Money’s there, Govt just needs the will

NEW DELHI, JAN 1: The Government doesn’t suffer so much from lack of funds, as it does from skewed spending priorities. The Public Report On Basic Education in India (PROBE) report, to be released on Saturday, has pointed out that the Department of Education needs to spend an additional 0.5 per cent of the GNP over the next five years, to implement the Fundamental Right to Education. The report says that is not too difficult, given that the Government proposes to spend about six times as much on salary increases in the Public Sector. If current spending patterns continue, the Government will also spend more than 20 times as much on non-merit subsidies (which serve no clear social goals).

The report is based on a detailed field survey carried out from September to December 1996. This survey covered all schooling facilities, and a sample of 1,376 households in 234 randomly-selected villages of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh. Its purpose is to establish a case foruniversal elementary education. The report studied 162 Government primary schools.

The report busts several myths; the first being that elementary education is free. It estimates that parents end up spending Rs 318 a year on sending a child to school. Another myth is that Non-Formal Education (NFE) centres are an adequate substitute for ordinary schools.

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A large majority of the NFE schools, which are cheaper to run than ordinary schools, were found to be non-functional. In 1,221 sample households, only two children were found to be enrolled in an NFE centre.

The other myth the PROBE report targets, is that campaigns always work. According to the report, the Total Literacy Campaign may have been successful in the short-term, but it now appears to be running out of steam. Yet another myth is that of mid-day meals, which in all the PROBE states was found to consist entirely of dry rations. The report points out that dry rations were supposed to be an interim measure only, and that mid-day meals were to beorganised within two years of the introduction of the programme in mid-1995.