminally complicit in defrauding India’s children by their apathy, neglect and corrupt commissions and omissions, the country is headed for disaster. More than 70% children are served by the government school system or so they should be. Right now all studies tell us that only a small fraction (42%) of the children who enrol in Grade 1 finish high school.

Governments are terrified of the teacher unions, who threaten to withdraw political support if any action is taken against the teachers. So they do nothing even though they know that a large number of teachers do not attend school even though they are paid very well! I have spoken to IAS officers to ministers and even Chief Ministers. None of them have an answer to this problem! Like with everything else, everyone seems to have given up in the face of corruption. Just something we have to live with? I think not.

The failed school system must either deliver, or stop pretending. The right to education is an empty promise when there is no political will to take the necessary steps needed to fulfil it. When politicians are more interested in the votes teachers will deliver than the children whose learning they should be nurturing, when teachers are more concerned about secure, permanent jobs, with very little accountability than the work they are being paid for, when the administrative staff has no interest in the children and their learning, so taken up are they with teacher transfers and postings, then why are we surprised that our children are failing? The question to ask though, is WHO IS FAILING -THE CHILDREN OR OUR SCHOOL SYSTEM? For how long will a rotted, corrupt system stand and continue the pretence of educating our children?

This article was also published in Hindustan Times News Paper, Lucknow Edition

Primary Education in India: Progress and Challenges

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Authored by
Dr. Urvashi Sahni

 

 

The Second Modi-Obama Summit: Building the India-U.S. Partnership

Download the full briefing book

In recent decades India has made significant progress on access to schooling and enrollment rates in primary education but dropout rates and low levels of learning remain challenges for the state and central government. As the U.S. has a longer history of public education than India there are opportunities for India to learn from the successes and failures in the American education system and to collaborate in tackling shared challenges, such as the best use of technology in primary education.

Primary school enrollment in India has been a success story, largely due to various programs and drives to increase enrolment even in remote areas. With enrollment reaching at least 96 percent since 2009, and girls making up 56 percent of new students between 2007 and 2013, it is clear that many problems of access to schooling have been addressed. Improvements to infrastructure have been a priority to achieve this and India now has 1.4 million schools and 7.7 million teachers so that 98 percent of habitations have a primary school (class I-V) within one kilometer and 92 percent have an upper primary school (class VI-VIII) within a three-kilometer walking distance.

Despite these improvements, keeping children in school through graduation is still an issue and dropout rates continue to be high. Nationally 29 percent of children drop out before completing five years of primary school, and 43 percent before finishing upper primary school. High school completion is only 42 percent. This lands India among the top five nations for out-of-school children of primary school age, with 1.4 million 6 to 11 year olds not attending school. In many ways schools are not equipped to handle the full population – there is a teacher shortage of 689,000 teachers in primary schools, only 53 percent of schools have functional girls’ toilets and 74 percent have access to drinking water.

Additionally, the quality of learning is a major issue and reports show that children are not achieving class-appropriate learning levels. According to Pratham’s Annual Status of Education 2013 report, close to 78 percent of children in Standard III and about 50 percent of children in Standard V cannot yet read Standard II texts. Arithmetic is also a cause for concern as only 26 percent students in Standard V can do a division problem. Without immediate and urgent help, these children cannot effectively progress in the education system, and so improving the quality of learning in schools is the next big challenge for both the state and central governments.

Improving learning will require attention to many things, including increasing teacher accountability. According to school visits teacher attendance is just 85 percent in primary and middle schools and raising the amount of time teachers spend on-task and increasing their responsibility for student learning also needs improvement. Part of this process requires better assessments at each grade level and more efficient monitoring and support systems. Overall, the public school system also needs a better general management system.

India also faces many challenges that could be tackled through the education system. For one gender issues have come to the fore because of the spate of recent cases of violence against girls. Changing gender mindsets seems to be imperative and gender studies education is one way of doing so. Also India, along with most countries, is concerned with the future of the labor market and employability; Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi wants to emphasize skill development in order to make school education more practically relevant.

Areas of Collaboration

Many of India’s concerns about education are shared by the U.S., such as ensuring quality, improving teacher capabilities, effective use of technology, and improving management systems. The US and India can achieve better learning outcomes if they pool their experience and resources – both intellectual and economic.

1. Leveraging technology
Both the U.S. and India are looking for solutions to provide high-quality learning opportunities to marginalized students. Technology has a lot of potential to improve education but how it can be implemented most effectively and in the case of India, most cost-effectively, still remains a question. There are several initiatives in India, by NGOs, like the Azim Premji Foundation & Digital Studyhall, and corporations like ILFS, Educom, Intel, Medialabs, to mention just a few, in content creation, teacher training and classroom learning. So far philanthropists and incubators are the ones who have helped to identify and scale best practices. A more officially driven effort is required to evaluate digital content and even more importantly to develop cost effective methods of making these available to teachers and students in areas where resources are scarce. Prime Minister Modi has shown a keen interest in this area, mentioning the need for ‘digital classrooms’ several times in his speeches in India and abroad. Given the issues of scale in terms of numbers and geography, which India needs to tackle in order to reach all her children and make sure they are learning effectively, technology definitely has an important role to play. The U.S. and India could collaborate and work to understand together how technology might be leveraged to improve student learning, teacher training, monitoring and support, management of schools and the quality of learning, especially in remote districts. The U.S. already has much experience in providing technology to schools and India could learn from its successes and failures. Furthermore, collaboration with the U.S. could help promote research in this area and build the evidence base in India.

2. Teacher education
The lack of learning in India’s schools call for changes to teacher education. A collaboration between American universities’ schools of education with Indian teacher training institutes could help build capacity and upgrade teacher education both in terms of curriculum and pedagogy, which is much needed in Indian teacher education institutions like the District Institutes of Education and Training. Such collaborations could be facilitated through technology, collaborative research projects, teacher exchanges, and subsidized online courses for teachers in India by universities in the United States.

3. Building good assessment systems
Good assessments are useful at the classroom level for teachers to gauge their students’ understanding and also to inform policy. The need for regular and useful assessments in India is something that Indian departments of education are focusing on at the central and state level. The U.S. could share lessons learned on how to make assessments as effective as possible in terms of assessment design, implementation and management of data.

4. Gender studies education
The state of women in India has recently drawn a lot of attention and promoting gender equality through education has an important role to play. Boys and girls should be taught to think about gender equality from an early age and the curriculum should include gender studies with appropriate teacher training. The U.S. could share its experiences of promoting gender equality through schools and help advance both action and research.

5. Skills Development
As making education more practically relevant to the labor market is a priority for Prime Minister Modi, there is much India can learn from experiences in the United States. A shared agenda of helping identify and implement improved ways to develop skills and competencies even at the school level could be an important area for collaboration.

6. Resources
Currently spending on education is low in India, and stands at 3.4 percent of the GDP. The U.S. might be able to help make it more of a priority, and nudge the government to increase spending on education.

Originally posted at India-U.S. Policy Memo, The Brookings Institution

DRAMA WORKSHOP BASED ON COOLING CONFLICT FRAMEWORK

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Over the course of last 2 weeks Study Hall Educational Foundation(SHEF) organised several Drama Workshop based on Cooling Conflict Framework. SHEF is grateful to Mr. David Oddie for conducting these workshop with Study Hall Educational Foundation Staff Members, District Institute Of Education and Training Lucknow & Kanpur Nagar, and Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya, Lucknow.

FROM LEARNING OUTCOMES TO LIFE OUTCOMES

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What Can You Do and Who Can You Be?
A Case Study in Girls’ Education in India

This paper provides an important reflection on the direction of the global education discourse by examining in-depth a case of girls’ education in India. I argue that while in the last year, there has been much progress in moving the global education discourse from inputs (enrollment and parity) to outcomes (learning), this welcome movement does not go far enough. In order to seriously meet the goal of gender equality the global discourse must go beyond numbers and embrace a life-outcomes approach. I first provide a theoretical framework for understanding global education, reviewing the status of global education policy and discourse with special reference to its connection to gender equality. I argue that simply providing access does not lead to empowerment. Gender equality is a goal in its own right. Mere access to schools will not lead to gender equality, nor will an education that does not make empowerment of girls and gender equality its central focus. I then provide an in-depth case study of empowerment education in India that uses critical feminist pedagogy in order to help girls examine gendered power structures and serves girls’ needs by shifting the focus from learning outcomes to life outcomes. I conclude with key recommendations for girls’ education globally and in India.

Prerna Story on NPR Global Girls Eduation: Breaking Down Barriers

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It used to be that, in many parts of the world, educating a girl was not only a low priority but was prevented by social customs or economic pressures. Now, in areas such as sub-Saharan Africa, India and war-torn areas such as Syria, girls are beginning to get a secondary school, and sometimes even, a college education. On this edition of America Abroad, we will celebrate the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the young Pakistani woman who is an activist for female education (Malala Yousafzai) and hear the reactions to that award from girls and women in oppressed places including Pakistan. We have a report of a girl in rural India who suffered brutal beatings by her father but clung to her desire to get an education. We’ll hear first-person reports of girls in Kenya who resisted their families’ efforts to sell them off as a child bride so that they could get an education. And we’ll examine the value of madrassas in educating girls in places like sub-Saharan Africa.

No Ceilings

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Girls CHARGE: Collaborative Harnessing Ambition and Resources for Girls’ Education 2014 Commitments and Future Engagement

Study Hall Educational Foundation is proud to join more than 30 international organizations in a massive commitment to advancing girls’ education around the world. Dr. Urvashi Sahni founder Study Hall Eductaional Foundation, joined Secretary Hillary Clinton and Prime Minister Julia Gillard to announce The Collaborative Harnessing Ambition & Resources for Girls Education (CHARGE) commitment today at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City.

Last year at CGI, Secretary Clinton announced the launch of No Ceilings to evaluate the progress women and girls have made since 1995 and to take action to help women and girls become full participants in their economies and societies around the globe. We know that tremendous progress has been made in education — particularly in getting girls enrolled in primary school. Yet enrollment is just the first step, and despite tremendous progress, girls around the world still face persistent challenges to pursuing their education – the quality and safety of which are not always guaranteed. At the 2014 CGI annual meeting, No Ceilings has joined with the Center for Universal Education at Brookings Institution to create CHARGE — the Collaborative for Harnessing Ambition and Resources for Girls Education — a global collective of public, private, and grassroots organizations working to take on the next set of challenges in global girls’ education.

In 2014, the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution committed to bring together leading public, private and civil society organizations from across the globe to form a collaborative initiative focused on advancing solutions in girls’ education that have the greatest potential for sustainable impact. Through the CHARGE initiative, partner organizations will align individual efforts for improving girls’ education to five research-informed priorities:

  • Ensuring that girls enter and stay in school through secondary education.
  • Ensuring that schools are safe and facilities are girl-friendly.
  • Improving the quality of learning opportunities for girls.
  • Supporting girls’ transition from secondary school to post-secondary school and the workforce.
  • Supporting leaders in developing countries to help catalyze change in girls’ education.

Learn More ..

BETI BACHAO, BETI PADHAO

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Dr. Urvashi Sahni
President & CEO, Studyhall Educational Foundation, Lucknow
& Non-resident Fellow,The Brookings Institution, DC, USA

Before July 17th 2014 a 6 year old girl was raped in an upscale private school in Bangalore and a young woman was raped and murdered brutally in Lucknow, her mutilated body found in an upper primary school campus. The horrific sexual assault of Nirbhaya in Dec 2012 and the more recent twin rapes and murder by hanging of two teen girls in Badaun ( also in UP) still haunt us. These cases of sexual violence against women and girls are now almost daily instances of a deeper malaise that ails us. The incidence of sexual abuse faced by children in India is not a secret. There have been several studies that have alerted us to the problem. A study conducted by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, with the help of Unicef, Save the Children and a Delhi based NGO Prayas in 2007 reported that two out of three children face physical abuse, and 53.2% children face sexual abuse in some form and 21.9% being abused severely. 50% of the abusers were people known to the children and were people in a position of trust and responsibility. It also found that children in institutional care reported the highest incidence of sexual abuse and assault. According to the Asian Centre for Human Rights, number of reported child rapes had gone up from 2,113 in 2001 to 7,112 in 2011. The issue of incestuous sexual abuse still remains shrouded in silence due to misplaced perceptions of ‘honour’ and fear. The extent to which it prevails still lies unmapped. The supreme court recently refused to recognise marital ‘rape’ as a criminal offence! Consider that India is home to 1/3rd of the 10 million child brides in the world! When girls are married off (read, physically, economically and sexually bonded) at 14 yrs, 15 yrs and lower, with no say in the matter, to strangers they have never seen, with no negotiating power, no rights of refusal or choice in their sexual relations with their husbands, is that not akin to rape? According to UNPF, more than 2/3rd married women between 15 and 49 years have been beaten and forced to provide sex. The law protecting children from sex abuse was enacted as recently as 2012 and the one recognising domestic violence as a criminal offence in 2005!
Women and Girls are unsafe at home, at school and on the streets. In a country where girls are largely unwanted, evidenced by the large rates of female foeticide and seen as a liability, evidenced by the high rates of child marriage and trafficking of girls, where education for girls receives scant importance -3.78 million girls are still out of school, unsafe schools will be a further deterrent for parents to send their girls to school. Physically schools are not safe. According to the Census of 2011, 53% households and 11 % schools had no toilets. This is a safety hazard to girls and women as girls have no choice but to relieve themselves in unsafe public spots.

What is the Government doing to address this problem? The current Govt has made some moves in this direction by announcing a Beti Bachao Beti Padhao campaign. Coupling girls safety and their education is a very insightful and intelligent move, provided there is a deeper realisation of what this entails. The interim budget has allocated Rs.100 crores for this campaign, Rs. 50 crores for Safety for women in public transport, Rs.150 crores for safety for women in large cities and Rs.3600 crores for drinking water schemes and for public toilets. Though the intentions are laudable, it has been pointed out by some that while Rs.100 crores have been allocated to womens safety, Rs. 200 crores have been allocated to the construction of a statue! The comparative value assigned to each speaks volumes of the actual importance given to girls and women by the Government.! The statements issued in response to the rapes by Chief Ministers in UP and Karnataka both are also revealing of a general attitude of apathy and impatient annoyance! Almost a feeling of – we have so many more important issues to deal with, why are we focussing so much on this?

While girls education has received some attention as a result of global advocacy and focus, a wider view of education is needed, to include the physical, social and political circumstances in which girls live their lives. Girls lives are in peril!

Several steps need to be taken in order to give concrete shape to the Save daughters Educate daughters campaign. But educators have an important role to play.

Education must include gender studies in the core curriculum of schools so that gendered mindsets which are the root cause of the problem, are critically examined, deconstructed and replaced by more equitable ones. The Government’s recommendation to include a chapter for gender mainstreaming in the curriculum is a welcome move, but more is needed. There should be a whole course devoted to gender studies. Sex Education with a focus on gender power relations, sexual and reproductive rights of women and a more respectful and egalitarian definition of womanhood and manhood should be discussed in schools. We must all learn to value girls and women more! Boys must learn to value and respect women and girls, take responsibility for the increasing violence against girls and learn to respect girls’ right to their own bodies. Girls must be empowered by their education to speak up when they are abused, learn to protest and to protect themselves, to demand their right to bodily integrity and respect at home and outside. Parent communities must be addressed by educators so that they learn to value their daughters for more than the sexual, domestic and reproductive labour they can provide

Civil society must keep up the pressure on the Government so that crimes against girls and women are taken seriously by the police, the judiciary and the administration and stern, expeditious action taken when girls are violated anywhere – at home, in school, on the streets.

Immediate action must be taken to provide the infrastructure required to ensure the safety of girls and women on the streets, in schools and other institutions – toilets in schools, more and better policing, inclusion of more female staff in the police force, as teachers, bus drivers and conductors. There is a flurry of activity by schools and parents to ensure safety for girls on their way to and from school and in school, which is a good sign, but it is not enough! Now is the time to help women and girls realise their absolute right to live life as equal, autonomous persons worthy of respect and to do all that it takes to make this a reality.