More funds for secondary level, but can the govt spend it well?

But how can Budget 2006 effectively spend about Rs 2000 crore more on secondary education?

Today, the capacity and policy framework at the secondary level is inadequate. The SSA focuses on Class I through VIII. There are 206,269 middle schools in the country. But the number of high/secondary schools, which go from Class IX to XII, is only 126,047.

The gap in rural areas is higher than the average. In urban areas, the weakness of the public system is overcome by private schools. Can rural children relocate to a neighbouring town to attend school?

Though the actual fee for private schools is often quite low, living in the town involves additional living expenses. The total outlay is out of reach for the poorest rural students. There are publicly funded scholarship schemes available for SC and ST students in a number of states.

Tamil Nadu gives bicycles to girls in villages enrolled in secondary schools to enable them to attend schools that are further away. But, in general, states do not have enough funds to put money into secondary schooling.

Further, a major lacuna has emerged in education in India as a consequence of resources being directed towards a social agenda. This is that there are very few initiatives to promote merit. A few rare initiatives like “Gaon ki beti” by the Madhya Pradesh State Government reward excellence—but this barely gives one scholarhip to one bright girl student in a village.

Today India has some of the best higher education institutions in the world like the IITs, but the quality of education for the average child in India is extremely low.

In this context, how can the new money for secondary education be best spent? The traditional approach is that the government open a large number of secondary schools. The difficulties and costs of this strategy can be gauged by the experience the government has had with running primary schools. Getting good secondary school teachers to work in rural schools will be a big task. Getting teachers to be present in school will be another job and getting them to teach, when they face no threat of dismissal or pay cut, equally onerous. The traditional approach has failed to provide quality education in elementary schools.

The other option is to facilitate the best students to study in nearby secondary schools by offering them scholarships which can support expenditures on fees, books, living expenses, etc. A scholarship of just Rs 300 per month suffices.

Scholarships can be allocated to states based on the population. So UP will have more scholarships than Goa. Students enrolled in Class IX in any school, public or private, should be chosen by the state government on the basis of merit, through a standardised scholarship examination administered at Class VIII. The money should be given directly to the student or the mother through a money order or a transfer to a bank account.

It should be given to them for a period of 4 years—Class IX to Class XII, requiring that the child is promoted to the next class.

The arithmetic works out so that Rs 2000 crore pays for 5.5 million scholarships. This number is big enough to generate a supply response from schools in the private sector. More sections will be added to higher classes. More private middle schools will add higher classes to secondary schools. More secondary schools will be opened. The quality of the schools will improve as better students will be able to afford education.

If the allocation is raised to 50 per cent of the cess starting 2007-08 for the duration of the 11 Plan, then by the end of the Eleventh Plan period there should be a considerably widened capacity for secondary schooling in India.

At present, the central and state governments together spend approximately Rs 3000 per student through the public education system. The scholarship is nearly the same amount, but instead of getting lost in the bottomless pit of the government system where there is no evaluation or accountability, it puts the money directly into the hands of the parent who can choose which school the child will attend.

But won’t the already privileged students, who anyway do better at school, get all the scholarships? First, let us remember, the poor students are much more motivated to get the scholarships, and would thus try harder for the examination. The scholarship gives them a chance to go to upper grades, something which they cannot otherwise do. Second, even among the children who are not poor, a merit based scholarship comes with prestige and will incentivise them to work harder.

When every village child (and parent) knows that such a scholarship is available for more education provided there is merit, the performance in elementary school will also improve. Allocating money to secondary schooling in this manner can, therefore, not only provide secondary education, it can push elementary education beyond merely enrolment and towards better outcomes. Encouraging bright and hard working students to go for higher education will have mutlitple benefits.

As a country and a growing economy with a fast expanding service sector, India needs a large well educated labour force. The money will be well spent even from a purely commercial point of view as it will increase human capital and give higher GDP growth.