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Journalism of Courage
Last week, Pratham came out with its Annual Survey of Education Report (ASER). First published in 2005, ASER is an annual countrywide survey of the status of elementary education in rural India. Speaking at the launch, Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia said that the key to strengthening public services lay in a mindset shift — from a focus on how much the government spends or its ‘outlays’, to what this expenditure yields, that is, its outcome and impact. Does the newly built road lead to better connectivity? Does building a school lead to better education? Ahluwalia praised ASER for attempting to do just this.
The good news from ASER 2007 is that enrolment is up ( 98.5 per cent across the country) and learning levels have improved (the proportion of children in classes 1 and 2 who can recognise letters and read words has gone up from 73.3 per cent in 2006 to 78.3 per cent in 2007). But nearly 40 per cent of children in Class 5 cannot read a Class 2 textbook. Andhra Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh have improved while, somewhat surprisingly, Tamil Nadu and Kerala are amongst the worst performers. Still more surprising: Bihar is doing consistently well. In 2007, it significantly improved its enrolment levels.
Before ASER, information of this nature was simply not available. Three years on, we can now measure progress and draw comparisons. We now have tools to analyse what works, what doesn’t and what gaps need to plugged — all of which are critical if we want to improve the quality of public education in India.
How do we measure outcomes and impact on a national scale? This is where lessons from ASER become extremely important.
In 2005, the Centre launched the ‘Outcomes Budget’ — an important step towards shifting focus from outlays to outcomes. The aim was to make the government more performance-oriented by making explicit the objectives and outcomes expected from public expenditures and allocating funds to each of these objectives. Like most government efforts, this has been poorly implemented.
There are two critical elements to a successful Outcomes Budget. First, it requires the identification of clear and quantifiable outcome indicators. But as of now, these indicators are vague and that makes measurement impossible and irrelevant.
Second, for an Outcomes Budget to achieve results, it must be accompanied by increased information on performance against these indicators. On this count, too, the Outcomes Budget has fallen far short of expectations. The budget itself was launched with much media fanfare, but over the years, it has simply disappeared from the public radar. There is no evidence of any proactive effort by government agencies to generate and disseminate information on progress.
The ASER experience offers important lessons that can go a long way in addressing these weaknesses. First, it has successfully identified simple indicators of learning competence — word and number recognition, basic comprehension and basic arithmetic. These are tangible and quantifiable and are applicable all over the country. Most importantly, these indicators are realistic and relevant. After all, it is reasonable to expect that a child in Class 5 can recognise words, do basic math and read a Class 2 textbook.
Second, ASER has developed an inbuilt strategy for information dissemination across the country. This includes the preparation of annual regional reports and simple district level report cards.
Given the failures of the Outcomes Budget, the finance ministry could do well to draw on the ASER experience. It must take steps to ensure that every government department spends the time and effort required to articulate quantifiable, tangible and realistic indicators for performance. Second, it must follow ASER’s example and produce a report card indicating performance. Comparisons must be drawn across successive years so that progress can be tracked easily. These report cards must be replicated at the state and district levels. One way to ensure that departments take this exercise seriously is by making performance the basis for budgetary allocations.
The writer is a freelance consultant working on issues of governance reform yaiyar@gmail.com
