Jandhyala B. G.

Tilak Editor

Universal
Secondary
Education in
India
Issues, Challenges and Prospects
Universal Secondary Education in India
Jandhyala B. G. Tilak
Editor

Universal Secondary
Education in India
Issues, Challenges and Prospects

With a Foreword by P. R. Panchamukhi

123
Editor
Jandhyala B. G. Tilak
Council for Social Development
New Delhi, Delhi, India

ISBN 978-981-15-5365-3 ISBN 978-981-15-5366-0 (eBook)

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Foreword

In a country like India where knowledge and learning have been accorded a high
philosophical status and a high social status, entire education has to be viewed as a
‘process of great continuity’ rather than an event of discreteness. However, formal
education with specified stages immediately breaks this natural continuity and this
therefore calls for conscious efforts to re-establish it in the interest of the entire
educational sector. It is in this background that one can appreciate initiatives at
regular intervals taken in India to develop a holistic view of education with
keenness to strengthen its parts and efficiently establish their internal linkages.
Some of the economists of education of the developed world of the past advocated
even legitimisation of the segmented view of education when contemplating
strategies of educational development for countries of different levels of economic
development. They recommended that underdeveloped countries should focus their
attention on the development of primary education, developing countries on sec-
ondary education and developed countries on higher education. However, when we
recognise that the ‘option effect’ operates well even in less developed and devel-
oping countries, implying that completers of a particular stage of education would
find options to move to the next stage wide open, this segmented view turns out to
be irrelevant. Unfortunately, the economic factors also seem to strengthen the
stage-specific segmented view as certain economic opportunities seem linked to
specific stages of education. The present volume of insightful articles edited by
Prof. Jandhyala B. G. Tilak presents one such attempt at taking a segmented view
focussing on primarily secondary education in India, though the editor recognises at
the same time the inter-linkages between the three levels, the interdependence on
each other and the need to have a holistic approach in educational planning.
One feels that such a focus is quite warranted at the present juncture in India
because for many decades after the independence policymakers and analysts had
been focussing on primary education and elementary education so much so that
other stages appeared receiving less than their due attention. In fact in order to
achieve universal elementary education, resources should be diverted, they argued,
from higher education in particular to elementary education since there were no
hopes of getting much bigger allocation to the entire educational sector. In this

v
vi Foreword

frenzy, there was practically nobody who could look at the woes of secondary
education. Now of course, this type of indifference cannot continue, thanks to the
relatively better outcomes at the elementary education level due to all the passion
and legitimate advocacy. The option effect seems to be quite powerful, this needs to
be sustained, and transition rates from primary/elementary to secondary education
need to be raised further. Unfortunately, the hurdles in this process are innumerable,
such as: poor learning culture of the families, illiteracy of parents of children,
gender and caste, rural background, commercialisation of education at all levels
particularly in secondary schools, weak government schools and growing influence
of private sector ethos in secondary education with interest in profit chasing and
false notions of institutional and student achievements, less attractive curriculum,
highly regimented functioning of schools distancing children from the households
and the surroundings, alien medium of instruction in schools making learning very
difficult particularly for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and rural children,
inadequate fund flow to secondary schools, inadequate patronage for secondary
education from the state and union governments, location of schools (visualised in
the ‘neighbourhood schools’ by the Kothari Commission), highly discouraging
teaching methods and examination system, ill equipped teachers who are not able to
make learning activity an enjoyable activity for children, inadequate number of
competent teachers, poor involvement of parents in the process of schooling of their
children, high fees not affordable for poor households, very prohibitive restrictions
of the government with regard to the appointments of teachers and other staff and
functioning of schools, absence of economically feasible secondary education and if
needed its termination options without unduly heavy economic costs for children
and their families (the point which had received attention in past, as in the case of
basic education reform of Mahatma Gandhi at the level of primary education and
multi-purpose schooling and in case of vocationalisation a la Mudaliyar Committee
at the middle and secondary levels) and absence of fine-tuning of schooling cal-
endar with the agricultural seasons. In recent years, there are also signs of foreign
players in secondary education making it increasingly removed from indigenous
and national ethos and culture. Political factors have further added to this process
alienating secondary education from the indigenous ethos. All such hurdles are so
formidable that mild doses of initiatives may not bear fruits and significant and big
pushes are required. Apart from the diagnosis of the problems as above, what are
required are the well thought-out strategies of implementation. A thorough exam-
ination of these and many other relevant issues needs to be undertaken to provide a
sound analytical basis for understanding the challenges involved, formulation of
strategies and initiatives for their implementation. Obviously, some of these
problems are likely to be manageable and some are not at all manoeuvrable. This
really poses a further big challenge to policymaking.
I am very pleased to note that the present volume edited by Prof. Jandhyala B.
G. Tilak that includes studies conducted by a number of scholars with insightful
analyses may serve really as a trigger, inspiring further work in the field. Professor
Tilak has been considered in the academic and policy circles as a person with
educational research as his life’s mission. He has authored and edited not only a
Foreword vii

large number of research works of outstanding standards in the field of several

aspects of all the stages of Indian education, but also has been instrumental in
editing and revisioning the thought processes and policies relating to Indian edu-
cation. His scholarly introduction and meaningful organisation of the studies
included in this volume bear testimony to this observation. Some of the articles with
strong conceptual insights like the one relating to the role of power in school
choices, some with very meaningful applications of econometric techniques to the
understanding of some of the hurdles in secondary education, etc., show to what
high standards the present volume belongs. It is undoubtedly a must-read volume
for serious researchers and policymakers in the field of secondary education in India
in particular and developing countries in general.
Those interested in reforming education would expect many more analytical
initiatives on many more unexplored aspects of secondary education in India by the
research scholars with the leadership of the doyen of educational research in
India—Prof. Tilak. The Springer Publications deserve all accolades as they have
indeed provided an extremely useful reading material as a valuable addition to the
literature on educational research.

P. R. Panchamukhi
Professor Emeritus and Chairman
Centre for Multidisciplinary
Development Research
Dharwad, Karnataka, India
Acknowledgements

This book is an offshoot of the National Seminar on Secondary Education organised

by the Council for Social Development, New Delhi, in July 2018.
In the organisation of the seminar, and in consequent publication of this book, I
received valuable help and cooperation from many scholars, colleagues and others.
Grateful acknowledgements are due to:
Professor Muchkund Dubey, President, Council for Social Development, for his
keen interest and encouragement in organising the seminar, in bringing out the
book and in consistently supporting my work,
Professor P. R. Panchamukhi, Eminent Social Scientist and Economist of edu-
cation of first generation, for kindly providing a valuable foreword to the book,
Ms. Jayalekshmi Nair, Senior Research Associate, Council for Social
Development, for her excellent assistance throughout,
all the contributors for submitting revised versions of their papers for the book
and patiently waiting for it, and
the Springer Publishers for bringing out the book in the present attractive form.

Jandhyala B. G. Tilak

ix
Contents

Universal Secondary Education in India: An Introductory Overview

of Issues, Challenges and Prospects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Jandhyala B. G. Tilak

Secondary Education in India: Growth and Inequalities

Status of Secondary Education in India: A Review of Status,
Challenges and Policy Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Madhumita Bandyopadhyay and Sunita Chugh
Push-Out, not Drop-Out: Youth and Secondary Schooling in India . . . . 51
Manabi Majumdar and Sangram Mukherjee
Secondary Education in Maharashtra: Issues of Concern . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Anuradha De and Meera Samson

Private Education, Equity, Quality and Justice in Secondary

Education
Changing Public–Private Mix in School Education
and Its Implications for Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Achin Chakraborty
Expanding Education Market and Parental Choice for Secondary
Schools in India: Evidence from IHDS Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Pradeep Kumar Choudhury
The Power Game: A Case Study of a Private School in Odisha . . . . . . 137
Amrita Sastry
Regional Diversity, School Leadership and Quality of Education
in North-Eastern States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
N. Mythili

xi
xii Contents

Universal Secondary Education in India—Access, Equity

and Social Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
C. Sheela Reddy

Determinants of Participation in Secondary Education

Tracking the Progress of a Child from Enrolment to Completion
of Secondary Education in India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Deepak Kumar
Socio-Economic Determinants of Secondary Education in India . . . . . . 245
Susmita Mitra
Who Completes Secondary Education in India? Examining Role
of Individual and Household Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
Nivedita Sarkar
Universal Secondary Education in the Telugu-Speaking States:
Prospects and Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
P. Prudhvikar Reddy, V. Nagi Reddy, and D. Sree Rama Raju

Skill Development, Vocational Education and Employment

Elusive Vocational Education Programme: An Analysis of Trends
in Indian Secondary Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
Mona Sedwal
Missing Middle of Educated Unemployable: A Critical Perspective
on Secondary Education in India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
Bornali Bhandari, Charu Jain, and Ajaya K. Sahu
Shared Prosperity and Universalisation of Secondary Education . . . . . . 355
Arup Mitra

Financing Secondary Education

Public Provisioning for Secondary Education in India:
A Situation Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
Praveen Jha and Satadru Sikdar
Declining Public Funding and Increasing Private Expenditure
in Neo-Liberal Regime: Challenges Ahead for Universalisation
of Secondary Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395
Narender Thakur
Financing and Management of Secondary Education
in Uttar Pradesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409
Mohd. Muzammil
Contents xiii

Questions and Debates

Universalisation of Secondary Education: Questions
for Discussion and Debate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
Rounaq Jahan

Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429

Subject Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431
Editor and Contributors

About the Editor

Jandhyala B. G. Tilak is a former Vice-Chancellor and Professor at the National

University of Educational Planning and Administration, and currently an ICSSR
National Fellow and Distinguished Professor at the Council for Social
Development. Holding a Ph.D. in Economics of Education from the Delhi School
of Economics, University of Delhi, Prof. Tilak, an eminent economist of education,
has served on the research and teaching faculty of the University of Delhi, Indian
Institute of Education, University of Virginia and Hiroshima University (Japan),
and as a Visiting Professor of Economics at Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher
Learning. He was also on the research staff of the World Bank. Prof. Tilak has
authored/edited about twenty books and over 350 research papers in the areas of
economics of education and development studies. His important recent books
include Education and Development in India: Critical Issues in Public Policy and
Development (Palgrave Macmillan 2018) and Higher Education, Public Good and
Markets (Routledge 2017). He received the UGC’s Swami Pranavananda Saraswati
National Award for his outstanding scholarly research in education (1999), Dr.
Malcolm Adiseshiah Award for distinguished research contributions to develop-
ment studies (2003), the Inspirational Teacher of the Year Global Education Award
(2012), and the Devang Mehta National Education Award for outstanding contri-
butions to education (2015). Prof. Tilak had the privilege of delivering a keynote
address to a meeting of the Noble laureates in Barcelona in 2005. President of the
Comparative Education Society of India (2010–12) and Editor, Journal of
Educational Planning and Administration (1990–2017), Prof. Tilak currently serves
on the editorial boards of several professional journals.

xv
xvi Editor and Contributors

Contributors

Dr. Madhumita Bandyopadhyay is Associate Professor in the Department of

School and Non-Formal Education at National Institute of Educational Planning
(Deemed to be University), New Delhi. She is currently engaged in research,
teaching and training programmes of the university. She has a Ph.D. (geography)
from Centre for Studies of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University,
New Delhi. Her research interests include education of disadvantaged groups,
decentralisation of educational governance and the education of women. She has
also published many articles and chapters in books and journals of international
repute.
Dr. Bornali Bhandari is Fellow at National Council of Applied Economic
Research, with a background in international economics and macroeconomics,
specifically focussing on the impact of globalisation on development. Currently, she
is working on direct benefit transfers and on the challenge of skilling India. Her
wider research interests include analysis of infrastructure, particularly the roads and
ICT sectors, G-20 issues like climate change, finance and reserve currency and
trade-related issues. She is also coordinating NCAER’s macro-publications—the
Quarterly Review of the Economy and Business Sentiments Survey. She has
completed her doctorate studies from the University of Oregon, USA.
Prof. Achin Chakraborty, Ph.D. in economics, University of California at
Riverside, 1995, is presently Professor and Director, Institute of Development
Studies Kolkata. Earlier, he served as Associate Professor, Centre for Development
Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, Teaching Assistant and graduate student at the
University of California at Riverside, and Lecturer in economics, West Bengal
Education Service. His areas of interest include welfare economics, microeconomic
issues in development economics, human development, and health economics, in
which he has a good number of quality publications.
Dr. Pradeep Kumar Choudhury, Doctorate from the National University of
Educational Planning and Administation, New Delhi, is Assistant Professor of
economics at the Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies, School of Social
Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. He worked earlier in the
Institute of Studies in Industrial Development and Population Foundation of India.
His research has dealt with various aspects of Indian development, especially issues
related to education, health and the labour. His specific research interests include:
economics of education, financing of education, education and labor market and
educational inequality.
Dr. Sunita Chugh, M.A. and M.Phil. from Jawaharlal Nehru Universtiy in
international politics and Ph.D. in Education from Jamia Millia Islamia, is currently
Associate Professor, National Centre for School Leadership, National Institute of
Editor and Contributors xvii

Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi. Her areas of interest include
education of the urban deprived children, inclusive education, right to education
and school leadership.
Ms. Anuradha De has M.A. from University of Calcutta and M.Phil. from
Jawaharlal Nehru University. She worked as Lecturer, Netaji Nagar College,
Kolkata, and Senior Research Fellow, PROBE (Public Report on Basic Education)
team, and is currently Director, Collaborative Research and Dissemination
(CORD), New Delhi.
Prof. Rounaq Jahan is Distinguished Fellow, Centre for Policy Dialogue, Dhaka,
Bangladesh, and Adjunct Professor, International Affairs, School of International
and Public Affairs, Columbia University. She had been Research Fellow at the Chr.
Michelsen Institute, Bergen, Norway, in 1979; Research Fellow in the Department
of Political Science and Committee on South Asia, University of Chicago, in 1975–
1976; Visiting Fellow at the Committee on South Asia, University of Chicago, in
1980; Senior Research Associate at the Center for Asian Development Studies,
Boston University, in 1978; and Research Associate at the Center for International
Affairs and the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, from
1971 to 1972. She served several policymaking bodies established by the
Government of Bangladesh in an advisory capacity in the fields of education,
culture, rural development, women and population, and UNDP, UNICEF, USAID,
OECD, The Rockefeller Foundation, as well as NGOs like International Women’s
Health Coalition. She also served as Head of the Programme on Rural Women,
Employment and Development Department at the International Labour
Organization, as Coordinator of the Programme on Integration of Women in
Development, United Nations Asia Pacific Development Centre (APDC), and as
Member of the advisory board of Human Rights Watch, the Population Council, the
international council of the Asia Society, and the Advisory Committee on rural
development at ILO.
Dr. Charu Jain works as Associate Fellow, National Council of Applied
Economic Research, New Delhi. Prior to this, she had worked at TNS India Ltd.
and PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PHDCCI), New Delhi. Her areas of
research interest include socio-economic issues, gender and educational studies,
consumer studies and developmental changes. She has worked in the area of
large-scale consumer studies, industrial surveys, housing studies, agriculture and
macroeconomic policy issues. Her current research focusses on the agricultural
outlook and handloom sector. She received her Ph.D. in economics from School of
Social Sciences (SOSS), Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), New
Delhi.
Prof. Praveen Jha is Professor at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning
(CESP) in the School of Social Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New
Delhi. He has also been Visiting Fellow at University of Bremen, Germany, and
Tianjin University of Finance and Economics Tianjin, China, and Visiting Senior
xviii Editor and Contributors

Research Economist at International Labour Organization, Geneva. His areas of

interest/specialisation are labour economics, agricultural economics, development
economics, economics of education, resource economics and history of economic
thought.
Mr. Deepak Kumar is a Ph.D. research scholar at Centre for Economic Studies
and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His research interests
include economics of education and development economics. He completed his M.
Phil. from Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University.
He was a part of the team that conducted qualitative field survey organised by
CMS-targeted research to empower change (a collaboration project with J-PAL
conducted in four districts of Haryana). He was also associated with the team
conducting quantitative field survey organised by Indian School of Business (ISB),
Hyderabad.
Prof. Manabi Majumdar works as Professor in political science, Centre for
Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata. She had obtained her Ph.D. from University of
Maryland. Her research interests include political economy of education, demo-
cratic decentralisation and human development. Earlier she was associated with the
Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai, and the Pratichi Institute
Kolkata. Her recent publications include Education and Inequality (jontly with Jos
Mooij) (Tayor & Francis).
Prof. Arup Mitra, Professor and Dean, Faculty of Economics, South Asian
University, New Delhi, served earlier as Professor at the Institute of Economic
Growth and as Director General, National Institute of Labour Economics, Research
and Development. His research interests include development studies, urban eco-
nomics, labour and welfare, industrial growth and productivity and gender
inequality—areas in which he has several publications. Many of his research papers
are published in international refereed journals. He has been Member of several
expert committees, and his contribution to policymaking has been significant.
At IEG other than research, he has been engaged in teaching the trainee officers
of the Indian Economic Service.
Dr. Susmita Mitra, Ph.D. in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, works
as Assistant Professor in Council for Social Development (CSD). She has received
Best Paper Award in the 2nd International Conference of REDSET (2015); Junior
Visiting Fellowship (2011) under the UNCTAD vi DAAD programme at the HTW,
Berlin, Germany; Junior and Senior Research Fellowship (2006–2011) in National
Entrance Test (NET); and Ford Foundation Scholarship, awarded for topping two
consecutive semesters during M.A. (2003–2005). She has been Co-principal
Investigator of the project ‘Status of and Barriers to School Education in
Chhattisgarh’ (Council for Social Development 2018). With strong econometric
background, she has 13 publications in international and national peer-reviewed
journals and edited volumes.
Editor and Contributors xix

Dr. Sangram Mukherjee works as Senior Research Associate, Pratichi Institute,

Calcutta. His research interests include educational inequalities and private
expenditure in education.
Prof. Mohd. Muzammil taught economics at Lucknow University for 38 years
before serving as Vice Chancellor of Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Rohilkhand University,
Bareilly, and then Agra University. He was Visiting Fellow, Oxford University;
Member of the RPC Cambridge University, UK; Chairman of the Committee on
Policy Making for Attracting Private Investment in Higher Education in Uttar Pradesh
(2012); Chairman of the Committee on Optimum Number of Colleges and Academic
Monitoring in Higher Education in UP (2014); Chairman of the Committee on
Evaluation of Answer Books in State Universities of UP (2015); and Member of the
Direct Taxes Advisory Committee, Government of India (2013–2015).
Dr. N. Mythili, Assistant Professor, National Centre for School Leadership,
National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, has completed her
Ph.D. in the area of education from Institute for Social and Economic Change
(ISEC), Bangalore. Her areas of work include educational data bank, school
leadership, school quality, improving student learning and teacher education.
Organisations where she was involved prior to joining NCSL, NIEPA, include
Centre for Multidisciplinary Development Research (CMDR), Dharwad; Azim
Premji Foundation, Banglaore; and Tata Institue of Social Scienes, Mumbai.
Prof. V. Nagi Reddy works as Adjunct Professor, Operations and IT, ICFAI
Business School, ICFAI Foundation of Higher Education (IFHE) University,
Hyderabad. He has long professional experience at the Indian Institute of
Management, Kolkata, and the Centre for Economic and Social Studies, Hyderabad.
Dr. P. Prudhvikar Reddy, Consultant, Centre for Economic and Social Studies,
Hyderabad, is a doctorate in economics and has gained rich experience in field
survey methods, especially in rural areas in both quantitative and qualitative spheres
of research including longitudinal studies. In the capacity of Senior Researcher and
Survey Coordinator in Young Lives Project since its inception (2002) he has
extensively travelled within and abroad. He has rich experience in the areas of
multi-dimensions of poverty and in rural development besides publishing agricul-
ture, education and poverty-related articles.
Mr. Ajaya K. Sahu works as Research Analyst, National Council of Applied
Economic Research, New Delhi. His expertise lies in conducting primary survey
that involves sampling and weight calculations, handling large-scale data like
NSSO employment and consumption data as well as ASI data. Further, he works on
poverty analysis and issues related to agriculture and rural development areas. He
completed his M.Phil. in economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi,
and is presently pursuing his Ph.D. in economics from Jamia Millia Islamia. He
cleared the National Eligibility Test (NET) with the Junior Research Fellowship,
conducted by UGC.
xx Editor and Contributors

Ms. Meera Samson is a Senior Researcher in Collaborative Research and

Dissemination (CORD), New Delhi, India. She has been doing research on edu-
cation for over 25 years, focussing primarily on the quality of education accessed
by disadvantaged groups. She was part of the team who worked on the Public
Report on Basic Education (PROBE) report in the 1990s. Secondary education has
been a focus of her research for many years, earlier in Delhi, Rajasthan and West
Bengal, and more recently in Maharashtra.
Dr. Nivedita Sarkar teaches at Ambedkar University Delhi. She holds a Ph.D. in
economics of education from National University of Educational Planning and
Administration, and her research interests include economics of education, applied
econometrics, higher education, development economics and educational financing.
Earlier, she worked at National University of Educational Planning and
Administration, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy and PGDAV
Evening College, Delhi University. Her current research focusses on skills and
labour market outcomes, privatisation in higher education and inequality in access
to higher education.
Dr. Amrita Sastry is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology, Jesus
and Mary College, University of Delhi—teaching for last 8 years. Her core area of
interest is in sociology of education. Currently, she is working on a project—New
Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) school at Bapu Dham, New Delhi—to
develop it to be a model school (approval from the president’s office On Jesus and
Mary College’s golden jubilee celebration).
Dr. Mona Sedwal, Ph.D. from Jawaharlal Nehru University and currently
Assistant Professor, National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration,
has worked in the area of Education for All (EFA) and has contributed in the
publication of two books published by Oxford University Press entitled India
Education Report, A Profile of Basic Education in India, edited by R. Govinda,
2002, and India Education Report, Progress of Basic Education, edited by R.
Govinda and Mona Sedwal, 2017. She has authored two books in history of edu-
cation entitled Genesis and Growth of University Education in India and
Development of University Education. She has authored and co-authored several
articles related to history of education, teacher education and disadvantaged groups.
Prof. C. Sheela Reddy is Chair Professor, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Chair in Social
Justice, Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi. Her areas of interest
include governance, public policy issues and international relations. She has four
books and several articles published in journals of high repute. Before joining IIPA,
Prof. Reddy worked in the Department of Political Science and Public
Administration, Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati.
Dr. Satadru Sikdar is with National Institute of Public Finance and Policy
(NIPFP), New Delhi, since 2006. He has been associated with several research
studies in NIPFP, including preparation of Medium-term Fiscal Policy for different
states, effectiveness and utilisation of funds for selected schemes, property taxation
Editor and Contributors xxi

and urban poverty alleviation among others. He did his Ph.D. from Centre for
Economic Studies and Planning (CESP/SSS), Jawaharlal Nehru University, New
Delhi on assessment of public provisioning of school education in India.
Dr. D. Sree Rama Raju, masters in statistics and Ph.D. in development studies, is
Consultant, database management, econometric and statistical modeling and anal-
ysis, agriculture, rural development, education, at Centre for Economic and Social
Studies, Hyderabad.
Dr. Narender Thakur teaches economics in Bhim Rao Ambedkar College,
University of Delhi. Presently, he is doing his postdoctoral research on ‘Shadow
Education in Global City: Coaching Industry in Delhi’ in Jawaharlal Nehru
University (funded by Indian Council of Social Science Research). His areas of
specialisation are applied econometrics, economics of education and migration. He
published his research articles in journals like the Economic and Political Weekly
and chapters in edited books.
Universal Secondary Education in India:
An Introductory Overview of Issues,
Challenges and Prospects

Jandhyala B. G. Tilak

Education as a powerful instrument of social transformation has been widely

recognised for a long period all over the world. Ever since India gained Independence
in 1947, making education available to all has been a priority for the government.
Over the last several decades, there has been considerable expansion of education.
But the growth has been uneven across levels of education. Though education is to
be seen as a continuum, the need for looking at each level of education has, hence,
become obvious in policy making and planning education. Immediately after Inde-
pendence, the Government of India set up a committee under the chairmanship of Dr.
A. L. Swami Mudaliar in 1952 (Government of India 1952–1953), to examine the
problems relating to secondary education, but secondary education has not received
enough attention; the policy attention got focussed on elementary education and also
on higher education. Though in the recent years, the government has taken up a few
initiatives on promoting secondary education, bias of the researchers also has been
against secondary education and in favour of elementary and higher education and
it is slowly changing.
Given the Constitutional Directive, during the post-Independence period, and
more particularly since the mid-1990s, with the launching of the District Primary
Education Project in India, the Education For All (EFA), and the Millennium Devel-
opment Goals (MDGs) programmes at global level, the education agenda in India
focussed predominantly on improving access to primary education and later elemen-
tary education. Even though the progress in universalisation of elementary educa-
tion has been impressive, quite a few major challenges remain. While elementary
education and, to some extent, higher education has received some priority in India,
relatively secondary education has been subject to severe neglect. It was assumed
that secondary education has no particular role in the development of a developing,

J. B. G. Tilak (B)
Council for Social Development, Sangha Rachana, K.K. Birla Lane, 53 Lodi Estate, New Delhi
110003, India
e-mail: [email protected]

© Council for Social Development 2020 1

J. B. G Tilak (ed.), Universal Secondary Education in India,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5366-0_1
2 J. B. G. Tilak

poor agrarian country. This has been the case in many countries and it is only recently
the thinking is slowly changing.
With the rapid growth in elementary education, partly attributable to some of the
moves mentioned above, including the nation-wide mid-day meals programme, the
Right to Education (RTE), and the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), in recent years
the need to shift attention to secondary education has begun to be felt. Most children
enrolled in elementary education expect to continue on with secondary education. It is
also being realised, only recently, that secondary education plays a crucial role in the
development of the society—in raising economic growth, improving income distribu-
tion, reducing poverty, and improving human development. While primary education
imparts the three basic Rs, rarely does it provide skills necessary for employment—
self-employment or otherwise, ensure some wages and economic livelihood (Tilak
2013). Moreover, most of the literacy and primary education programmes are also
found to be not imparting literacy that is sustainable, to ensure that children do not
relapse into illiteracy. Secondly, primary or even elementary education rarely serves
as a terminal level of education. Thirdly, even if primary education imparts some
valuable attributes in terms of attitudes and skills, and is able to raise people from
below the poverty line to above the poverty line, it is possible that this could be
just above the poverty line, but not much above; and, as such, the danger of their
relapsing into below the poverty line at any time could be high, which the skills and
attributes acquired at primary level may not be able to prevent. In the knowledge
economy, a person with mere eight years of schooling is as disadvantaged as an illit-
erate person. After all, it is secondary education that consolidates the gains received
from elementary education as it provides much needed education and training and
equips the youth with skills, aptitudes and values for a productive life, which are
essential for the youth to enter the next phase. By imparting necessary skills, post-
elementary education can keep people above the poverty line without the danger
of falling back into poverty trap—educational poverty and/or income poverty. It
provides skills required for an increasingly technology driven labour market and
production systems; and it is secondary (and more importantly higher education)
that helps in innovating technology and in sustaining growth. Development effects
of education take effect fully at the secondary level. It is secondary education that can
ensure a higher quality of life, by increasing the social, occupational and economic
levels of the households. Serving as a critical preparatory phase for youth to enter
either the labour market or higher education, secondary education is being increas-
ingly recognised, thus, as a critical element in achieving the goals of human devel-
opment, social progress, political stability and economic growth (Tilak 2007). As a
recognition of all this, secondary education also became a part of social development
goals (SDGs), formulated by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Active participation of the youth in social, political, and economic spheres at the
national level and in the global knowledge economy requires at least good quality
secondary education. So, the natural next step to universalize elementary education
is universalisation of secondary schooling among the country’s youth, so that the
basic learning capabilities that they are likely to achieve at the elementary level
are cultivated further at the post-elementary level, contributing to the growth of their
Universal Secondary Education in India … 3

cognitive knowledge, abstract and critical thinking, and practical skills. In short, there
is an increased awareness and even general consensus that Education For All in a
country like India will not be complete even with the achievement of universalisation
of elementary education, and that it needs to cover secondary education. Secondary
education is important for economic growth and development (World Bank 2009).
While the RTE was being formulated and during the following period, there was a
huge demand from academia and civil society that RTE should cover the whole school
education, including secondary education. There is also a big demographic pressure
building up, which will turn into a big problem, unless specific strategies are formu-
lated to turn it into a dividend by providing quality secondary education and training
to our youth. Thirdly, it is also being realised that goals relating to good quality
elementary education and strong higher education cannot be met without strong,
well spread quality secondary education. In response to some of these concerns, the
Central Advisory Board on Secondary Education (2005) has suggested that secondary
education should be made universal, though not necessarily made compulsory. Provi-
sioning of secondary education should be based on a rights-based approach, like
elementary education, and the access to it needs to be provided in a comprehensive
way. Universal access, as the CABE defined is access in a comprehensible manner
that is physical, social, cultural and economic. Slowly acknowledging all this, the
Government of India has launched a few years ago the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha
Abhiyan (RMSA) on the lines of SSA, with the objective of universalising secondary
education. The RMSA sought to put in place the necessary infrastructure, procedures,
norms etc., to remove gender and socio-economic barriers and promised ‘universal
access to secondary level education by 2017, i.e. by the end of 12th Five Year Plan
and achieving universal retention by 2020’. The target, as suggested by the CABE
includes universal enrolment in secondary education, full retention of children in
schools until they complete the secondary level, and attainment of mastery in all
kinds of learning tasks by more than 60% learners. Despite significant economic
growth and wide spread achievements in education sector, the promise is yet to be
realised. Apart from the RMSA, a few schemes have also been launched by the union
and state governments to strengthen public provisioning of secondary education in
India. The Government of India has initiated, among others, special programmes
such as Shaala Siddhi and school leadership to improve quality of education and
leadership at the school level.
It appears that the government is also planning to extend the RTE to secondary
education, on the basis of recommendation of a sub-committee of the CABE (2015a).
Recognising the linkages between elementary and secondary education, the Central
Advisory Board of Education has also recommended integration of SSA and RMSA.
Accordingly, very recently the government has launched in 2018 the Samagra
Shiksha Abhiyan, which will probably replace Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and RMSA.
These initiatives are also reflective of the realisation by the State that for the devel-
opment of the modern nation, universal, strong, equitable and quality secondary
education is essential.
What are the implications of these new initiatives? If the RTE is to be extended
to cover secondary education, will secondary education necessarily have the key
4 J. B. G. Tilak

features of the RTE, which are free, compulsory, universalism, quality and most
importantly education as a right. If not, what is the meaning of extension of the RTE
to secondary education? Will it cover upper/senior secondary education?
The new SSA—the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan—is proposed to cover elementary
education, secondary education, vocational education and teacher education, which
have been presently working in isolation from each other, and to bring them into
an integrated framework, partly recognising the close links between them. While a
holistic integrated approach to school education is desirable, in fact, not just school
education, the entire education sector from primary to higher, including adult and
continuing education, has to be seen as a continuum, and accordingly, educational
policy makers and planners have to adopt an integrated holistic approach to educa-
tion sector as a whole, recognising the inter-linkages between the several levels of
education and their inter-dependence on each other, there are several issues that need
to be carefully analysed, understood and planned at each level of education. After all,
some do require level-specific policy interventions. Does Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan
base on such an understanding? Does the Abhiyan mean only in terms of funding—
funding school education as a whole, rather than by level/type of school education,
or does it mean a truly integrated approach to the school education system, making
every school a composite/comprehensive school from Grade I (if not Pre-primary)
to Grade X (or XII), with common teachers, common infrastructure, and common
policies and approaches. Does it involve breaking of hierarchy in school system,
and a move towards a common school system? One would expect such features to
figure in the new model. The Dr Kasturirangan Committee that prepared the Draft
National Education Policy 2019 (MHRD 2019) also made a similar proposal, apart
from going further in recommending universalisation of school education covering
from pre-primary to higher secondary levels. The programme requires a huge amount
of financial resources, millions of additional trained teachers, vast infrastructure in
terms of buildings, laboratories, libraries, ICT facilities, etc., and above all, a strong
political commitment. On all these aspects, we presently face unfortunately a huge
deficit.
It is also important to note that unlike elementary education, the nature and purpose
of secondary education are different. Quality of secondary education has to be broad:
it has to focus not only on learning levels, but also prepare youth with good general
and specific skills for employment and citizenship with human values. Also at the
same time, it should prepare high quality students for higher education. Secondary
education requires teachers; but typical pupil–teacher ratio may not serve as a good
measure for planning, as we need subject teachers in large numbers at secondary level.
Secondary education is also diverse, as it includes academic, as well as vocational
and technical education/training streams, imparting knowledge, skills and universal
human values all at the same time.
Today, there are 62 million students in secondary (including senior secondary)
education in the country. The gross enrolment ratio at lower secondary level was
78.5% and at the senior secondary level it was 54.2% in 2016–17. These gross
figures underline how far we are from universal secondary education. A more worri-
some aspect is the high rate of drop-out in secondary education, with 35% of the
Universal Secondary Education in India … 5

students enrolled in grade IX dropping out before completing grade X and another
38% before completing grade XII. The quality of secondary education, reflected
in poor employability of secondary school graduates and/or their unsuitability for
admission in higher education, is also a matter of serious concern. Secondary educa-
tion is also associated with a high degree of inequalities—regional and inter-state,
between different social groups and economic classes. In short, secondary education
is associated with the familiar ‘elusive triangle’ of quantitative expansion, quality
and equity in education. An important feature of secondary education scene in India is
the existence of a high proportion of private schools—government supported private
institutions and, more importantly, private unaided institutions as a proportion of all
schools. The latter have increased in large numbers in the recent past, to surpass the
total size of the other two types—government and government aided private schools.
At the same time, it is increasingly being noted that the latter are associated with
several maladies and unfair practices.
To sum up, secondary education in India faces serious glitches on several fronts. As
per the gross enrolment ratios, there continues to be a large number of children who
need to be brought into secondary schools. Secondly, with near universal enrolment,
inequalities in elementary education may not be high; but the inequalities begin
to take strong roots in secondary education; thirdly, more than half the secondary
schools are in the private sector, with a major proportion of them being unaided or
self-financing schools, depending exclusively on student fees, which may also be
the cause of inequalities in education and, in turn, in society at large. Fourth, the
school system as a whole, including secondary education, faces serious shortage
of teachers. Partly to answer the problems of resource scarcity, the government is
serious about public–private partnerships, privatisation and other similar measures,
evidence on the effects of which is not encouraging. Lastly, education, including
secondary education, is facing a serious shortage of funds. Given all this, what are
the prospects for universalisation of secondary education?
In fact, quite a few more important questions arise in the minds of the academia
as well as policy makers and planners in this context.
First, given the growth in elementary education experienced during the last few
decades, and given the experience with the implementation of quite a few initiatives
during the last couple of decades, including DPEP, EFA, SSA, RTE, mid-day meals
and others, what are the prospects of achieving universal secondary education in the
next few years? What are the pre-requisites and other essential points of policy action
for achieving this laudable goal? Based on results of an econometric modelling exer-
cise used to find out the factors impacting secondary completion rates, P. Prudhvikar
Reddy, D. Sree Rama Raju and V. Nagi Reddy (in this volume) forecast that at the
national level only 62% children in the age group of 14–15 years would be enrolled
by 2020 and, given the trend, 100% net enrolment ratio (NER) would be achieved
only by 2038; similarly, it would take 80 years beyond 2020 to achieve 100% net
enrolment of children in the age group of 16–17 years. It was inferred that univer-
salisation of secondary education even in states like Andhra Pradesh and Telangana
was a distant dream. Apart from the enrolment, the learning levels in both the states
and also in India are a major concern as well.
6 J. B. G. Tilak

Second, the education system is expanding in terms of infrastructure, buildings,

and other facilities; and enrolments are exploding. Thus even as there has been
remarkable quantitative progress, questions persist on the quality of education and
learning levels of the school children. While impressive improvement in the enrol-
ment of children in primary, upper primary, secondary and higher secondary stages
has been observed, learning levels are found to be continuously declining and that
there are wide socio-economic differences not just in enrolment, but also more strik-
ingly in levels of learning. The Annual Status of Education Reports (ASER) (Pratham
Foundation, several years) every year highlight the huge learning deficit amongst
children—how children of a particular age do not have the learning competencies
that are required of them for that age. In this context, how does one ensure that in the
effort to universalise secondary education, the quality of education is also adequately
taken care of? What are the measures required to provide good quality education to
secondary school students so that they gain skills, knowledge, values and attitudes
that go beyond the narrowly defined learning outcomes?
Third, quality of education critically depends upon the availability of teachers
in adequate numbers and of appropriate quality. But teacher shortage has become
the bane at every level of education in India—primary, upper primary, secondary,
higher secondary and higher education. Teacher–student ratios are increasing and
have reached alarming levels in some institutions, if not in any State as a whole, on
average. We also have a large number of untrained teachers, contractual teachers and
even para teachers. The question is: if we have to universalise secondary education
with quality, what are the ways in which the problems relating to the teacher shortage
and teacher quality can be addressed.
Fourth, generally it is held that secondary education can be regarded potentially
as a first meaningful terminal level of education. But, for it to be a meaningful
terminal level of education that ensures access to good job market and decent wages,
secondary education needs to be providing good knowledge, skills and attitudes.
The Kothari Commission (Education Commission 1966) stated long ago that along
with the academic stream, it is imperative to have skill orientation through voca-
tional training and technical training programmes. Vocational and technical educa-
tion/training has its own positive effects on economic growth (Tilak 1988b). But it
has not been paid serious attention. Though the experience with vocational secondary
education has not been satisfactory, the recently launched national skill development
programme promises good prospects in employability of our youth. What then are the
strategies required to produce secondary school graduates who can confidently enter
labour market and, at the same time, be eligible for admission in higher education.
Finally, where do we get the money for universalisation of secondary education
and what are the options available. Though money does not necessarily solve all
the problems in education, it is critically important; rather, it forms an essential
condition, but not a sufficient condition for development of education. While we
have the target of spending 6% of the national income on education, as recommended
by the Kothari Commission, we are currently spending just about 4%. Every level
of education seems to be suffering from shortage of resources to fulfil the basic
objectives of expansion, quality and equity. Given this background, how does one
Universal Secondary Education in India … 7

ensure resource adequacy for universalisation of secondary education and also ensure
that the allocated resources are efficiently spent?
There are quite a few suggestions being made for the development of education,
some of which are articulated elaborately in the following chapters. First, while
planning for universalising secondary education, focus should be laid on the serious
glitches on several fronts, viz., bringing the large number of out of school children
into secondary schools; dealing with issues of inequalities that have taken serious
roots in secondary education; addressing issues of shortage of teachers, inadequacy
of funds; and regulating the practices of private schools, and other such measures.
There is an immense need to strengthen rather to rejuvenate government schools on a
large scale, which requires huge investment of financial resources, quality teachers,
infrastructure, etc. Strong political will and social commitment is needed to improve
education status, quality improvement, reduction in inequality and improvement in
governance. Governance reforms are critical for improving quality and for reducing
inequalities. A sound policy design and strategies for effective implementation need
to be developed.
Second, in order to eliminate or to reduce inequities emanating from the dual
system of education that exists for different strata in the society, a common school
system of education with neighbourhood school may be the best method. The Right to
Education Act in its comprehensive spirit needs be extended to secondary education,
so that secondary education is also provided free, compulsory and it is of equitable
good quality. Instead of talking about universalisation of any one level of school
education, it is better considering the universalisation of school education as a whole
that includes higher secondary level also.
Third, there is a need to lay special emphasis on quality of education and learning
levels of children in schools. In addition to providing good quality trained teachers,
the curriculum needs to be redesigned in such a way that all children, irrespec-
tive of their social and economic background are able to cope up with the system,
which will help in preventing dropping out or pushing out from school. A well-
designed curriculum would also help to imparting good values, attitudes and knowl-
edge, besides skills. At the secondary level of education, it is important that students
are sensitised about dignity of labour, world of work and career options. There is a
need for a proper mix of skill-oriented training and academic subjects in secondary
education, and this mix should be compulsory for all. Options regarding vocational
training programmes, skill development programme, have to be carefully designed.
Fourth, there is an enormous growth of private schools in the country and a large
number of them are run on commercial principles. Many such profit-oriented, non-
philanthropic private schools cause more and more inequalities in education and
in society at large. These schools also impart values among children which may
hinder the development of a humane society. There should be a tough regulation on
the growth of such private schools in the country and their functioning. The Draft
National Education Policy 2019 promises immediate closure of all such schools.
This volume consisting of about 20 articles by eminent scholars in the field drawn
from all over the country, an outcome of the Seminar organised by the Council for
Social Development on Universalisation of Secondary Education (14–15 July 2018),
8 J. B. G. Tilak

will be a valuable addition to the scanty literature on secondary education in India,

as it sheds light on some of the contemporary critical issues on universal secondary
education that are hitherto neglected. Based on rich database, the contributors to this
volume examine in depth some of the many critical issues in secondary education.
Many chapters are rich in database and empirical details and some are rich in policy
discussions. The contributors covered all India and also quite a few specific states in
their state level studies. Some have also examined issues and evidence at district and
sub-regional levels. The analyses provide not only valuable insights into the current
status of secondary education, but they also point towards the needed strategies and
approaches.
At the very outset, in the policy context, we have to realise, as Sheela Reddy
describes, that education is one of the necessary conditions for advancing of life
and freedom. As she rightly reminds, secondary education is a decisive stage in the
educational hierarchy and an effective link between primary and secondary educa-
tion. Moreover, it was noted how secondary education can act as a major instru-
ment of social change and development and the rigour of secondary education can
enable students to compete successfully in education and jobs, globally and nation-
ally. Referring to some of the major challenges that secondary education faces in
India, she stresses the need to discover new ways of ‘knowing’ so as to effectively
participate by our youth in the domestic and global processes, and thereby ensure
equitable economic and socio-cultural diversity; and the need to concentrate on the
marginalised and vulnerable sections of society to promote access and equity and
thereby to ensure the larger goal of social justice.
While secondary education is compulsory and free in some countries, a large
proportion of children of eligible age group in India still remains deprived of
quality secondary education with its far-reaching impact on society. With the help of
secondary data, Madhumita Bandyopadhyay and Sunita Chugh have explained where
does India stands in terms of providing quality secondary education and the chal-
lenges to be met in the coming years if the RTE Act is to be extended to secondary
education of reasonable quality in a diverse and vast country like India. The pre-
requisites for universal secondary education include, as Bandyopadhyay and Chugh
highlight, creation of elaborate physical infrastructure to provide universal access
and enable universal participation and ensuring that all children complete elementary
education. The country should prepare for the rigour of secondary education. Thirdly,
a massive reorientation of secondary education is needed to meet the needs and aspi-
rations of children of diverse backgrounds with different preparatory levels. Many of
these children are also first generation learners. It is necessary to pay serious attention
to quantitative and qualitative expansion of secondary education. Unfortunately, as
of now, the gap is very wide between current availability and the requirements in
all these aspects.
Based on valuable NSSO data from 2007 to 2014, Manabi Majumdar and
Sangram Mukherjee show that the participation rate of children in education in
India was high till 14 years of age after which it nose-dives, and more so for females
than males. About 21% rural youth and 18% urban youth (age group 5–29) did
not attend any educational institution. The mean age at first enrolment was similar
Universal Secondary Education in India … 9

across different expenditure (monthly per capita consumption expenditure) quintiles

but exits or drop-outs, which the authors like quite a few scholars prefer to refer
to as ‘push-out’, happen much earlier in the case of lower strata compared to the
upper income groups. Among the factors responsible for the push-out, apart ‘lack of
interest’ a factor that needs to be probed in detail, and the financial stress families
feel in sending their children to schools, the authors refer to the tendency on the part
of the schools to fail students simply because the infrastructure was not adequate to
cope with a large number of students. The authors argue that there are strong forces
within the education system and its underlying ‘vision’ that tend to work against the
egalitarian goal of secondary education for all.
What we observe at the national level with reference to many problems in
secondary education, such as low overall enrolments, high enrolments in private
schools, major infrastructural gaps in the provisioning of drinking water, functional
toilets, proper boundary walls and gates, and facilities of library, computer labora-
tories, science practical laboratories, etc., shortage of subject teachers, somewhat
irrational demand for English medium schools, etc., can be confirmed from field
surveys as well. While doing so based on primary and secondary data in a relatively
prosperous state of Maharashtra, Anuradha De and Meera Samson highlight many
other issues, including serious governance issues, absence of inspection and moni-
toring mechanisms, the long distances children have to travel to reach schools in
rural areas, non-availability of science and commerce streams of study in schools,
and the pressure of private tuitions. Their school survey also showed that while most
schools were highly functional, there was wide variation in quality among the several
secondary schools. An important factor behind this variation is the multiplicity of
bodies involved in the management of government and government-aided private
schools. There has been a decline in the number of government and government-aided
schools, and unaided self-financing schools are playing an increasingly greater role
in the system. Even government-aided schools were seen to start unaided sections in
their premises offering subjects which are in demand. The impact of these changes
is that enrolment in government and government-aided private schools has been
declining and those in private schools increasing. The changing public–private mix
has adversely impacted several dimensions of education, and as Achin Chakraborty
highlights, this has serious implications for the entire education system and the
society at large. The lack of investment in public—government and government-
aided—schools particularly hurts the prospects of students from disadvantaged back-
grounds, as they get forced to make do with schools where quality of teaching and
facilities are highly compromised.
The phenomenon of private schools is one of the most dominant aspects of Indian
education as it developed over the last three decades. Private schools became an
important source of inequality in education. There is massive expansion of private
schools and there is heterogeneity and hierarchy as well in its expansion. With the
increasing number of low-fee private schools, there is a change in the school choice
too, based on the supply side. Further, there is change in the behaviour of the disad-
vantaged groups and the middle classes too. The shift of middle-class parents in their
preference from government to private schools, including specifically low fee private
10 J. B. G. Tilak

schools, has shrunk the space for school–community interactions, due to which there
is no voice in government schools these days. Of the several factors that influence the
school choice in favour of private schools is the paying ability of parents. Students
belonging to richer families, urban areas and to the general social (caste) category
and boys have greater access to private schools, and the access to private schools
is limited for poor children, those from rural areas, Scheduled Castes/Tribes and
girls. Pradeep Choudhury feels that it is important to examine the growth of the
local private school market to understand the micro-phenomenon. He also opined
that there is dearth of research on the schooling choices of disadvantaged groups and
the people belonging to minorities. It is important to examine who is going to which
type of school, and why.
Based on an ethnographic case study of a private school in Odisha, Amrita Sastry
offers interesting insights into power dynamics that operate in private schools. The
aspiring middle class sends their children to private schools because of the latter’s
quality connotation and their readiness to compromise even their basic needs to
meet the educational needs of their children. However, as Sastry observes, educa-
tion is now commodified as a package and the power dynamics operates in private
schools based on the school culture. There is power dynamics in the culture of
learning, which enables, isolates or even disables children’s learning. Children are
considered the lowest rung in terms of power/space and the teachers, the principal,
the management, the parents, and others occupy high space in the power ladder.
Indeed, the children are regarded as blank slates where people wielding power write
their thoughts. Power dynamics also exists between teacher–students and students–
students in private schools. We should realise the importance of diffusing the notion
of power in the classroom and search for innovative student-centric classroom prac-
tices. Unfortunately, as Manabi Majumdar observes, our approach to developing
the school system in the country is guided by choice-centric view, supply-centric
perspective, and curriculum, pedagogy and evaluation centric approach. There is
need to change all this.
Quite a few contributions in this book focus on analysing statistically the deter-
minants of participation in secondary schooling. In three separate papers, Deepak
Kumar, Susmita Mitra and Nivedita Sarkar analyse using different databases and
different methods, determinants of participation or enrolment in and determinants
of completion of secondary education in India. While individual, social and school
related factors (e.g. distance to school) and many other factors are important in
explaining the variations in enrolment rates and in drop-out rates among children,
including gender, caste, religion, region (rural or urban), and family-related reasons,
family background, parental education, disinterest in education, inability of students
to cope up with the curriculum and examinations are important, the most impor-
tant factor still emerges to be economic in nature, that relates to direct and indirect
costs of secondary education (e.g. school fees, books, uniforms, and transporta-
tion costs), and opportunity costs of education, reflected in the need to work at
home or in the labour market. While it may not be so hard for economically weaker
sections of society or minority groups to send their children to primary schools, it
becomes significantly harder to send them to secondary education because of direct
Universal Secondary Education in India … 11

and opportunity costs. The consistency with which the correlation between economic
status of the households and participation in secondary education, or drop-outs from
secondary education, or being out of schools exists, is indeed very striking, similar
to the pattern shown earlier by Tilak (2002) in case of literacy and other levels of
education. Low economic conditions do not allow families to send their children to
secondary/higher secondary education, and inability to become educated, in turn,
affects their ability to improve their economic status and to be active partners in
national development.
Despite increase in the gross enrolment ratio, the issues of social access and equity
remain persistent. Social, gender and income disparities continue to be reflected in
gaps in learning levels and drop-out of school. Wide regional variations are reflected
in the structure of school education, management, infrastructure facilities, teacher
deployment, quality, learning achievements, etc. While quite a few initiatives have
been made towards improving secondary education in many states, the system is char-
acterised by weak implementation of educational reforms, ineffective teacher training
programmes and the low importance accorded to school leadership. According to
Mythili, there were five major leadership factors in the Indian context, which affect
the performance of the school system as a whole, namely vision building, goal setting,
organisational or school improvement, commitment and goal achieving, and on all
fronts there is need for improvement.
There have been significant changes in the labour market in the last two decades
which created pressures for skill improvement in India. The question that arises
in the present context is how our education system, especially secondary school
system, will cope with this requirement. The relevance of linking the skill devel-
opment with secondary schooling can be viewed in two ways: to reduce the labour
search cost in the domestic and international labour markets; and skill development
for self-employment and self-sufficiency for rural and urban youth in India, which
promotes upward mobility for socially backward classes. Apart from vocational and
technical education at school level, and training at post-secondary level institutions,
little has been done on promoting skills among youth for a long period. In fact,
as Mona Sedwal shows, even vocational education programme at secondary level
has been elusive; it did not take off well. As per some recent statisitcs, only 5% of
the Indian labour force in the age group of 20–24 has received vocational training.
It is difficult to estimate skill shortages. But it is widely known that the skill gap—
between demand and supply—is increasing over time. The government of India has
launched a major programme of skill development with a target of imparting skill
intensive training to 500 million by 2022. The training programmes should impart
both ‘general’ and ‘specific’ skills (Becker 1975), while education imparts ‘soft’
and ‘hard’ skills in addition to knowledge. The costs of ‘general’ training need to
be met by industry, training for ‘specific’ skills by firms, and costs of education by
the state (Tilak 1994). As Sedwal argues, what is needed are innovative solutions
for emerging demands, changing of funding mechanism from a supply to a demand-
driven model, transfer of public resources on the basis of input or output criteria,
a flexible education system, enabling basic education that provides the foundation
12 J. B. G. Tilak

for learning, development of core capabilities, and core technical skills in secondary
and tertiary education.
Secondary education is expected to provide general and specific skills. As Bornali
Bhandari, Charu Jain and Ajaya Sahu argue secondary education should aim at
laying the foundations for lifelong learning and human development, by offering
foundational skills—general training, as well as subject- or skill-oriented skills
(specific training) using more specialised teachers, so that secondary school grad-
uates’ employability in labour market and at the same time admissibility in higher
education are ensured. In other words, as Arup Mitra in a short note describes,
improving the quality of education and training and integrating the general education
with vocational courses are instrumental in providing strong education that serves
both purposes. Universalisation of secondary schooling and provision of skills to
youth need to be integrated into one major programme, as there is a big common
ground between them. While earlier evidence has not supported such a model of
simultaneously providing in the same school academic and vocational education and
training under the label of ‘diversified school curriculum’ (Tilak 1988a, 2003), the
changing labour market conditions may as well make it efficient. But both vocational
education and secondary general education face serious challenges in India and in
many other developing countries, due to rising costs, and inequalities by caste, class
and gender.
An important troubling issue in education relates to financing of secondary
education. It is often well-acknowledged that public policies and provisioning for
secondary education in India have been inadequate. As Narender Thakur argues,
one of the three prominent challenges secondary education faces in the country is
declining government expenditure for education in general and secondary education
in particular, the other two challenges being increase in private (household) expen-
diture in education including secondary education in the poverty driven hierarchical
society, and existing and growing social-economic inequalities and exclusions in
the school education including especially in secondary education. As all these three
are inter-related, expansion of public funding might need to address all the three
simultaneously.
Much evidence exists that shows that public expenditure matters; it impacts
enrolment and quality of education and that there is a significant positive corre-
lation between public expenditure and several educational indicators (Tilak 1999),
including the learning outcomes. As Pravin Jha and Sikdar tried to show, the poor
state of secondary education in the country is closely related to the level and nature
of funding of secondary education. Goa, Kerala and Himachal Pradesh have been
consistently performing better than all other States with regard to per child expendi-
ture on secondary education and they are doing good in physical outcomes as well,
while Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh which finance secondary
education at a much lower level have been relatively poor performers. Further, they
observed that per student expenditure through the RMSA grants had declined consid-
erably in several states over the last few years. The distribution of RMSA grants
favoured the eight States of Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka,
Telangana, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. The shares in grants depended
Universal Secondary Education in India … 13

upon factors like population size, capacity to spend, timely submission of bills etc.
Secondary education in including government and government-aided schools in Uttar
Pradesh, as Mohd. Muzammil shows, critically depends upon grants-in-aid. This is
true in case of most other states as well: government-aided private schools depend on
government grants; and other sources of revenue for government aided schools (and
also government schools) are non-existent (Tilak 2008). Jha and Sikdar favoured use
of per student allocation in Kendriya Vidyalayas as a thumb rule marker of ‘unit cost’.
In 2015–16, per student government expenditure in these schools was approximately
Rs. 32,000, while in many states, the corresponding figure is hardly about one third
of this. This would considerably ease the financial stress in education. A similar
suggestion was made by a Sub-Committee of the CABE (2015) that examined the
pathways to improve the conditions of government schools in the country (see also
Tilak 2017). As Pravin Jha argues, there is a need to think beyond the possibilities
of resources mobilisation which give us political spaces that have not been explored
barring the transition to the phase of goods and service tax (GST). He highlights that
there is a need first to look for solutions to the challenges of resource mobilisation.
Lastly, the experience of many countries shows that while the design of the poli-
cies and their implementation is important, educational policies have been successful
where they are backed by strong political will and social commitment, as Rounaq
Jahan highlights in the concluding chapter of the book, based on her valuable expe-
rience in developing countries like Bangladesh. We have quite a bit of rich evidence
from many countries that shows how political will and social commitment mattered
in transforming and even in revolutionising their education systems, and how coun-
tries failed in their educational reforms due to lack of a strong politcal will (see
Tilak 1991, 2001).
This anthology of 20 articles by eminent scholars in the field from all over the
country, hopefully serves an important purpose of filling the knowledge gap in case
of secondary education in the country, as there are very few studies on secondary
education in India. It is hoped that the book will contribute to enhancing the level
of public discourses on universal secondary education and at the same time help the
policy makers with deep insights into the issues involved.

References

Becker, G.S. (1975). Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference
to Education. 2nd ed. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research.
Central Advisory Board of Secondary Education. (2005). Universalisation of secondary education:
Report of the central advisory board of secondary education. New Delhi: Government of India.
Education Commission. (1966). Education and national development. Report of the education
commission 1964-1966. New Delhi: Government of India [chairperson: Dr D S Kothari].
Government of India. (1952). Report of the secondary Education commission: Mudaliar commission
report 1952-53. New Delhi: Ministry of Education, New Delhi. https://www.educationforallini
ndia.com/1953%20Secondary_Education_Commission_Report.pdf.
14 J. B. G. Tilak

Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD). (2015a). CABE sub-committee on extension

of RTE to pre-school and secondary education. 2015-17 (Draft Papers). (New Delhi: National
University of Educational Planning and Administration) New Delhi: Ministry of Human Resource
Development).
MHRD. (2015). Report of the CABE-subcommittee on devising pathways for improving government
schools. New Delhi: Government of India.
MHRD. (2019). Draft national education policy 2019. [Chairperson: Dr K Kasturirangan]. New
Delhi: Government of India.
Pratham Foundation (various years). Annual school education report (various years). Mumbai.
Tilak, J. B. G. (1988a). Economics of vocationalization: A review of evidence. Canadian and
International Education, 17(1), 45–62.
Tilak, J. B. G. (1988b). Vocational education and economic growth. Journal of Educational Planning
and Administration, 2(1–2)(January–April), 157–184.
Tilak, J. B. G. (1991). Why educational policies can fail? A review article. Journal of Educational
Planning and Administration, 5(3)(July), 317–323.
Tilak, J. B. G. (1994). Measurement of Training Costs. In: T. Husen & T. N. Postlethwaite (Eds.),
The International Encyclopedia of Education. 2nd ed. (pp. 6420-6425). Oxford: Pergamon Press.
Tilak, J. B. G. (1999). Investment in human capital in India: An inter-state analysis of stock and flow
of human capital. Journal of Indian School of Political Economy, 11(January–March), 39–75.
Tilak, J. B. G. (2001). Education and Development: Lessons from Asian Experience, Indian Social
Science Review (ICSSR, New Delhi), 3(2)(July–December), 219–266.
Tilak, J. B. G. (2002). Education poverty in India. Review of Development and Change,
7(1)(January–June), 1–44.
Tilak, J. B. G. (2003). Vocational Education and Training in Asia. In J. P. Kleeves & R. Watanabe
(Eds.), Handbook on educational research in the Asia Pacific Region (pp. 673–86). Dordrecht:
Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Tilak, J. B. G. (2007). Post-elementary education, poverty and development in India. International
Journal of Educational Development, 27(4)(July), 435–445.
Tilak, J. B. G. (Ed.). (2008). Financing of Secondary Education: Grants-in-Aid Principles and
Practice. New Delhi: Shipra Publications/National University of Educational Planning and
Administration.
Tilak, J. B. G. (2013). Financing of Secondary Education in Asia-Pacific. Bangkok: UNESCO
Bangkok Asia & Pacific Regional Bureau of Education. Education Policy and Research Series:
Discussion Document No. 4. Available at: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0022/002255/225
507E.pdf.
Tilak, J. B. G. (2017). Rejuvenation of government schools. IIC Quarterly, 44(1)(Summer), 149–
163.
World Bank. (2009). Secondary education in India: Universalizing opportunity. Washington, DC:
World Bank.
Secondary Education in India: Growth
and Inequalities
Status of Secondary Education in India:
A Review of Status, Challenges
and Policy Issues

Madhumita Bandyopadhyay and Sunita Chugh

1 Introduction

The increasing complexity of modern societies, knowledge and information-intensive

social and work milieu makes it necessary to acquire more years of schooling even
to perform minimal functions. The seven or eight years of basic schooling, imparting
fundamental numeracy and literacy, is, increasingly, becoming inadequate. People
now require a compulsory education that goes beyond basic numeracy and literacy
and secondary education helps them acquire at least rudimentary abilities to criti-
cally think and learn. It is also argued that investment in secondary education yields
considerable social and economic returns, making it crucial for national develop-
ment (World Bank 2005, 2009; Tilak 2001, 2003; Mukhopadhyay 2002; Reddy
2007; Biswal 2011). Secondary education has proven to be providing more benefits
in improving the health, gender equality and living conditions of human popula-
tions. It is also critical to breaking the inter-generational vicious cycle of poverty. It
is argued that for achieving sustainable development, the youth needs to be provided
a minimum of ten years of school education. In many nations like Australia, Japan,
New Zealand, Korea, compulsory schooling extends to at least lower secondary
education, covering ten or more years of schooling.
Most of the economic and employment growth over the past ten years in India has
taken place in skilled services (information technology, financial services, telecom-
munications, tourism and retail) and skill-intensive manufacturing, all of which
require, at a minimum, a secondary education certificate (World Bank 2009). Global-
isation and the growth of knowledge-based economies, thus, give a sense of urgency

M. Bandyopadhyay (B) · S. Chugh

National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, 17B Sri Aurobindo Marg,
New Delhi 110016, India
e-mail: [email protected]

© Council for Social Development 2020 17

J. B. G Tilak (ed.), Universal Secondary Education in India,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5366-0_2
18 M. Bandyopadhyay and S. Chugh

to the heightened demand for secondary education. At the individual level, secondary
education empowers and prepares youth for the labour market, pursuing higher
education and personal development.
In this background, the Right to Education Act 2009 that provides eight years
of compulsory education needs to be revisited. Time is now ripe to explore the
possibility of extending the years of compulsory education and, by implication,
extending the years of education provided as part of Right to Education, to ten years.
The Kothari Commission’s suggestion to have an undifferentiated curriculum till ten
years of schooling may, in fact, hint at the desirability of ten years of compulsory
schooling (GOI 1966). Making a minimum of ten years of schooling as compulsory
and free has been on the agenda of international conventions and declarations for a
long time. For example, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), adopted in
1989 (UNHR 1989), declared that States need to take appropriate measures to ensure
that rights of all children under the age of 18 years should be protected—including
the right to name and nationality, freedom of speech and thought, access to healthcare
and education (Article 28) and freedom from exploitation, torture and abuse. While
the Right to Education Act 2009 makes a provision for free and compulsory education
for children of 6–14 years’ age, the question that arises is whether a child of 14 years
is mature enough to take a decision on whether to continue education or not? If
education provided in the school does not interest him/her, he/she would like to
leave and enter any kind of job. Should the State not protect the rights of child to
education till he/she finishes secondary level of education, i.e. ten years of education,
especially in this information and knowledge-intensive ambience?
The 11th Five year Plan (GOI 2008) proposed a roadmap to achieve universal
secondary education and targeted increase of gross enrolment ratio (GER) from 52%
in 2004–05 to 75% by 2011–12. Further, the 12th Five year Plan (GOI 2013) proposed
achieving near universal enrolment in secondary education, with GER exceeding
90% by 2017 (12th Five Year Plan Pg. 72) and emphasised on imparting vocational
and technical skills while recommending higher investments to provide secondary
schools with equipments (such as workshops, machines and computer equipment)
besides trained teachers/trainers having technical skills. The Central Advisory Board
of Education (CABE) Committee Report highlighted that ‘universal secondary
education is a pre-condition for equitable social development, widening participation
in India’s democratic functioning, building an enlightened secular republic and for
being globally competitive and proposed universalisation of secondary education by
the year 2020’ (GOI 2006, CABE :14). The CABE committee, in its 58th Meeting,
felt that every child in the country-irrespective of gender, caste, class or community to
which he/she belongs—must have the right to at least ten years of formal schooling.
It decided to set up a CABE committee on ‘Extension of the Right of Children to Free
and Compulsory Education Act 2009 to pre-school education and secondary educa-
tion’. Given this context, the paper makes an attempt to discuss the present status of
secondary education in India and the feasibility and preparedness required to extend
RTE 2009 to secondary education. The paper is based on the data collected from
secondary sources. Considering the demands of a growing knowledge economy, the
paper suggests that RTE needs to be extended but, at the same time, consolidation of
Status of Secondary Education in India: A Review … 19

RTE at the elementary level needs to be seriously examined if we want that our chil-
dren get the required skills and knowledge expected of secondary-level graduates.
In doing so, the paper starts with a brief discussion on policy framework available
for secondary education.

2 Policy Framework on Secondary Education

After Independence, it was strongly felt that the school system needs to be expanded
at all levels to provide equal educational opportunity to all, irrespective of caste,
religion and gender. Committees were appointed to examine the scope of expansion
of secondary education. As early as 1948, the Tarachand committee recommended
school education to be of 12 years comprising five years of education at the Junior
Basic Stage, three years at the Senior Basic Stage or pre-secondary and four years
at the secondary stage, with a single examination at the end of the secondary stage.
On the recommendation of CABE committee in 1951, the Secondary Education
Commission (GOI 1953) was appointed in September 1952, with Dr. A. L. Mudaliar,
as its chairman. To make the recommendations more democratic and mass-oriented,
opinions of teachers and educational experts were taken into consideration, and
for understanding the ground reality, members of the commission visited various
parts of India. The commission looked into the shortcomings of secondary education
and found education as bookish, mechanical, stereotyped, isolated from life, and
examination-oriented. More so, subjects of agricultural-, technical- and commerce-
related areas did not find a place in secondary education. It was not considered
as a terminal stage of education, rather a preparatory stage for students for entry
to the higher educational institutions. The commission also outlined the duration,
curriculum framework and medium of instruction to be followed at the secondary
level of education. It proposed a national system of education having 11 years of
schooling, with five years of primary education, three years of upper primary/middle
education and three years of higher secondary education. It also proposed diversifi-
cation of courses, multi-purpose schools, agriculture education in secondary schools
and opening of technical schools in close proximity to appropriate industries. Consid-
ering the basic tenets of Constitution, it proposed expansion in the existing system
and recommended schools for differently abled children. Following the recommen-
dations of this commission, national system of education of 11 years was imple-
mented. A comprehensive review of education, covering all levels, was undertaken
by the Education Commission in 1964 (GOI 1966), culminating in the National
Policy on Education (NPE 1968). It advocated a ‘common school system’ (CSS)
serving all sections of society living in a common neighbourhood. It proposed a
uniform structure of education, known as National System of Education, entailing a
10 + 2 + 3 structure, for the entire country. For school education, it stressed on 5 +
3 + 2 + 2 structure of education consisting of five years of primary, three years of
upper primary, two years of high school and two years of higher secondary education.
While most of the States have accepted the 10 + 2 pattern, there are many which have
20 M. Bandyopadhyay and S. Chugh

not yet implemented it. A few States have attached the +2 stage to the tertiary level
of education whereas some have made it a terminal stage of school education. In so
far as curriculum was concerned, NPE 1968 (GOI 1968) proposed the introduction
of undifferentiated curriculum till the secondary level of education, for both boys and
girls. Besides, science and mathematics were made compulsory subjects up to high
school stage for all children. The Policy recommended changes in the rigid structures
of the system and proposed alternatives like multiple entry, part-time education and
non-formal education. It suggested the establishment of Board of School Education
in each State. To make the system more flexible and widespread, GOI (1968) also
recommended school mapping exercise to be done. School mapping was suggested
for achieving equity wherein schools would be established for unserved habitations
and populations.
By mid-1980s, it was realised that the desired progress had not been achieved in
the education sector and the need was felt to revitalise education. Hence, the National
Policy on Education (NPE) (GOI 1986) was formulated and adopted in 1986 followed
by another document known as ‘Programme of Action’ (POA) which focused on
details of implementation of this policy (GOI 1992). NPE (1986) emphasised the
cardinal principle of education being a unique investment in the present and for
the future, necessitating all children to be given equal opportunity to receive quality
education. It put a new thrust on secondary education, since it was visualised as a link
between elementary and higher education and, thus, had forward and backward link-
ages. The policy recommended implementation of national system of education with
a common educational structure of 10 + 2 + 3. To bridge the rural–urban disparities,
it proposed to expand and improve secondary schooling facilities in the rural areas
and smaller towns. It proposed special initiatives for improving access and partici-
pation of backward social groups. Following this, CABE committee on secondary
education 1994 also recommended establishment of schools in unserved areas, Navo-
daya Vidyalaya for talented children from rural areas, vocational stream at the senior
secondary level, etc. After a gap of ten years, CABE committee on ‘universalisa-
tion of secondary education’ in 2005 (GOI 2006) was formulated, which prepared
a blueprint for universalisation of secondary education with the realisation that for
national development of country, more skilled workforce is required, the Committee
proposed universal secondary education that included universal enrolment in the
9th and 10th grades, universal retention, achieving zero drop-out rate and universal
performance at a pre-determined level. For expansion in the secondary school system,
it suggested a multi-pronged strategy depending upon the specific context and situ-
ation. It proposed setting up of new schools in those locations that were devoid of
the secondary schooling facility, arranging second shifts in thickly populated areas
and upgrading existing elementary schools by adding extra classrooms and other
facilities. However, the choice among these alternatives was situational and based on
school mapping, at least at the district level and preferably at the block level. It again
reiterated that while doing the exercise of school mapping, habitations with SC and
ST population should not be discriminated against.
A brief review of the policy pronouncements makes it clear that since the 1950s,
the emphasis has been on giving equal opportunity for education to all children.
Status of Secondary Education in India: A Review … 21

Significance of secondary education, both for the growth of an individual and for
the nation, has been considered important, but for entering secondary education,
the student should have completed the elementary level of education. Hence, in
the initial years, a greater emphasis was on the provision of elementary education.
For this, a number of schematic and programmatic interventions such as Operation
Black Board (OBB), Shiksha Karmi Project (SKP), Bihar Education Project (BEP),
Mahila Samakhya (MS), Lok Jumbish Project (LJP), District Primary Education
Programme (DPEP) and the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), the flagship centrally
sponsored scheme in partnership with State Governments, were initiated. The basic
aim of all these schemes and programmes was to improve access and participation
at the elementary level. This was further strengthened with the enactment of the
Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009 (GOI 2010) which
provided a legal mandate to provide free and compulsory education to every child
in the age group of 6–14 years. As a consequence of this, an increasing number of
children enrolled and completed elementary education, creating a demand and need
for expansion of secondary education. For this, in 2009, the Rashtriya Madhyamik
Shiksha Abhiyan was launched, with a vision of making secondary education of
good quality available, accessible and affordable to all young persons in the age
group of 15–16 years. The objective of the scheme was to enhance access and improve
quality of education at secondary stage while ensuring equity. The scheme envisaged
enhancing the enrolment for Classes IX–X by providing a secondary school within
a reasonable distance of every habitation, improving quality of education imparted
at the secondary level through making all secondary schools conform to prescribed
norms, and removal of gender, socio-economic and disability barriers. A renewed
emphasis was also given by 58th CABE committee by proposing to review the
feasibility of extension of RTE Act, 2009 (GOI 2010) to the secondary level of
education. But before we look at the possibility of extension of RTE Act, 2009
(GOI 2010) to secondary education, we need to have a brief overview of the existing
scenario and the challenges of secondary education.

3 Status of Secondary Education in India

India is one of those countries where, despite being a fundamental right, elementary
Education is still out of reach for many children and universalisation of elementary
education (UEE) is still an elusive goal, particularly in the rural areas of backward
States (Govinda and Bandyopadhyay 2010). For the development of a strong system
of secondary education, much depends on the progress in elementary education.
Continuous efforts made for effective implementation of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan
(SSA), as well as enforcement of RTE Act, 2009, have had a significant impact
on expansion of schooling facilities and that, in turn, has improved enrolment and
participation of children at the elementary level. This progress is also reflected in the
transition rate between Grades VIII and IX, which is around 92 percent at present
(NIEPA 2015). Despite this high transition rate, secondary education has benefited
22 M. Bandyopadhyay and S. Chugh

Table 1 Per 1000 distribution of persons (aged five years and above) by completed level of
education
Level of education Rural Urban Rural + urban
Male Female Male Female Male Female
Not literate 198 376 90 190 165 320
Literate
Without schooling 8 6 5 6 7 6
Up to primary 377 336 285 280 349 319
Upper primary 173 130 157 143 168 134
Secondary 118 80 150 133 128 96
Higher secondary 71 45 114 102 85 62
Diploma 11 5 30 14 17 8
Graduation 37 18 126 96 64 42
Post-graduation and above 8 4 43 35 18 14
All (incl. not reported) 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Source 71st Round NSSO, GOI 2015b, New Delhi

only a small section of the population. According to the 71st National Sample Survey
(GOI 2015b), 12.8 percent males and 9.6 percent females could complete secondary
education. For higher secondary education, these percentages have further declined
to 8.5 percent for males and 6.2 percent for females. Table 1 highlights this aspect.
The percentage share of people with secondary education has always been higher
than those of people with higher secondary education; it has also been higher in
case of males than in females, and in urban compared to rural areas. However, there
has been a significant improvement in elementary education sector especially under
the SSA that considerably reduced the number of ‘out of school’ children in the
6–14 years age group. This has already set the stage for an exponential demand for
secondary education. The recent report (GOI 2015a) informs that, for rural areas,
the percentage of children still to be brought within the ambit of school education is
11 and 13 for boys and girls, respectively, in the 6–10 years age group, which marks
a significant decline from about 22 and 24% respectively, as recorded in the Census
2011. This might have resulted in increase in enrolment at the secondary level as
well.
The improvement in enrolment in secondary schools has been observed much
before RMSA was initiated. For example, the MHRD report states, ‘while the growth
of enrolment in the secondary school had increased at an annual rate of 2.83% during
1990s, it increased at 7.4% per annum between 2000 and 2003’ (GoI, 2005–06,
p.15). The increase in enrolment has accelerated more in recent years along with
improvement in retention and transition from Grade VIII to IX. As the available data
suggests, 32 million children (14.6 million boys and 17.4 million girls) were added in
secondary/senior secondary schools between the years 2001–01 and 2013–14 (GOI
2015a). Enrolment of girls increased almost threefold compared to a near twofold
Status of Secondary Education in India: A Review … 23

increase for boys, indicating that gender parity in enrolment in secondary education
has improved since 2000.
Apart from establishing more schools, more concerns have been expressed by
different scholars, practitioners and user groups regarding the qualitative expansion
of secondary education. As Mukhopadhyay says, ‘The greatest pressure in the coming
years will be to redefine the role of secondary education consistent with the social
and economic objectives of the country’ (Mukhopadhyay 1999, 140). This concern
is still valid in today’s context.

3.1 Access to Secondary Schooling Facility

At the time of Independence, shortage of skilled labour was a major constraint in the
achievement of government’s development goals. To address this challenge, the State
made efforts to improve the access and participation of children. In the earlier post-
Independence decades, most of the expansion took place at the primary school level
but, in recent years, a renewed emphasis has been accorded to secondary education, in
response to high social demand and increased completion rate in elementary level of
education. Referring once again to the Secondary Education Commission (1952–53),
the report recommended using the optimum size of school and classroom as a criterion
to open and run new secondary schools and also to upgrade existing upper primary
schools to secondary schools. It proposed that in any class, a minimum of 30 and a
maximum of 40 should be enrolled and that total enrolments in a secondary school
should average 500, with a maximum of 750 students. However, in subsequent policy
documents, this was replaced by distance-based norms to shape expanded access to
secondary schooling. In the post-Independence period, the distance-related guide-
lines for planning secondary school location was determined under the All India
Educational Surveys which periodically collected data on the basis of these norms.
The Education Commission (1964–66) raised concerns about the uneconomic insti-
tutions at secondary level and recommended a working rule to establish a secondary
school serving a radius of five to seven miles, with population coverage of 10,000 to
15,000. The Education Commission also emphasised proper planning of secondary
school location. Small and uneconomic schools were to be avoided and measures
to be taken for their consolidation. Since large class sizes were unavoidable, the
Commission fixed an upper limit to the class size, i.e. maximum limit (45) in order
to limit the difficulties of teaching large classes (Education Commission 1964–66;
432). Since 1953 till date, several policy documents recommended secondary educa-
tional institutes to be available within 5–8 km from the residence of the children,
details for which are presented in Table 2.
Equal access to good quality secondary education appears to be a major concern
while discussing the issue of improvement of secondary education in India (Biswal
2011; Mehta 2004; Tilak 2001). It has been mentioned earlier that the percentage
of people who attained secondary and higher secondary education is much less in
the rural area than in the urban area. The situation becomes more alarming if we
24 M. Bandyopadhyay and S. Chugh

Table 2 Norms for establishment of school under different policies/programmes

Policy/programme Distance norms Revision recommended
Secondary Education Commission Five miles 30 students per teacher and 40
1952–53 students per class
First AIES 1957 Five miles Schools for habitation of 5000
Education Commission 1964–66 Five to seven miles Upward revision of distance and
population limits for new school
Third AISES (1973) 5 km Undertake Education
Commission’s recommendation
of five to seven miles
Fourth AISES 8 km (five miles)
NPE (1986), POA (1992) Planned expansion of Expanding access to secondary
secondary education education by setting up new
facilities schools in the under-served areas
and by extending and
consolidating the existing
facilities (POA, p. 44)
CABE (2005) Distance norm Revision of the distance norms in
rationalised different situations and
rationalising it
11th Five Year Plan 5 km
RMSA 2009 5–8 km 12th five year plan (2012–17),
reasonable distance of 5–8 km
12th Five Year plan Provision of necessary
infrastructure and resources in
the secondary; and (b) provision
of extra support for education of
girls, rural children and students
belonging to SC/ST, minority
and other weaker sections of the
society. The interventions, which
were supported under RMSA,
were (a) upgradation of upper
primary schools to secondary
school, (b) strengthening of
existing secondary school, (c)
Additional Classroom, (d)
science laboratory with
equipment, (e) library, (f)
Computer room, (g) art, craft and
culture room, (h) toilet blocks
and water facility, (i) major
repair, and (j) residential quarters
for teachers
Status of Secondary Education in India: A Review … 25

examine habitation level data provided by NSSO and NCERT. As data indicates,
there are still many habitations which have not been provided with any secondary
school in nearby areas. As per 8th All India Education Survey (AIES) (NCERT
2009), 88 percent of habitations serving 92 percent of population had a secondary
schools within a distance of eight kilometers. It has also reported that, 79.94 percent
of rural habitations have secondary schools within five kilometre distance. These
habitations cater to around 85 percent of total rural population. These habitations
include 8 percent of those habitations that have secondary education facilities within
themselves and cater to only 21.35 percent population. Around 84.18 percent SC-
dominated and 65.62 percent ST-dominated habitations have secondary education
facilities within five kilometres. According to the 71st NSSO (2015b), while 40
percent of rural households had accessibility to secondary schools beyond 2 kilometer
of distance, more than 12 percent of rural households, surveyed by NSSO, did not
have any secondary schools within five kilometres (Table 3), whereas in the urban
areas, such cases were insignificant (less than one percent).
The situation with regard to availability of schools might have improved during
the last few years (Fig. 1) as the number of schools has shown an increasing trend
though the enrolment has declined during the last one year.

Table 3 Distribution of households (per 1000) by distance, in having secondary schools/sections

Area d < 1 km 1 km < d < 2 km 2 km ≤ d < 5 km d ≥ 5 km
Rural 367 236 275 122
Urban 727 187 80 7
Rural + Urban 484 220 211 85
Source 71st NSSO 2015b, New Delhi

Fig. 1 Trends in number of schools and enrolment of students at secondary and higher secondary
level. Source U-DISE for various years from 2012–13 to 2016–17, NIEPA 2015, 2018
26 M. Bandyopadhyay and S. Chugh

3.2 Enrolment in Secondary Education

The enrolment at the secondary and higher secondary levels has increased consid-
erably which can be seen with reference to GER and NER during last few years.
However, there has been considerable difference between GER and NER at both
levels, showing presence of over and under-aged children at these levels (Table 4).
The situation is not very different as mentioned by 71st NSSO (GOI 2015b). As
per Table 5, the NAR is much higher in case of boys who belong to ‘others’ category.
NAR declines sharply in case of Muslim students as well.
The secondary education should be of reasonable quality, ensuring success for
all those who get an opportunity to access it. Thus, it is necessary to pay equal
attention on quantitative and qualitative expansion of secondary education. In this
context, it is necessary to see the present status of secondary education in terms of
access and participation of students in schools. It is also required to see as to what
extent RTE Act, 2009, could help different elementary schools to comply with ten
parameters as prescribed by RTE Act, 2009. Out of 1,445,807 elementary schools,
around 12 percent schools could comply with all the ten parameters prescribed by
RTE Act, 2009 while around 20 percent of the schools could not even comply with
seven parameters. It is heartening to see that higher proportion of government schools
could comply with ten parameters as compared to private-aided and unaided schools
(Table 6).
Under such a situation, one can understand that the elementary education system
is quite unequal as all schools are not equipped with essential facilities as mentioned
by RTE Act, 2009. After examining a long trajectory of initiatives taken for achieving
UEE, an article (Govinda and Mathew 2018, 38) has recently concluded that ‘one
would hope that the UEE goal gets more intense and consistent attention, building on
the measures taken in recent years to consolidate the gains made in creating school
infrastructure, improving school functioning and enhancing learning outcomes’. It
is the learning outcome at the elementary stage that would matter for success for all
elementary graduates at the secondary stage.
It is understandable since the major objective of secondary education is to provide
young people adequate skill and knowledge for becoming responsible citizens and
productive workers. In addition, it is the stage when the role of schools and teachers

Table 4 Gross and Net Enrolment Ratios at the secondary and higher secondary levels
Year GER NER
Secondary Higher secondary Secondary Higher secondary
2012–13 68.13 40.76 41.9 23.73
2013–14 76.64 52.21 45.63 30.43
2014–15 78.51 54.21 48.46 32.68
2015–16 80.01 56.16 51.26 32.3
Source U-DISE for various source from 2012–13 to 2015–16, NIEPA
Status of Secondary Education in India: A Review … 27

Table 5 Net attendance ratio (%) for different levels of education for social groups
Social/religious group Primary Upper Secondary Higher Above
primary secondary higher
secondary
Male
Scheduled Tribes 84 63 46 29 8
Scheduled Castes 82 62 46 30 10
Other Backward Classes 83 63 52 39 14
Others 87 69 60 48 18
Female
Scheduled Tribes 83 61 46 27 6
Scheduled Castes 83 57 52 31 8
Other Backward Classes 82 61 49 37 11
Others 84 69 57 45 16
Persons
Scheduled Tribes 83 62 46 28 7
Scheduled Castes 82 60 49 30 9
Other Backward Classes 83 62 51 38 12
Others 86 69 58 46 17
Religions
Hinduism 84 65 54 39 13
Islam 79 55 39 24 7
Christianity 87 70 63 51 18
Sikhism 86 65 55 52 15
Other religions 87 63 71 39 13
Source 71st Round NSSO (GOI 2015b), New Delhi

also assume importance for inculcating values and attitudes that would prepare them
for a better future. In view of this, one of the major challenges for policy-makers and
implementers is to ensure that secondary education of good quality is accessible to
young people within their reach. In a diverse country like India, in addition to physical
access, the social access to schooling is also very important and it has been found
that socially disadvantaged children, living in remote rural areas, remain deprived
of education due to various reasons. One of the major reasons is lack of access to
secondary school in nearby areas. Most of the secondary schools are located in the
district or block headquarters and towns or cities. The access problem is further
accentuated in the difficult areas located in forest, desert, hilly and mountainous
regions. Various socio-cultural norms, social discrimination as well as poverty makes
it difficult for many students, especially girls and other social groups, to have access
to a good quality secondary school.
 28

Table 6 Distribution of elementary schools by management that comply with the 10 RTE parameters: 2014–15 (All India)
Management X IX VIII VII VI V IV III II I Zero Total (n = 100)
All Govt. 13.92 23.27 24.86 18.82 10.79 4.96 1.95 0.72 0.32 0.26 0.13 1,075,036
Govt.-aided 7.01 20.30 30.86 21.07 10.59 5.14 3.01 1.37 0.55 0.11 0.01 66,454
Pvt.-unaided 7.57 23.71 30.53 21.10 10.42 4.21 1.54 0.58 0.22 0.09 0.04 268,014
Other 13.92 30.40 29.22 14.89 8.34 2.56 0.41 0.15 0.05 0.00 0.05 1954
Unrecognised 2.49 11.79 18.57 15.58 11.87 9.08 8.82 8.70 10.31 2.36 0.45 24,852
MR + MUNC 3.02 9.28 17.71 23.00 19.23 15.25 7.69 3.00 1.27 0.45 0.09 12,764
NR 50.00 25.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 25.00 4
Total 12.14 22.90 26.02 19.32 10.80 4.99 2.09 0.88 0.49 0.26 0.11 1,449,078
Note All Govt. = (DOE = Department of Education, TWD = Tribal Social Welfare Department, LB = local body and CG = central government), Govt.-aided
= (GA = government-aided/Pvt.-aided), Pvt.-unaided = (PU = private-unaided), other = (OTH = other), unrecognised = (UNG = unrecognised), MR +
MUNC = (MR = Madarsa recognised, MUNC = Madarsa unrecognised), NR = (NR = no response)
Source Compiled from U-DISE, 2015–16, NIEPA
M. Bandyopadhyay and S. Chugh
Status of Secondary Education in India: A Review … 29

Fig. 2 Proportion of different types of schools, enrolment and teachers (2016–17). Source U-DISE,
2016–17, NIEPA

It has also been found that some children who get enrolled in primary classes
do not transit to secondary schools even if they are located in nearby areas because
most of the children who study in government schools need to take re-admission after
completion of the elementary education. It is simply because majority of government
elementary and secondary schools, being stand-alone schools and function indepen-
dently. U-DISE has provided data on different types of schools and it has been found
that some secondary and higher secondary schools are functioning as stand-alone
and some are integrated with other levels, i.e. primary, elementary, upper primary,
known as composite schools (Fig. 2).
In addition to DISE, RMSA has provided more schooling space in recent years
along with repairing existing one. As mentioned on the RMSA website (GOI, MHRD
2016a, b) ‘10,513 new secondary schools have been approved under the Scheme, out
of which 9239 new secondary schools have been made functional. Strengthening
of 35,539 existing schools has also been approved under RMSA scheme…. With
regard to teachers, 107,480 teachers (including 41,507 additional teachers) have
been sanctioned for secondary schools, out of which 59,353 teachers have been
appointed’.
It has also been found that a large number of schools have been opened in rural as
well as urban areas. Both rural and urban areas have witnessed a considerable increase
in the number of enrolment. While 31 percent of total secondary schools (Fig. 3a)
are located in urban areas, in case of enrolment, this percentage share increases to
around 35 percent (Fig. 3b) in 2015–16.
There is a considerable difference in types of schools that are providing educa-
tion at the secondary and higher secondary levels in rural and urban areas. While a
majority of schools in rural areas have upper primary and secondary grades, in urban
areas, the highest proportion of schools are of the composite type which starts from
primary grades and continues till higher secondary level, thus ensuring completion
of education of learners who enter primary grades. The demand for integrated or
composite schools is also found in the rural area as the highest proportion of total
30 M. Bandyopadhyay and S. Chugh

A)

B)

Fig. 3 Area-wise proportion of schools and enrolment. a Schools in rural and urban area. Source
State Report Card, U-DISE, 2016–17, NIEPA (2018) b Enrolment in rural and urban area. Source
State Report Card, U-DISE, 2016–17, NIEPA

enrolment (30 percent) is found in schools providing education from upper primary
till higher secondary though the proportion of such schools is only 15 percent in the
rural area. It is important, in this context, to upgrade existing elementary schools
rather than opening new secondary schools for expansion of secondary education.

3.3 Enrolment by Management

It is also noteworthy that, despite an increase in the number of schools, the percentage
share of government schools is still higher as compared to private-aided and unaided
schools at both levels. The number of students attending secondary education has
Status of Secondary Education in India: A Review … 31

been around 3.83 crores, whereas it has been around 2.35 crores at the higher
secondary level. As the level of education increases, a decreasing trend has been
found in the proportion of enrolment in government-run schools during the last one
year. Despite the high proportion of private schools, the role of government schools
still remains important as the proportion of government schools (Table 7) is much
higher than private schools.
The 71st Round NSSO, based on the data of 2,737,140 respondents, could reveal
that 2.95 lakh or 15 percent students in the rural area and 73,200 or 9 percent in
the urban area were attending the government schools, indicating government still
remains main provider of schools. In addition to management-wise distribution,
it is also necessary to see the extent of availability of different streams (Table 8)
or disciplines in secondary and higher secondary schools and who are choosing
which stream. It has been found that some schools also diversify at the Grades
IX–X, though the majority of schools provide stream-wise educational facilities for
higher secondary grades (XI–XII). The proportion of schools providing science and
commerce is much less than those providing humanities, thus limiting the choice of
students and their preference for higher education. It is also noteworthy that, except
in humanities, the proportion of girls has been lower than boys in all other streams.

Table 7 Availability of schools and enrolment at secondary and higher secondary level (in %) by
management
Year All Pvt. Pvt. Unrecognised All Total
Govt. aided unaided Madarsa schools
Schools Secondary level
2014–15 42.77 16.68 38.84 1.06 0.63 233,517
2015–16 42.26 16.58 39.48 1.17 0.51 239,148
Higher secondary level
2014–15 39.86 16.72 42.07 0.50 0.85 109,318
2015–16 40.60 16.68 41.43 0.71 0.58 112,637
Enrolment Secondary level
2014–15 44.16 22.12 32.52 0.53 0.67 38,301,599
2015–16 44.43 21.44 32.95 0.58 0.60 39,145,052
Higher secondary level
2014–15 35.34 24.85 38.71 0.33 0.76 23,501,798
2015–16 35.74 24.97 38.43 0.41 0.44 24,735,397
Source Secondary Education in India: Flash Statistics: 2014–15 & 2015–16, U-DISE, NUEPA
(2016); NIEPA (2018)
32 M. Bandyopadhyay and S. Chugh

Table 8 Percentage of schools by availability of streams and enrolment by stream (2015–16)

Streams Percentage of schools Enrolment by stream at higher
by Availability of stream secondary level
(2015–16)a 2015–16 2016–17
Secondary Higher secondary Boys Girls Boys Girls
Arts 26.86 62.17 48.30 51.70 48.11 51.89
Science 20.23 48.55 57.44 42.56 57.63 42.37
Commerce 13.41 31.87 54.11 45.89 53.43 46.57
Vocational 2.81 6.59 60.88 39.12 50.00 50.00
Other streams 1.44 3.08 54.99 45.01 74.33 25.67
Source Secondary Education in India: Flash Statistics, U-DISE: 2015–16, NIEPA
a Data not available for 2016–17

3.4 Gender and Grade-Wise Enrolment

The data provided by U-DISE for the last four years indicates that there has been
a substantial increase in the number of enrolment of boys as well as girls though
enrolment of boys is found higher than girls at both secondary and higher secondary
levels. For example, in the last two years, despite a slight increase in enrolment of
boys and girls, the proportion has remained almost the same. While around 52 percent
of total enrolment is for boys, it is around 47 percent for girls having a difference of
five percentage points (Fig. 4). However, there has been considerable improvement
in enrolment, especially of girls, resulting in considerable reduction in gender gap in
Gross Enrolment Ratio during last ten years (Fig. 5).

Fig. 4 Percentage distribution of enrolment by level of education and gender. Source State Report
Card: 2015–16 & 2016–17, U-DISE, NIEPA
Status of Secondary Education in India: A Review … 33

Fig. 5 Trends in gross enrolment ratio for Class IX–XII (14–17 years) by gender. Source
Educational Statistics at Glance, MHRD, 2016

3.5 Inter-state Variations in Enrolment

U-DISE data also indicates that there are 11 States (Fig. 6) where the proportion of
enrolment is high in schools run by private agencies as compared to government-run
schools. Maharashtra is the State having the lowest proportion of enrolment (2.9%) in
government schools and the highest proportion of enrolment (80.2%) in private-aided
schools. It is also noticeable that Nagaland has the highest proportion of enrolment
(75.2%) in schools managed by private agencies followed by Telangana (73.3%),
while the percentage share of enrolment in government higher secondary schools in
these States is around 25%.
While the above analysis reveals that there has been an increase in schools and
enrolment at the secondary and higher secondary level, but it is the private-unaided

Fig. 6 State-wise enrolment in all government schools at secondary and higher secondary levels
(%): 2015–16. Source Flash Statistics: 2015–16, DISE, NIEPA
34 M. Bandyopadhyay and S. Chugh

schools which observed higher enrolment during last one year. At the same time, it
has been found that many secondary schools are functioning with fewer students,
with considerable bearing on quality of education in these schools. A recent study
(Ojha 2016) on secondary education has revealed that although a large number of
schools opened during last few years, around 65% of these newly opened secondary
schools had fewer than 150 students in 2013–14. The percentage of small government
schools declined marginally between 2009–10 and 2013–14. There has also been a
marginal increase in the percentage of districts with high concentration of small
schools between 2009 and 2013.

3.6 Is Access to education Equitable?

In view of gender and locational disparity in enrolment mentioned earlier, one can
understand that the children from disadvantaged families, especially girls, are not
being able to attend the secondary and higher secondary schools due to different
reasons. One of the reasons behind this may be the non-availability of secondary
and higher secondary schools near their residence, particularly in rural and remote
areas. The coverage of secondary education within walking distance becomes more
critical in the context of promoting the equity aspect, satisfying specific needs of
girls, SCs, STs, other disadvantaged groups and physically challenged students. It
has already been mentioned that, As per the NCERT survey of 2009, around 20
percent of ST-dominated and 6 percent of SC-dominated habitations still do not
have secondary schools within eight kilometres and it may jeopardise the equity in
access to secondary education. The caste-wise distribution of students indicates that
the proportion of disadvantaged group is lower in case of higher secondary level
(Fig. 7).

Fig. 7 Percentage distribution of enrolment by social category in 2016–17. Source State Report
Cards: Secondary Education, U-DISE, 2016–17, NIEPA
Status of Secondary Education in India: A Review … 35

Table 9 Percentage distribution of Children with special needs in 2014–15 to 2016–17

CWSN Secondary level Higher secondary level
2014–15 2015–16 2016–17 2014–15 2015–16 2016–17
Percentage CWSN to total 8.45 13.02 0.14 2.35 3.63 0.04
CWSN
Percentage CWSN to total 0.57 0.56 0.56 0.26 0.25 0.28
enrolment
Source State Report Card: Secondary Education, U-DISE: 2014–15 to 2016–17, NIEPA

From the above data, it may be seen that although the demand for secondary
education has increased over a period of time and is being reflected in the increase of
enrolment at this stage, the distribution of schools providing secondary and higher
secondary education has been quite inadequate and uneven. Apart from the social
group, there has also been a slight improvement in case of proportion of children
with special needs (CWSN) that has been given in the following Table 9.
However, in spite of the increase in enrolment of CWSN students, around 30%
schools are still devoid of a ramp and merely 20% schools have CWSN-friendly
toilets.

3.7 Quality of Secondary Education

Improvement in the quality of secondary education has remained a matter of

concern in each policy document because expansion without quality has no meaning.
According to the Mudaliar Commission (GoI 1953, 10), ‘The special function of
the secondary school is to train persons who will be able to assume the responsi-
bility of leadership in the social, political, industrial and cultural fields in their own
small groups or community or locality’. It is needless to say, the commission has
indicated the need to establish a strong secondary system with a balance between
quality and quantity. Moreover, with emerging pressure from elementary education,
the concerns for expansion and quality in secondary education are expected to gain
further momentum in the near future. One of the major reasons for the poor quality
of education is lack of adequate infrastructure facilities in many schools run by the
government.

3.8 Availability of Infrastructure Facilities

Availability of adequate and essential physical and academic facilities in the schools
is a crucial factor for ensuring the quality of education provided in school. A comfort-
able, hygienic and safe school can ensure a suitable environment that can promote
36 M. Bandyopadhyay and S. Chugh

Fig. 8 Percentage of Schools with different physical infrastructure facilities. Source U-DISE,
2016–17, NIEPA

an active participation of teachers and taught as well as can facilitate an effective

teaching–learning process in the classroom. The current scenario of availability of
facilities in the country can be assessed with the help of 2015–16 data. Although the
majority of schools are now provided with basic facilities like building, road, drinking
water and toilets, they are still devoid of the facilities like computer, playground, etc.
(Fig. 8).

3.9 Availability of Teachers

The number of teachers at the secondary level has shown a considerable decline from
around 14.1 lakh in 2013–14 to 12.9 lakh in 2014–15, while at the higher secondary
level, a slight increase by 4283 teachers has been found during the last one year. There
was a slight increase in the proportion of teachers working in private-unaided schools.
According to U-DISE, 2015–16, the total number of teachers was 2,074,713 (20.7
lakh). In 2015–16, the majority of teachers were found qualified as well as trained
(86%). Majority of teachers were post-graduate (53.5%) and graduate (36.8%) with
around 71% of trained teachers possessing B.Ed. degree (Fig. 9 and Table 10).
Despite the increase in numbers, as discussed above, a few States face the crisis of
teachers. Teacher absenteeism is a continuous problem and many students experience
the negative attitude of teachers. In addition, indifferent teaching, based on a belief
that a certain section of children is not educable, may turn out to be as impairing for
educational attainment of students as teacher shortage or absenteeism (Majumdar
2001). In view of the presence of a large number of first-generation learners in
government secondary schools, improvement in quality of teaching–learning process
is absolutely necessary.
Status of Secondary Education in India: A Review … 37

Fig. 9 Trends in availability of teachers by academic qualification (in %). Source U-DISE, 2015–16,
NIEPA

Table 10 Distribution
Professional 2013–14 2014–15 2015–16
of Teachers by professional
qualification
qualification (in %)
2 years basic teacher 4.17 4.05 3.94
training
B.Ed./B.EI. Ed. 69.51 70.39 71.39
M.Ed. or equivalent 5.72 5.86 5.57
Other 4.15 4.15 4.15
Dip./degree in special 1.31 1.42 1.35
education
No response 15.14 14.13 13.62
Total (number) 1,929,949 2,003,421 2,074,713
Source U-DISE, Different years from 2013–16, NIEPA 2015, 2018

3.10 Learning Outcomes and Drop-Outs

Quality of education is most often related with the result of an examination. The
data on secondary and higher secondary examinations suggests that there has been
a significant increase in the number of students who appeared in higher secondary
examination over the period. The secondary education system is so huge that can be
seen from the number of students who appeared for secondary and higher secondary
examination. While 76 lakh boys and 68.32 lakh girls appeared for secondary exami-
nation during 2015–16, the number of such students reduced substantially for higher
secondary examination and 49.5 lakh boys and 44 lakh girls appeared for this
examination in same year.
In addition to the performance of students in examinations, some other indica-
tors like promotion rate, repetition rate and transition rate also indicate the overall
38 M. Bandyopadhyay and S. Chugh

academic performance of students and their participation. The data shows that promo-
tion rate of Grade IX students has substantially reduced during last one year and,
while around 90 percent students could be promoted to Grade X in 2015–16, their
proportion declined to 87.5 percent in 2016–17 (NIEPA 2018). The promotion rate
is still less than 70 percent for Grade X students which is a matter of concern because
a large number of Grade X students could not perform well in their board exam-
ination and some of them might have dropped out at this stage after spending ten
years in schools. The recent data (NIEPA 2018) suggests that altogether 78.7 percent
students could pass their secondary examination conducted by different boards in
2015–16 out of around 13.8 lakh students who appeared for this examination. It is
also disheartening to see that around 31 percent students dropped out at the same time
after spending ten years in school. It is also noticeable that the transition rate from
elementary to secondary level was around 90 percent in 2016–17 though it declined
to around 66 percent in case of transition from secondary to higher secondary grade.
While enrolment at the secondary and higher secondary stage increased at a faster
rate even for girls and socially disadvantaged groups, at the same time, it has been
observed that many children have dropped out of school and did not even reach the
higher stage of school education. It has been found that around 18% students had to
drop out at the secondary stage. Grade-wise drop-out shows very high drop-out rate in
case of Grade X which is almost same since the last three years and stands at around
31% in 2016–17. It is to be noted that, around 20 percent at the secondary stage
and around 6 percent at the higher secondary stage dropped out in 2016–17 (NIEPA
2018). There is also an increase in drop-out of Grade IX children as it has increased
from 2.44% in 2013–14 to 7.11% in 2015–16 (Table 11) and further increased to
9.48 percent in 2016–17 (NIEPA 2018). The drop-out rates of SC and ST have both
increased substantially at the secondary level during the last three years.
The drop-out rates by social groups (Table 12) indicate that girls from STs and
Muslim minority groups are in most disadvantaged groups.
In addition to drop-out, the low transition rate from secondary to higher secondary
level also indicates that all children who manage to complete secondary education
do not transit to the next level and large proportion of children remain deprived of
senior secondary school education. It has been mentioned earlier that, on an average,
around 30% students could not transit to higher secondary level after completing ten
years of schooling.

Table 11 Drop-out rate in different education levels among Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes
Levels 2012–13 2013–14 2014–15
SC ST SC ST SC ST
Primary level 6.13 8.44 6.10 10.56 4.46 6.93
Upper primary level 4.65 7.86 6.61 11.13 5.51 8.59
Secondary level 15.92 22.27 20.89 29.79 19.36 24.68
Hr. secondary level – 0.07 4.70 7.32 3.22 –
Source Flash Statistics U-DISE, NIEPA, 2016, 2018
Status of Secondary Education in India: A Review … 39

Table 12 Annual average drop-out rates by castes in 2014–15

Castes Secondary Higher secondary
Boys Girls Total Boys Girls Total
Scheduled castes (SC) 19.64 19.05 19.36 3.34 3.09 3.22
Scheduled tribes (ST) 24.94 24.40 24.88 3.09 2.77 2.94
Other backward Class (OBC) 17.35 16.72 17.05 – 0.35 –
Muslim 24.71 23.58 24.12 8.55 6.29 7.40
Source U-DISE, 2014–15, NIEPA, 2016

This implies the education system needs to improve access and create schooling
facilities for those children who graduated from elementary to secondary level of
education. The foregone analysis hints at improvement in schooling facilities at
secondary and higher secondary levels of education along with steady increase in
enrolment. Though we have made a great breakthrough in improving the schooling
facilities, enhancing the learning outcome of all students still remains a major area of
concern. The following section dwells upon the challenges in up-scaling secondary
education.

4 Challenges and Prospects

The previous section highlighted the phenomenal growth in both elementary and
secondary education in India while, at the same time, emphasising the fact that
the demand for secondary education depends on internal efficiency of elementary
cycle. The indicators of secondary education such as providing physical access to
school, high drop-out rates in the 9th standard and high transition rates pose a diffi-
cult picture for Government of India’s commitment to universalisation of secondary
education. Hence, in the context of extension of RTE 2009 to secondary education,
it is imperative to first look at the immediate challenges that secondary education
faces. These challenges need to be addressed in the near future as the success of
universal secondary education depends upon improving the internal efficiency of the
existing education system.

4.1 Expanding Access with a Focus on Equity

The expansion of secondary schools depends primarily on the success of comple-

tion of elementary level of education. For estimating the future requirement of
schools and teachers at secondary education level, information needs to be collected
on-attendance rate of children, promotion, repetition and drop-out rates at lower
secondary level, survival rate (the proportion of students entering lower secondary
40 M. Bandyopadhyay and S. Chugh

education who complete it later), number of habitations without schooling facilities,

as per national or State norms, and number of habitations predominantly inhabited by
SCs, STs, religious minorities like Muslims or other disadvantaged group deprived
of secondary schooling facility. In order to promote equity, it is required to address
diverse needs of children, including those who are first generation learners coming
from poor households. It will be worthwhile to provide composite secondary schools
rather than ‘stand-alone’ secondary schools and to provide residential schools in
remote rural areas with modern facilities of IT and vocational education. The expan-
sion of secondary schools needs to be prioritised in unserved areas so as to reach
the hardest-to-reach groups. In the 12th Five year Plan, it was proposed to open
schools in unserved and hard-to-reach areas as a priority. In these areas, procuring
land is not a constraint. Other than this, second-shift schools in urban slums and
thickly populated areas were identified as a possible option to increase capacity of
intake in secondary schools (GoI 2013,12th FYP, Chapter 21). RMSA also proposed
relaxation in norms for opening new secondary school (GOI, RMSA-TCA 2015d).
• In case of special disadvantaged groups, such as SCs, STs, minorities, Left
Wing Extremist and Educational Backward Blocks, non-availability of high
school facility within five-kilometre distance and at least 50 children to be
enrolled in Class 8 of feeder Upper Primary Schools within catchment area for
providing two-section schools;
• In case of difficult geographical terrain, e.g. hilly/river (natural/physical barriers),
non-availability of school within three-kilometre distance and at least 50 and
25 children to be enrolled in Class 8 of feeder UPSs within catchment area to
provide two-section and one-section school, respectively;
• In case of special situations, e.g. difficult terrain and low density of populated in
States like Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Uttarakhand and North-East
Region and international border areas, school specific/habitation specific barriers
need to be taken into account.

4.2 Consolidation of Small Schools

To improve the schooling facility, especially for the disadvantaged children and
in geographically difficult terrain, new schools are being established and this has
resulted in an increase in small secondary schools (those with enrolment below 150
in Grades 9 and 10). Study conducted by TCA in 2015 observed that schools with
less than 150 students in Grades 9 and 10 make up more than 70 percent of all schools
in more than 20 States. It has also been found that schools with enrolments below
100 have on average, pupil–teacher ratios of only 8:1. Many of the schools, opened
since 2011, are small, with 35 percent of them having below 25 students. Reflecting
on the physical facilities, the study revealed that only 2 percent of the small govern-
ment schools had a science laboratory, computer laboratory, library and functional
computer (GOI, RMSA-TCA 2015d). It becomes difficult for the schools to appoint
subject-specific teachers and also offer range of curriculum options to children (GOI,
Status of Secondary Education in India: A Review … 41

RMSA, Fifth Joint Review Mission 2015c). Govinda and Mathew (2014) observed
that this sub-optimal academic support will have an adverse impact on the learning
and such small schools are socially undesirable. The issue is whether this practice
of opening schools should continue with a compromise on quality of services to be
provided? The challenge is to ensure equal opportunity of quality education for all
the children. For this, school mapping exercise needs to be undertaken in a more
systematic and scientific way to avoid wastage of resources (both human and finan-
cial). States need to find context-specific solutions like opening of residential schools
or arranging transport services for children.

4.3 Improving Internal Efficiency of Elementary

Education and Transition to Secondary Level

Poor academic performance and disinterest in education are among the signifi-
cant causes of children discontinuing their studies. Though the transition rate from
elementary to secondary level has improved considerably but still large proportion
of children admitted in 9th standard leave the school before reaching 10th standard.
Achievement survey, conducted by NCERT, and the ASER reports, clearly indicate
that the learning deficit starts at the primary level and performance of students show
declining trends as they progress from one grade to the next. Teachers play a signif-
icant role in improving the learning level of students. They need to continuously
upgrade their knowledge and be given opportunities for professional growth. They
need to be lifelong learners if they want their students to succeed.

4.4 Improving Broad Base Participation Through Demand

Generation

As stated earlier, secondary education is essential for social and income mobility. All
children eligible for secondary education may be given equal opportunity, irrespec-
tive of gender, caste, religion or spatial location. It is also required that children with
special needs, of different cultural and linguistic background should be included
in the system without any discrimination. This is also an important strategy for
ensuring equality in Indian classrooms. For example, at present, almost 40 percent of
secondary schools are private-unaided schools whose clientele belong to a better
economic class. This means that children studying in such schools are devoid of
any experience of knowing children of different social classes and diverse cultural
backgrounds. Such school cultures can never inculcate a sense of equality or social
justice among their students or even foster an appreciation of the composite culture
and plural character of India. This anomaly can be addressed only by including the
42 M. Bandyopadhyay and S. Chugh

private-unaided schools in a common school system as recommended by the Educa-

tion Commission (GOI 1966). If this is put into place, all types of schools, including
private-unaided schools, will also contribute towards universalisation of secondary
education by ensuring adequate space for children from under-privileged society as
well as children below poverty lines. Participation could be increased by generating
awareness among the people on importance of secondary education and extending
incentives like provision of free text books, uniform, and scholarships to those who
belong to economically weaker sections.

4.5 Vocationalisation of Secondary Education

Vocationalisation of secondary education (GOI 2014) provides diversification of

educational opportunities. Several commissions and committees have highlighted
the need for diversification of educational curriculum so as to enhance individual
employability, reduce the mismatch between demand and supply of skilled manpower
and meet the requirements mainly of the unorganised sector. After long decades
of trial and error, vocational education has been introduced in school education
in an organised manner. Scheme of National Vocational Education Qualification
Framework seeks to integrate general academic education, vocational education,
vocational training and higher education as a comprehensive system. The specific
objectives of the scheme are to enhance the employability of youth through demand-
driven competency-based modular vocational courses; to maintain their competitive-
ness through provisions of multi-entry multi-exit learning opportunities and vertical
mobility/inter-changeability in qualifications; to fill the gap between educated and
employable; and to reduce the drop-out rate at the secondary level and decrease
the pressure on academic higher education. Appreciably, in close coordination with
organisations having domain-expertise, trades and matching skill-levels have been
identified pragmatically. Under the scheme, vocational education is provided from
ninth standard onwards. This may be useful for inculcating relevant skills in the youth
and facilitate their getting better job opportunities. This also takes into account the
diverse learning needs of children and caters to their specific requirements. The
challenge is to provide for infrastructure, material, equipment and teachers in the
specialised vocational skills in each school.
The foregone sections have presented the existing scenario of education at the
elementary and secondary level and highlighted the existing challenges of secondary
education which can be useful for examining the possibility of extension of RTE
2009 Act (GOI 2010) to secondary education. The ensuing section would discuss
the preparation needed before RTE Act, 2009 (GOI 2010) is extended further to
secondary education.
Status of Secondary Education in India: A Review … 43

4.6 Preparation Required for Extension of RTE Act, 2009

to Secondary Education

Since the extension of RTE Act to secondary education is expected to result in rapid
expansion of secondary education by opening private as well as government schools,
this may jeopardise the equity in enrolment and participation of children. Along with
equity issues, diversity in composition of students will also become a pressing issue
as demand for secondary education from socially disadvantaged and economically
weaker sectors will increase in the coming years, making it imperative to provide
quality education to all these children.
Extension of RTE 2009 Act (GOI 2010) to secondary education is a gigantic
task, requiring a comprehensive systemic perspective, wherein efforts need to be
put across different focus areas. The points identified below provide an overview of
focus areas that can be taken together to develop a framework for the preparation
required to extend RTE 2009 Act (GOI 2010) to secondary education.

4.7 Assessing the Magnitude and Demand

The first step is to collect data from Central and State Governments on various
aspects to ascertain current status of secondary education. Information needs to
be gathered on several aspects such as: Demographic-Current Population of 14–
16 and 16–18 years of age groups and projections for another ten years; number of
school places required (Government, private); teacher requirement; current patterns
of financing by States; norms adopted under RMSA; per student expenditure at the
secondary level; evaluation and assessment method and practices adopted by State
Boards/CBSE/ICSE. Further, detailed deliberations are required on four dimen-
sions—(i) Assessment of existing infrastructure, coverage of age of children in
secondary education (15–16 or 15–18) and duration of secondary education (IX–
X or IX–XII), (ii) appointment of additional teachers as per new PTR norm, which
would be fixed if RTE is extended, (iii) having consultations with all partners like
State governments (on various issues like the norms of opening school, school infras-
tructure, teacher recruitment etc.), NCERT on curriculum and NCTE for qualification
of teacher appointment, Teacher Eligibility Test, teacher training institute, role and
regulatory mechanism of the private sector, (iv) sharing of financial responsibility
between the Centre and the States (drawn from the discussion points during the
meeting of Sub-committee on Extension of RTE 2009 to Secondary education), (v)
consultation with the private sector providers to avoid the dual enrolment and their
role in the provision of secondary school facilities.
44 M. Bandyopadhyay and S. Chugh

4.8 How to Ensure Quality in Education

Quality in education depends not only on the provision of basic physical and academic
facilities like school building, laboratory, library, adequate number of teachers,
etc. but also on the quality of teachers, classroom transactions and achievement
of required learning competency by students. There is need to make adequate prepa-
ration for improving the quality in education and, for this, curriculum reforms need
to be introduced. Capacity building of teachers and principals should be a continuous
process.

4.9 Curriculum Reforms

Educating young people for a changing world requires that the type of educational
experience, currently available, corresponds to the economic, social and civic needs
of the individual and society. In India, the relevance and low quality of secondary
education is a matter of serious concern. Secondary education curriculum should
reflect the dynamic connection between quality in education and a productive
economy. Diversification of the curriculum content to ensure quality and greater
relevance which responds to the needs of the individual, community and society at
large for sustainable growth and poverty reduction, is required. The greatest chal-
lenge before the educational planners at the secondary level is to provide adequate
teachers and physical facilities, make curriculum relevant to children and relate it
to their life experience and adopt innovative instructional methods. Several studies
such as Conn (2017) and Aker et al. (2012), suggest that more engaging pedagog-
ical approaches are beneficial for better academic outcomes for students. It is not
sufficient to provide the technical information to children but curriculum should also
entail life skills that equip students with better decision-making both at the academic
and personal levels. Thus, school-based curricula or pedagogical approaches that
emphasise skills needed by employers and communities, such as problem-solving,
critical thinking, negotiation and communication skills, so as to be effective team
members, needs to be appropriately included in the curriculum.

4.10 Capacity Building of Teachers and School Heads

To be abreast with the new developments, the educational personnel need to remain
updated and for this in-service training is an important pre-requisite. India, being a big
country with huge number of educational personnel employed, the capacity building
of teachers and school heads is a herculean task. With the expansion of secondary
schools, this number will also grow. At the secondary level, multiple complex issues
are involved in capacity building of teachers such as diversity of subjects, dealing
Status of Secondary Education in India: A Review … 45

with adolescents of different socio-economic backgrounds, medium of instruction,

use of innovative curriculum transaction methods, etc. Hence, the capacity building
programmes will have to factor in all these challenges.

4.11 Introducing Monitoring and Regulatory Bodies

To improve the quality of education, apart from the Education Boards which does
certification and selection, like higher education system, there is a need of an ‘insti-
tution or a body’ for undertaking evaluation and research of schools on a regular
and systematic basis. This type of institution would provide feedback to policy-
makers, planners, school administrators and other stakeholders. In addition, it would
be responsible for the impact evaluation of the schemes and programmes launched
by Central or State governments, tracking progress of students over a period of
time, conducting systematic and comprehensive educational research in curriculum
relevance, transaction, teacher education etc.

4.12 Strengthening Educational Management Information

System

The CABE committee on universal secondary education 2005 (GOI 2005) recom-
mended that the expansion of supply provisions at secondary level has to be situa-
tional and, hence, should be based on mapping of educational facilities (plotting of
schools, course mapping, mapping of physical and ancillary facilities, teachers and
other related facilities etc.). Such exercises need to be done at block level or may be
even at the cluster (of villages) level. However, in order to initiate a comprehensive
school mapping exercise at secondary and higher secondary level, it is necessary to
develop a reliable data base. Besides, reliable and timely availability of data is one
of the significant pre-conditions for effective planning and management of any level
of education, including the secondary level. Data will help in determining the future
requirements of new schools, additional classrooms and teachers.

4.13 Exploring the Possibility of Public–Private Partnership

As has been stated earlier, the private sector plays a significant role at the secondary
level and, therefore, wider consultations are required with the private management on
their future role and responsibilities. Government may encourage private providers
by providing them essential facilities needed for the smooth functioning of the school,
with the condition that they would also cater to the children of poor socio-economic
46 M. Bandyopadhyay and S. Chugh

backgrounds. Voucher system is another experiment that could be tried on a sample

basis to meet the increased demand of secondary education.

4.14 Increasing Public Investment

Although the expenditure on education has shown a continuous upward trend since
Independence, it is still grossly inadequate. Hence, to meet the increasing demand
of the aspiring youths, more resources need to be allocated to this sector. Additional
resources are needed for opening of secondary schools, providing infrastructural
and physical facilities like building, laboratories, library, recruitment of teachers,
salaries of the teachers, supervisors, administrative staff, etc. Detailed estimate of
fund requirement needs to be made and the share of Centre and State needs to be
worked out.

4.15 Divergent Viewpoints

One of the important parameters for the planning of universal secondary education is
environment-building and generating public opinion in favour of universalisation of
secondary education. The debate on extension of RTE 2009 to secondary education is
divided. On the one hand, a group of scholars and practitioners, with a myopic vision,
question the wisdom of universal secondary education when universal elementary
education has not yet been achieved. It is argued by them that before extending
RTE Act, 2009 to secondary education, implementation of existing RTE needs to be
stabilised and consolidated. The other dominant view is that a legal binding would
be useful for allocation of resources. The proponents of this view argue that given the
emerging scenario in a globalised world and the determination of Indian government
to emerge as an important global player, it is necessary to take a quantum jump rather
than adopting incremental growth through piecemeal social engineering mechanism.
This is, particularly, necessary to ensure participation of girls, Scheduled Castes
and Scheduled Tribes, adolescents and youth, adolescents and youth with physical
and mental disabilities, and prospective students from the poorer community. Wider
consultations are required with the States on issues related to teacher status, school
management, public-private partnership and the kind of administrative, financial and
governance reforms needed for the purpose. Without involving all and each of them,
universal secondary education will remain another dream.
Status of Secondary Education in India: A Review … 47

5 Conclusion

This paper began with charting the development of secondary education in India
through an analysis of national policy documents. Ever since the inception of
national thinking on the importance of secondary education, it was regarded as both
a terminal and a preparatory stage for the youth. Hence, its significance was empha-
sised as a critical contribution to both educational development as well as national
economic growth. With greater focus on universalisation of elementary education
till recently, secondary education failed to gather momentum until the launch of
Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan in 2010. National policy focus, combined
with issues flagged by researches done by World Bank and RMSA-TCA, once again
brought forward the key role of secondary education in the context of twenty-first
century skills.
Despite secondary education lagging behind on key indicators, the sub-committee
for extension of RTE Act, 2009 to secondary education even suggested bringing
this level of education into the purview of right to free and compulsory education.
However, the challenges for making secondary education free and compulsory are
many, the primary one being improving access, consolidating small schools, provi-
sion of diversified curriculum, enhancing internal efficiency of elementary education
and generating demand for participation at secondary level. Over and above this, the
preparedness of the education system needs to guarantee efforts on multiple fronts
so as to make secondary education affordable and universal for all those belonging
to the age group of 14–16 years.
There are three key issues which emerge from the analysis of this paper. One, there
is an urgency to view the linkages between elementary and secondary education as
seminal, i.e. to view both the stages of schooling as one. For this, schools need
to be seen as a composite unit, with classes from 1 to 12, so that transitions from
upper primary to secondary are natural and smooth. Improving access will play an
important role in achieving this. Second, the preparedness of children graduating
from elementary to secondary is critical for their sustenance in secondary grades,
as drop-outs in secondary are severe. The major reason is the lack of opportunities
provided by the schooling system to prepare the elementary graduates to take on the
rigour of secondary curriculum. Third, the need to make vocational education as a
viable component of secondary schooling warrants the attention of policy-makers, so
that students are able to diversify and participate at secondary level with a focus on
entering the job market. These efforts, put together, can build a case for universalising
secondary education.
As far as the question of making secondary education free and compulsory goes,
there are issues related with multiple private provisioning and affordability. Once
it becomes free, it can provide a boost to students from low socio-economic back-
grounds, but on the flipside, can witness an inflow of enrolment into the govern-
ment sector by those who can afford private education. Simultaneously, those who
can afford to will also avail private tuitions and other privileges. Secondary educa-
tion can, thus, be made free but with checks and balances, based on evaluation of
48 M. Bandyopadhyay and S. Chugh

economic criteria of students. At present in secondary education, there is almost a 60

percent incidence of private provisioning, with fee surcharges, even in the government
sector; hence, making it compulsory could tilt the balance against those who belong
to low socio-economic backgrounds, undermining the spirit of free and compulsory
education. Hence, at best, the approach must be to provide a timeline during which
the government machinery builds the necessary conditions for making secondary
education free and compulsory, by working on the challenges identified and regu-
lating the private sector. Only then, RTE Act, 2009 can be extended to secondary
education so that India is able to create a youth which possesses knowledge and skills
for the twenty-first century.

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Push-Out, not Drop-Out: Youth
and Secondary Schooling in India

Manabi Majumdar and Sangram Mukherjee

1 Introduction

There is a general consensus that the natural next step to universalise elementary
education is to near-universalise secondary schooling for the country’s youth. This
would ensure that the basic learning capabilities that they are likely to achieve at the
elementary level are cultivated further at the post-elementary level, contributing to
the growth of their cognitive knowledge, abstract and critical thinking, and practical
skills (Tilak 2007, 2008). That this transition is critical for individual flourishing, for
country’s social and economic development, and for its democratic functioning is
well accepted in both scholarly thinking and policy planning. And yet this transition
and, especially, high school completion remain truncated in the country.
There are competing and even conflicting accounts of such halted educational
journey of India’s young girls and boys. At the risk of over-simplification, in this
paper, three such approaches are discussed, namely the choice-centric view, the
supply-centric perspective and the curriculum-, pedagogy- and evaluation-centric
approach. One common concern that motivates several such prominent theses is
to examine why young children ‘opt out’ of secondary schooling, followed by the
common retort that they are simply not interested in their studies, or that they are
overly keen to prematurely enter the world of work. Even those who stay back—at
least a sizable section of them—simply ‘rust out’ in the system, it is claimed; they
just ‘pass time’ in school for want of work (Jeffrey 2010). It is as though a secondary
school is a ‘waiting room’ where reluctant pupils loiter around for a certificate which,
in the long run, may not prove to be worth the wait after all, in terms of getting a

M. Majumdar (B)
Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, R-1, Baishnabghata Patuli Township, Kolkata 700094, India
e-mail: [email protected]
S. Mukherjee
Pratichi Institute, Kolkata, India

© Council for Social Development 2020 51

J. B. G Tilak (ed.), Universal Secondary Education in India,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5366-0_3
52 M. Majumdar and S. Mukherjee

suitable job. To put it differently, it is the narrative of ‘drop-out’ that dominates the
discourse on the gingerly pace of high school completion in our country.
As a counter-argument, this paper contends that what the ‘school’, understood as
an ensemble of vision, policy and practice, can (or cannot) do largely determines the
‘school life expectancy’ of the youth, their personal predicaments and predilections
notwithstanding. More concretely, first, while we acknowledge the importance of
agency in schooling decisions, we focus on why the youth and their parents collec-
tively aspire for high school completion even with a lot of family hardships, but then
are often driven to lose that agency by the education system, itself embedded within
a social field of power that truncates their school life and pushes them into precarious
livelihoods. Second, we then seek to look at the ‘push-out’ factors within the school
education sector. For this, we focus primarily on two related dimensions: infrastruc-
tural and instructional resources available or lacking at this level, on the one hand,
and the curriculum load and the ‘eliminative’ as opposed to the ‘evaluative’ model
of examination (Kumar 2005) prevalent, on the other. Our general argument is that
there are strong forces within the education system and its underlying ‘vision’ that
tend to work against the egalitarian goal of secondary education for all.
Surely, there is no all-or-nothing dichotomy between drop-out and push-out
factors that impel a young adolescent to discontinue schooling, and it is simplistic
to pose one. And yet, systemic deficiencies and imbalances, which often create an
outright hostile learning and testing environment or an enervating and de-motivating
learning experience for young boys and girls, remain relatively under-discussed,
while unfavourable external determinants of discontinuation are routinely brought
to the fore. Hence is our focus on what schools do or do not do. Internal workings
of the school system, however, themselves constitute a vast subject, and, therefore,
at the risk of being partial and inexhaustive, we attempt here to shed light only on a
few corners of this multi-layered canvas.1
In the following sections, we, first, try to map out the trajectory of progression of
the country’s youth to secondary grades, in the light of prominent perspectives on
school transition or truncation. Second, keeping unfavourable social determinants,
such as class and caste impediments to schooling as a backdrop, we probe whether
the school system is ready to facilitate near-universal transition of post-elementary
students to secondary grades or whether there is a need for the system to fail pupils
for the purpose of rationing of school places. Third, the school’s readiness is also
examined through a preliminary analysis of a sample of question papers that we label
as ‘push-out’ papers. At a time when transition readiness of young boys and girls
is being seriously doubted in the light of their ‘underwhelming’ quality of learning,
the quality of assessment tools, question papers and the high-stakes examination
system, in general, calls for scrutiny as well. Finally, the paper alludes to the so-
called shadow of secondary education, i.e. privately paid tutoring, and asks whether

1A major limitation of this paper relates to its inattention to the critical role of teachers, their
classroom pedagogy, and of their professional development and autonomy in shaping the overall
learning environment in school, which, in turn, influences the educational voyage-successful or
otherwise of the youth.
Push-Out, not Drop-Out: Youth and Secondary Schooling in India 53

the financial stress, that it generates for parents and students, renders the market,
rather counter-intuitively, a choice-curtailing ‘push-out’ mechanism.

2 Secondary Schooling: Transition, Progression

and Truncation

Available figures clearly indicate a rising trend of participation in secondary grades

among the youth, once they complete the stage of free and compulsory education
(Banerjee 2018). According to Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) that
focusses on the age group of 14–18 years, more than 85% of young boys and girls
continue their education at least up to the age of 16 (ibid.). This aggregate picture,
of course, hides several area-, class-, caste- and gender-based disparities in transi-
tion from upper primary to secondary grades as well as within the secondary/higher
secondary cycle itself. A Pratham study (cited in Banerjee 2018) tracking the transi-
tion of school-going children from Classes 8–9, conducted in selected locales of
Hardoi district in Uttar Pradesh and of Sambalpur district in Odisha, finds that
close to 40% of children discontinued their education after Class 8 in Hardoi; the
corresponding figure in Sambalpur was less than eight per cent. This is despite the
fact that Hardoi has a greater number of schools on the whole and a significantly
higher proportion of private schools, in comparison to the corresponding figures in
Sambalpur.
Scholarly studies, understandably, make a good use of the classical economistic
lens to look at both demand and supply side issues that affect transition to secondary
school (Ramachandran 2017). Parental perceptions about the value of secondary
education, social practices and norms that shape their demand and aspirations for
their children’s educational progress, and their economic wherewithals or its lack
(commonly encapsulated under the label of ‘poverty’) are often identified as demand-
side variables that have a major bearing on participation at secondary level. What
this demand-side story underscores, however, is the role of family choices and family
strategies, to the relative neglect of the fact that, in several cases, due to unfavourable
social determinants such as caste, communal and gender disadvantages, parental
demands and high hopes for their children’s educational progress get thwarted. In
a sense, therefore, there is a ‘social’ supply-side tale (i.e. short or ample supply of
enabling social conditions) that remains hidden within the demand-side narrative.
Ramachandran’s (2017) study that probes factors either facilitating or impeding
transition to secondary grades attempts to elicit views, on this subject, of parents, on
the one hand, and of teachers and head teachers, on the other. Intriguingly, parents
often point the finger at the ‘inside’, i.e. the school system, for the poor quality of
training it allegedly offers, whereas teachers mostly focus on the ‘outside’, holding
parents responsible for their lack of awareness and poor attendance of their children
in school. In fact, the factors that teachers have identified as ‘enabling’ forces hardly
relate to the school system and teaching–learning processes in classrooms, the quality
54 M. Majumdar and S. Mukherjee

of their professional training, their autonomy, the testing culture in school and so on.
This paper, therefore, makes a specific attempt to develop a ‘view from within’, that is
to say, to look at the inner workings of the school system and its underlying education
policy apparatus. Its primary motivation is to examine how helpful the ‘Inside’ is to
facilitate transition of young boys and girls to the secondary level and their school
completion. In particular, to what extent is the school system ready to open its gates
to an increasing cohort of students? Does it, at least, avoid pushing them out? But
before addressing this question, let us briefly look back at the theme that this section
begins with, namely the current scenario of high school participation in the country.
The initiatives taken by the State in the field of school education, especially during
the last decade, are clearly yielding positive results. An analysis of the age-specific
participation rate emerging out of the last two rounds of NSSO data (64th and 71st)
definitely indicates a rise in enrolment among children up to the elementary level
(age cohort of 6–14 years). This success may be partly attributed to the promulgation
of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE) in the country.
However, since the last round of NSSO data was collected in 2014, only after a lag
of a few years since the enforcement of RTE, one has also to give credit to earlier
State initiatives.
School participation rate has shown noticeable improvement during the last few
years. For convenience of analysis, we consider here (in Fig. 1) age-specific partic-
ipation rate rather than participation rate at various educational levels, to glean a
picture of year-to-year progression in education. However, as the gap between gross
enrolment ratio (GER) and net enrolment ratio (NER) has narrowed considerably
during the same period, an age-specific analysis may not be very different from the
one based on particular levels of education.

100
90
Percentage of population participating in

80
educational institution

70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
Age in years

Male2007-08 Female2007-08 Male2014 Female2014

Fig. 1 Gender-wise participation rate in educational institution in India by single year age, 2007–08
and 2014. Source Calculated from NSSO 64th and 71st round
Push-Out, not Drop-Out: Youth and Secondary Schooling in India 55

As Fig. 1 suggests, school participation rates among children between 6 and

13 years of age remained consistently above 90% during 2014. Significantly, the
participation rate among girls has improved and has almost been at par with that
among boys, at least up to the age of 18 years, i.e. roughly up to the higher secondary
level. The figures were quite different during 2007–08 in at least two respects. First,
a sharp decline in enrolment was evident in the mid-upper primary age group across
the genders during 2007–08. Second, this rate of decline was much steeper among
girls, and the gap between participation rates of girls and boys widened at the lower
secondary age group (i.e. in the age bracket of 15–16 years).
But what has not changed much in the last few years is the fact that the participation
rate takes a nosedive among children of 14 years and above, to halt only at a couple of
stages, that too momentarily, at the ages of 18 and 20 years. However, the participation
of boys in the age cohort of 18–19 years and 20–21 years remains almost unaltered.
The picture is a little different in the case of girls at the same age groups. Let us now
focus on the children in the age group 13–18 years in order to examine how they
have fared between the two rounds of NSSO surveys in terms of their participation
in higher levels of school education, taking into account their economic status, caste
and religious affiliations and their place of residence—rural or urban. These socio-
economic determinants are broadly considered to be some of the most decisive factors
underpinning expected schooling years of children in the country.
Not surprisingly, the current rate of discontinuation is much higher among chil-
dren from poorer economic backgrounds. This so-called class effect on educational
participation and progression is old news. But what makes the situation particularly
disconcerting is the fact that the gap between participation rates among children
(in the age group of 15–18 years) from the lowest and the highest quintile classes
has increased in recent times, whereas the corresponding gap has, in fact, declined
marginally among the same (i.e. the richest and the poorest) classes of children below
this age group. This implies that access to elementary education has improved for
economically marginalised sections of the society. To put it differently, the ‘class
effect’ seems to have been mitigated somewhat for the children of indigent families
at least up to 15 years. In contrast, such effect seems to have become much more
pronounced in recent years, when we compare the elite and indigent children in the
older age cohort. This suggests that over time, in absolute terms, there may have been
some increase in transition to secondary grades among poorer children, but class-
based inequality in secondary participation, the rich-poor divide in particular, has
also increased, since economically underprivileged children have fallen far behind
their privileged counterparts in this respect. Similarly, the gap between the rate of
participation among children of this age group from Hindu and Muslim families has
also increased to some extent (see Fig. 2a, b), indicating a widening educational
distance between these two religious communities at the post-elementary stage.
It is important and encouraging to note, however, that the said gap is found to be
closing over time, when we consider caste/ethnic affiliation of children. For example,
the gap in post-elementary participation of children from ST families and from
general castes (the two polar groups in educational terms) is narrowing in recent
years (see Appendix Table 5).
56 M. Majumdar and S. Mukherjee

A)
50.0
45.0 47.2 47.2
40.0 42.8
35.1 34.0
35.0
32.7
28.8
30.0
25.0 22.9
26.1
20.0 16.4
20.1
15.0
14.9
10.0
Thirteen Fourteen Fifteen Sixteen Seventeen Eighteen

64th round 71st round

B)
25

20 19.82
17.43
18.66 16
15 17.68
15.45 15.83 15.27
10 12.98 12.78
10.48
8.49
5

0
Thirteen Fourteen Fifteen Sixteen Seventeen Eighteen

64th round 71st round

Fig. 2 Age-specific Participation rates, 2007–08 and 2014. A Gap between the lowest and highest
quintile classes. B Gap between the Muslims and Hindus. Source Calculated from NSSO 64th and
71st rounds

The privileged seem to be internalising the dictum that high school completion
for their children is the minimum educational cut-off point that they must aim for,
causing a rise in their progression through secondary grades. The underprivileged, on
the other hand, also seem to be appreciating the value and advantages of secondary
schooling (‘school pass’ in common parlance) for their children, as reflected through
their entry in greater numbers into the post-elementary stage; but they seem to be
Push-Out, not Drop-Out: Youth and Secondary Schooling in India 57

driven to lose that steam of ambition on the way. Do we then need to turn to the
proverbial ‘lack of interest’ thesis for an explanation, or is it to be replaced by a
counter-thesis of ‘loss of interest’?
Various reasons are attributed to such premature discontinuation of schooling
of children. Most of the quantitative data available in the country in this regard
follow almost a similar pattern of enquiry, with almost a similar array of questions,
framed in a routine manner. They differ only in the number of reasons that specific
surveys canvass, but the prominent reasons, mostly, remain the same. Though these
surveys are known for their dependability regarding assessment of the extent of
participation and of household expenditure on education, when it comes to determine
the reasons for discontinuation, these sources appear limited in that they do not reveal
much. For example, first, they do not procure multiple responses to the question
regarding reasons behind discontinuation, whereas, in reality, children are driven
to leave school under various compelling circumstances, which are intertwined and
mutually reinforcing. Second, there are some responses that raise more questions
than they actually answer; for example, since 1986, all the NSSO rounds of data
on participation and expenditure in education mention lack of interest as one of the
most important reasons for discontinuation of education (Table 1), but one hardly
gets an answer to the crucial follow-up question as to why they lack interest. The
framing of this question as well as responses to it constitute a kind of a ‘black box’
or even a ‘black hole’ from which no light emerges to illuminate our understanding.
Do they really lack interest? Or do they lose it in the course of their journey through
the school system?
In the absence of a fair answer to the question as to why students lack interest in
studies, it becomes difficult, for example, to explain why there is a continuous decline
in the proportion of women, both in rural and urban settings, citing lack of interest as
the reason behind their discontinuation, while the proportion of men citing the same
reason for their decision to leave school has remained more or less constant for almost
three decades. This constancy of a particular genre of ‘reasoning’ over a protracted
period, which surely has witnessed considerable socio-economic changes likely to
cause changes in our educational decisions, renders it an unclear or even a socially
irrelevant investigative tool to make sense of children’s educational opportunities,
ambitions and attainment. If the same question was asked to the students who have

Table 1 Percentage of persons who are currently not attending any educational institution citing
reason for discontinuation as ‘lack of interest in further study’, by year, sector and gender
Year NSSO Round (and age group) Rural Urban
Male Female Person Male Female Person
1986–87 42nd (age 5 and above) 26.57 33.25 26.26 23.62 28.47 25.6
1995–96 52nd (age 5–24) 28.5 21 25.3 23.9 19.4 22
2007–08 64th (age 5–29) 24 17 20.7 20.3 15 17.9
2014 71st (age 5–29) 25.1 16.2 20.9 20.8 14.3 17.7
Source Respective rounds of NSSO
58 M. Majumdar and S. Mukherjee

not discontinued their studies yet, who are either progressing into higher grades with
enthusiasm or just ‘passing time’, no one knows what the answer would be. But
it is not implausible that a sizable number of them would voice similar disinterest,
while continuing their studies. In short, this demand-side, ‘natural’ interest-driven
reason is an obscure indicator of why children do or do not go to school. After all,
their interest in studies is either cultivated with much care or enervated because of
its absence within the school system.
That children’s ‘school life expectancy’ depends, to a considerable extent, on
what goes on within school, on its overall environment, on teacher development, their
interaction with students, content and language of training, and pupils’ freedom from
fear of failure and corporal punishment are issues that need to be reiterated, because
such ‘common knowledge’ is routinely ignored. Admittedly, pupils and parents are
asked to reflect on some school-related reasons, such as the availability and distance
of schools, inadequate infrastructure, school timing, and the medium of instruction
and so on. However, often they are not in the know of systemic gaps that make
their educational transition difficult and, hence, are not in a position to voice such
lacunas. Those in the know, on the other hand, often are indifferent in their amends.
For example, a Pratichi India (Trust) study (2013) on secondary schooling in West
Bengal suggests that a noticeable decline in enrolment is evident between Grades 9
and 10. This is not the stage when students transit from one school to another; rather
this is a stretch of time by which students complete their first year in high school and,
perhaps, find the curriculum too onerous to handle, and the culture of testing and
purging too intimidating to cope with. Here, truncation appears to be a function—a
‘push-out’ effect—of internal workings of the education system.
From the prevailing perspective of demand and choice, therefore, it is difficult to
explain satisfactorily why children across all social and economic classes show enthu-
siasm to begin their school life roughly at the same age but quit school at different
ages, unless we pay closer attention to disabling conditions that are generated from
within the school apparatus. A similar entry and a dissimilar exit cannot be interpreted
entirely as a class phenomenon. An analysis of the recent NSSO (71st round, 2014)
data clearly shows that mean age at discontinuation among persons aged 5–29, who
have already discontinued their education, varies widely across economic classes,
although there is hardly any difference in mean age at first enrolment among the
same set of population across various economic classes (Table 2). It clearly shows
that though the age at exit is dissimilar for various economic classes, their age at
entrance is very much similar; in other words, children of lower economic status and
their families are equally eager to enrol children in school but they are pushed to
leave school much earlier, as compared to children of higher economic classes.

3 Systemic Resistance to Transition

We argue that we need to pay much more attention, than is usually given, to
issues pertaining to the readiness of the school system to equalise opportunities for
Push-Out, not Drop-Out: Youth and Secondary Schooling in India 59

Table 2 Mean age at first enrolment and discontinuation for persons aged 5–29 years who are
currently not attending any educational institution in India
Quintile class of MPCE Mean age at first enrolment Mean age at discontinuation
1 5.6 13.8
2 5.6 14.5
3 5.5 14.9
4 5.5 15.8
5 5.4 18.0
All 5.4 15.4
Source Calculated from NSSO 71st round, 2014

secondary schooling for all. The bare minimum of such equity conditions includes
provisioning of school places for all secondary age children in the hope and readi-
ness that nearly all of them will throng the gate of high school. And yet the system
does not seem to be ready; worse, it seems to resist universal high school partici-
pation for all. Why elementary school graduates are forced to fiercely compete for
opportunities for further education and why education has been rendered a ‘race’
has a lot do with scarcity and resulting rationing of places at the post-elementary
stage, as several scholars have pointed out (Deshpande 2018; Kumar 2018a; Rampal
2018). As Kumar perceptively observes, this ‘systemic resistance to social inclu-
sivity’ has become more palpable from the 1980s onwards; earlier, the pressure
on the secondary stage of school education was relatively low, as primary school
completion rates were unsubstantial. In Kumar’s words, ‘That scenario has changed,
and now the pressure of a radically expanded base level is manifesting at each level
placed above it’ (2018a, p. 2). This systemic imbalance is largely because the two
stages of secondary and higher secondary education have not grown at a pace that
is ‘…sufficient to accommodate the far higher growth in the number of children
crossing elementary education’ (ibid.).
For example, if we do a counter-factual exercise and assume that all pupils who
are enrolled (as per the recent available data) in lower secondary section make a
successful transition to the higher secondary level, the average enrolment at this
stage in the country will increase from the present already high figure of 195 to 334
(Table 3). Were we to include those elementary school graduates who have stopped
short of joining the lower secondary section, the accommodative agility of the higher
secondary level would have appeared even more dismal.
Admittedly, schooled children are unable to make a successful transition to
secondary and higher secondary grades due to a variety of reasons; but systemic defi-
ciencies feature prominently among these disabling factors. So a ‘transition bottle-
neck’ is not just a function of students’ personal failings or family decisions, but the
system itself cannot afford to encourage or even allow all post-elementary students
to progress further. Ironically, and as Carnoy (2004) astutely observes in a different
context, the available places in many schools do not ‘…permit all students to complete
all grades…in those schools there is an expectation, even a need, to fail pupils.’ (cited
60 M. Majumdar and S. Mukherjee

Table 3 Schools with secondary and higher secondary sections in India and their total enrolment:
2016–17
Total schools with lower secondary sections 249,089
Total schools with higher secondary sections 116,125
All 365,214
Total enrolment in lower secondary sections 38,823,854
Total enrolment in higher secondary sections 22,625,448
All 61,449,302
Source State Report Cards, NUEPA

in Majumdar 2018) italics supplied). Again, a recent ASER study by Ramanujan and
Deshpande (2018) finds the presence of ‘continuous grades’, i.e. integrated schools,
to be important for children to continue in school. It suggests that children from
schools that offer education at both elementary and secondary stages are less likely
to discontinue their studies than those who attend schools without continuous grades.
To facilitate students’ progression through the secondary cycle, of course, would
require much more than sufficient places and integrated schools, including ‘equitably
resourced classrooms (with qualified and enabled teachers, libraries, materials for
experiments) etc.’ (Rampal 2018, p. 57). The contrasting reality shows that a large
majority of schools are resource-starved, in terms of laboratories, libraries and so on
(Mahajan 2018). A study of about 2.5 lakh secondary and senior secondary schools
in the country, conducted by NUEPA, observed that about 75% of them lacked well-
equipped and functional laboratories (NUEPA, as cited in Mahajan 2018, p. 102).
Furthermore, there is ‘geography of inequality’ in resource starvation as well. For
example, a recent Pratichi (India) Trust study on secondary education in West Bengal
(2017) found that mean enrolment in secondary sections was very high in the State—
180 and 327 respectively in sampled government-run secondary and higher secondary
grades. In the under-developed blocks, in particular, secondary classes were found
to be bursting at the seams. Teacher distribution, across rural and urban schools, also
revealed a highly skewed pattern; a disproportionately smaller proportion of teachers
at the high school level were found to be working in rural schools as compared to their
urban counterparts. In the socio-economically laggard block of Sitai, for example,
as per the DISE data for 2015–16, the pupil–teacher ratio was 99, followed by a
student–classroom ratio of 157.
Thus, over and above being an individual difficulty, the ‘fear of failure’ that often
debilitates students at the level of secondary education is an artefact of real needs
of the system to fail pupils—through screening and sorting, offering poor learning
environments, conducting ‘eliminative’ examinations and so on.
Push-Out, not Drop-Out: Youth and Secondary Schooling in India 61

4 The Narrative of Learning Crisis and Push-Out Question

Papers

Before we talk about examinations and assessments, especially the high-stakes

‘Board’ examinations at the end of lower secondary and higher secondary cycles, that
arguably work towards ‘eliminating’ rather than ‘evaluating’ high school students
(Kumar 2005; Nawani 2018a, b), we briefly dwell on the narrative of learning crisis
that currently dominates the educational discourse in the country. This is because it
is important to ask as to what extent this stated crisis is produced from within the
system and in which directions our reform efforts should be steered to remedy these
structural and systemic deficits.
For several years now, large-scale ASER (Annual Statistics of Education Report)
surveys show that levels of learning, in basic fields of literacy and numeracy, are
disconcertingly poor among the country’s schooled children. Indeed, many children
are unable to reach grade-level learning outcomes and their learning trajectories
are flat over time. Besides, there are inequalities in learning outcomes, since such
outcomes are poorer for poorer children (Banerjee 2018; Filmer and Rogers 2018;
Ramachandran 2018). In short, there seems to be a countrywide crisis of learning.
And yet, several scholars and educationists, both in India and other parts of the
globe, are of the view that currently popular standardised tests and assessments do not
lend a hand in improving learning levels (Carnoy 2004; Ramachandran 2018) and that
children’s imagination, creativity and critical thinking are enervated by standardised
testing (Ravitch 2017). In what ways, then, does the discourse on learning crisis
shed light on how to ameliorate the situation? More insistently, does the discourse
on learning outcomes deflect our attention away from the first-order questions about
teaching and learning, about teacher autonomy and pedagogy, about textbooks and
examinations that constitute the core of schooling? Or, alternatively, does this debate
on learning shortfalls lead to a prior debate on shortfalls in learning conditions?
Some scholars are concerned about the direction in which such conversation is
bending the arc of our attention. Rampal (2018), for example, is concerned that ‘this
global manufacture of a learning crisis’ is likely to divert our attention from ‘class-
room practices that have the strongest association with learning and achievement’
(p. 58). More disconcertingly, on the other hand, it may open up the field of education
to the free play of ‘business enterprises for teaching, tuition and testing…’ (p. 59).
Kumar (2018b) forcefully argues about how ASER data on low learning rates are
usually presented along with teacher absenteeism data and, as a result of this linkage,
how such declared ‘truancy’ among teachers serves as the basis for introduction of
‘different kinds of accountability regimes’ for teachers in many States in India.
Kumar further contends that these reform measures routinely assume that ‘the so-
called learning crisis has been caused by non-performing teachers’ and consequently
ignores the crisis in teacher training, teacher recruitment, and their working condi-
tions (p. 20). Kumar therefore compellingly argues to ‘spot’ the crisis in teaching
rather than in learning. In line with this genre of thinking that seeks to veer our
discussion towards systemic trouble spots and their amends, we briefly dwell on
62 M. Majumdar and S. Mukherjee

the prevailing examination systems in the country as also on the issue of quality of
assessment itself. This is followed by a discussion, based on a sample of what we
label as ‘push-out’ question papers.
High-stakes Grade X and XII ‘Board’ examinations, as opposed to school-based,
teacher-conducted assessments, carry the colonial legacy of the need for institution-
alisation and centralisation of examinations for the purpose of screening aspirants
for government service. In independent India, this system has been consolidated
to serve as a filtering device primarily to eliminate rather than evaluate pupils (to
assist them in their learning) and to ‘…allocate success and failure on the basis of
a one-time performance’, through assessment modes based on non-involvement of
teachers who have taught them (Kumar 2018a, p. 12). In a sense, therefore, this is not
only an ‘…examination for elimination [of students] celebrating fear and penalising
failure…’ (Nawani 2018a, p. 64), this also screens out those who teach and interact
with them in the classroom. Besides, thanks to this legitimising device, the ‘bitter
pill of failure’ (p. 72), to use Nawani’s pithy phrase, is swallowed by unsuccessful
students as a mark of their own inability, discounting the fact that the system can
accommodate only a few to square with the availability of seats.
High-stakes examinations, however, have an overriding and permeating effect on
what goes on inside the classroom on an everyday basis, on the curriculum, syllabus
and textbooks, and on teachers’ pedagogic practices. The distant and centralised
Board, thus, determines the de-centred and quotidian school life in a significant way.
Hence, even if school teachers are invited to set question papers under the rubric
of the existing centralised regime, they are not necessarily autonomous to frame
tools for assessment of deeper learning. It is, therefore, apt to examine a few sample
Grade X Board-conducted question papers, in Mathematics and English, in order to
ascertain the quality of assessment itself, in a climate replete with talk of quality of
learning.
The focus on a select set of question papers in this article, to the relative neglect
of secondary syllabi, textbooks, and teaching–learning processes in the classroom,
clearly restricts our analysis of the inner workings of the school system that we have
set out to do. But, as a limited attempt to deduce the connection between question
papers and teaching practices, we raise a few motivational issues that underpin the
introduction of various concepts and topics in the classroom. For example, when
a mathematics paper sets a question on logarithms, one is prompted to ask a prior
question: whether students have been given the motivation to learn this concept.
When a Grade XI student was indeed asked why he was studying this topic, his
simple answer was: ‘because it is there in the Mathematics syllabus’.
That this mathematical tool may help avoid multiplication of huge numbers, that
it can help to do same operations by addition of smaller numbers are not appropri-
ately presented before pupils, either in standard textbooks or in class, so that they
can grasp the underlying motivation. Thus, those students, who are lucky to ‘get
the idea’, complete the race, but the rest struggle with the burden of miscompre-
hension. To cite another example, in order to assess numeracy levels of students,
ASER surveys set questions that require use of unitary method and calculation of
area and perimeter, in addition to some straightforward numerical operations such
Push-Out, not Drop-Out: Youth and Secondary Schooling in India 63

as addition and subtraction. These surveys find that the former set of questions poses
more difficulty for students even though these are, arguably, simple questions.
Once again we need to push back the enquiry to raise motivational issues. How
are these concepts introduced to students? Does the instructor explain why we need
to study concepts like area and perimeter? For example, if it is said that we need to
grow grass in this ground or we need to put up a fence around it, then these everyday
practical issues will make it clear to children why they need to pay attention to
these issues and what, after all, are area and perimeter. Assessing learning outcomes
without pushing our enquiry back to probe these first-order questions will likely hide
more than reveal as to what is ailing our school system.
For example, Board examinations, and correspondingly, school examinations in
many States, primarily focus on rote memory and recall of facts and information
(Rampal 2018), with hardly any attempt to encourage critical thinking and self-
expression on the part of students. In a similar vein, Burdett (2017) provides a careful
and comparative analysis of assessment materials used in high-stakes examinations
in a few developing countries, including India and Pakistan. His close look at papers
from the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) in India makes him argue
that these papers mostly test ‘rote-learnt knowledge’ and mere ability to recall facts,
with no encouragement to students to learn ‘higher-order skills’.
By seeing a couple of CBSE question papers on Mathematics and English, we
draw a rough comparison with Cambridge O Level (i.e. Grade X) question papers
on these subjects to determine the quality of the CBSE-administered assessment tool
itself that decides the educational fortune of so many in the country.
In Box 1, we reproduce the Hindi as well as English version of a particular
question from the Mathematics paper, set for CBSE Board Examination, in 2017.
Overall, this paper covers a whole lot of mathematical themes and concepts such
as trigonometry, coordinate geometry, mensuration, probability, algebra, quadratic
equation, AP, GP, Euclidean geometry, etc., covering primarily materials introduced
in Grades IX and X. This paper does not aim to test any elementary mathematics,
and, therefore, is useful only for pupils who will go on to study mathematics, physics,
etc., in future. This paper is pitched at a specialised section of students and, in that
sense, is not inclusive and ready to develop a sense of mathematics for all. Many
questions test familiarity with mathematical terminologies and how well a student
memorises mathematical formulas. There are only a few visual presentations and
diagrams in the paper that are likely to help students deduce the problem better than
just relying only on difficult language.
In contrast, a General Certificate of Education Ordinary Level Paper on mathe-
matics (also known as Cambridge O Level Examination for Grade X students) has
a good range of questions and appears more balanced in its assessment. This is
because it focusses on testing knowledge of elementary mathematics such as frac-
tions, elementary algebraic inequality, unitary methods, cardinality, ordinality, set
theory at a basic level etc., while also including questions on more advanced math-
ematical problems. It tests both basic and ‘higher-order’ skills. There is a general
focus in this paper on everyday usefulness of mathematics, explaining questions with
64 M. Majumdar and S. Mukherjee

many diagrams, and, at the same time, not diluting the primary and rigorous goal to
help pupils understand mathematical concepts.
To return to the specific question, we have reproduced in Box 1, it is clear that
a student who has forgotten the definition of the frustum of a cone will remain
eminently frustrated. The Hindi version, too, looks so inaccessible because of the use
of the heavily Sanskritised phrases like ‘Chinnak’ and ‘Brittio’, that sound so alien to
everyday usage in Hindi. It seems as though language is used here to disable and not
enable students. We label such assessment tools as ‘push-out’ question papers, and
argue that these are designed to exclude the less fortunate sections of the student body
from an essentially ‘elitist school system’. Thus, an examination paper, just like the
education system as a whole, can be put to the use of serving a social purpose: either
to massify, democratise and universalise educational opportunities or to render them
exclusive. To quote Burdett (2017), ‘…the majority of students are not being catered
to by the content of these examinations [for example, CBSE examinations] and, by
implication, the education system.’ Almost an identical question has been posed in
the Cambridge O Level mathematics paper through diagrams (Fig. 3). It first draws
a cone, identifies a frustum and then asks examinees a few conceptual questions.
Importantly, framing the question in such a fashion, with the aid of diagrams, does

Fig. 3 Cambridge O level mathematics paper 1

Push-Out, not Drop-Out: Youth and Secondary Schooling in India 65

not in any way dilute or water down the rigour of understanding or Grade-level
competencies that are expected from these students.

Box 1 “Eliminative”, not “Evaluative” examination: A push-out question

paper

A quick comparison of CBSE English papers with Cambridge O Level papers on

English language also reveals a noticeable difference in their respective emphases.
Both contain questions to test pupils’ reading and writing skills, but Cambridge O
level papers probe deeper to gauge as to what extent they can ‘read for ideas’ (i.e.
can glean main ideas from a factual communication) and ‘read for meanings’ (i.e.
can grasp explicit and implicit meanings from a narrative passage); CBSE papers
also contain similar questions and comprehension exercises but give more stress on
reproducing facts narrated in given passages. To assess writing skills, Cambridge
O Level papers give candidates a task such as writing a letter to test their level of
‘directed writing’ as well as test their ‘creative writing’ skills through essays that test
both language and content. There is relatively less focus in CBSE papers on gauging
creative writing skills of candidates and their ability to write in their own words.
The Cambridge O level examination sets a separate paper on literature in English, on
poetry and prose, that almost always reproduces the selected poems or extracts from
selected prose, on which questions are set, along with the names of their authors,
making no demands on memorisation or information recall. In contrast, the questions
on textual literature in CBSE papers are stand-alone, even cryptic, questions without
any reference to the original text materials, which expect candidates to know the
literary texts by heart and do not reproduce excerpts from any poems or prose. To
give a couple of examples of this sort of questions, ‘What is your impression of Peter?’
(There is a good chance that this refers to Anne Franks’ Diary that is included in the
syllabus), or ‘Dedication and hard work are essential for success. Explain how these
qualities enable Patol Babu to perform his small role to perfection.’ (This question
relates to a short story written by Satyajit Ray that is one of the chosen texts in the
syllabus). We argue that such questions seem to test pupils’ familiarity with the text
and not so much their ability to engage with these texts in a meaningful way and their
skills to think and argue critically. This raises questions about what we are testing
and what our desired learning outcomes are, and correspondingly, about the type of
learning that our education system values (Burdett 2017; also see, Somerset 1997).
In this context, it is important to recognise that with adequate training of various
examination techniques, it would be possible for a student to provide set answers to
such set questions and score high marks, without necessarily having any meaningful
66 M. Majumdar and S. Mukherjee

understanding of the subject matter. Underlying the so-called learning crisis, there-
fore, there lurks a crisis of assessment tools and their questionable quality. To ensure,
therefore, that learners are ‘fairly’ assessed and that their level of ‘real’ learning is
improved, there is a systemic need to undertake a drastic and thorough going exam-
ination reform which will aim at evaluating students’ meaningful learning and not
push them out of the system prematurely.
As has been mentioned above, poor assessment formats allow mechanical teaching
practices to continue within the classroom; more disconcertingly, they cultivate a
widespread reliance among high school students on paid private tutoring, in the hope
of examination success. We will now briefly discuss this almost ubiquitous practice
of extra coaching among high school students in the country, to then ask whether the
market-driven, overwhelming ‘shadow’ of secondary education curtails rather than
expands educational choice for the country’s youth.2

5 Financial Stress as a Push-Out Factor

In his two influential articles, Tilak (1996a, b) asks: how ‘free’ is ‘free’ primary educa-
tion? In a similar vein, we are inclined to ask as to how affordable is secondary educa-
tion. Admittedly, there is no official mandate to provide free secondary schooling
for all in our country (in government schools, fees are claimed to be nominal); but
there are both public and private initiatives to expand secondary participation for a
number of compelling reasons. There are several public programmes and schemes
that aim to ease the financial burden that parents usually carry to send their children
to high school. In other words, there seems to be a kind of social acceptance that the
responsibility to near-universalise secondary schooling cannot be entirely laid at the
door of the family.
And yet, private spending on secondary schooling, including huge and rising
expenses on private coaching, is treated as a sign of the proverbial willingness and
ability to pay on the part of parents—an expression, in turn, of parental choice. From
a pro-choice perspective, therefore, the tutoring market allows more options, not less,
for students to benefit from a paid supplement in order to cope with their studies at
school and, thereby, ensure that they are not pushed out.
It is myopic to deny, however, that examinations (and the urge to improve chil-
dren’s performance in examinations) have been at the heart of both the culture of
schooling and the culture of private tutoring in the country (Kumar 2018a). Thus, it
seems as though spending on extra coaching is more of a system-generated compul-
sion than a parental ‘freedom to choose’. Indeed, as in the case of healthcare sector,
in education also, out-of-pocket spending (Oops) appears to be causing a real afford-
ability crisis so much so that both patients and parents are practically left with what
may be called a ‘freedom to lose’.

2 For
an illuminating analysis of ‘shadow education’ (i.e. supplementary private tutoring), see Bray
(2009). Also, see Majumdar (2018).
Push-Out, not Drop-Out: Youth and Secondary Schooling in India 67

Hence, it is arguable that rising, and often binding, private expenditures on

secondary schooling restrict options of students, especially of those from indigent
families, to continue in school. High school students from all economic classes, from
the poorest to the richest, appear to incur sizable expenditure both on course fees and
private supplementary tutoring (Table 4). Moreover, the demand that paid course fees
makes on the overall expenditure of a household in the lowest quintile class is roughly
comparable to the corresponding load borne by families belonging to higher quintile
classes, and, in some cases, such load is even more for the least privileged households.
This, indeed, is a substantial price to pay for parents having meagre economic where-
withals. Their means get even more stretched to meet expenses for extra coaching
of their school-going children that they consider ‘essential’ and yet find onerous.
Considering the bulk amount, spent almost mandatorily, on extra tuition even by
indigent families in the hope that their children complete the secondary cycle, one
cannot but acknowledge how prohibitive secondary education is for a large section
of our society. The recently conducted ASER study by Ramanujan and Deshpande
(2018) alludes to similar financial constraints, drawing on the findings of their study,
among children who have discontinued from school; the most commonly cited reason
for such an act has to do with the ‘financial implications’ of continuing to study. But
why is secondary education so expensive? What are the systemic forces that cause
this cost inflation? This paper falls short of such deeper probing. But we only make
a simple point about revisiting a statement that we have made earlier in this section.
Is the onus of secondary school completion to be conceived primarily as a household
responsibility? Or is it time to turn to discussing the role of social and collective
commitment to expand secondary education?

6 Concluding Remarks

Instead of belabouring the points already made above, we close our analysis here, by
reiterating two critical points. First, we need to wash out from our current educational
ethos the dominant idea that secondary education is all about fierce competition. In
the perceptible words of Ravitch (2017), ‘Education is a developmental process, a
deliberate cultivation of knowledge and skills, a recognition of each child’s unique
talents, not a race.’ (emphasis added). Second, this careful cultivation of cognitive
and creative diversities of India’s children and the youth is to be undertaken as a joint,
collective and collaborative endeavour on the part of a democratic, autonomous and
professionalised school system—the ‘Inside’, in short.
There is no denying the fact that unfavourable social situations, such as economic
hardship and social discrimination, impede the educational participation of a signif-
icant section of the country’s youth. Hence, undoubtedly, the ‘Outside’ matters. But
what matters more is whether and to what extent the school system and school
teachers are given support, through adequate resources and training and through
other supportive social policies to alleviate student poverty, to effectively deal with
 68

Table 4 Out-of-pocket spending on course fees and private coaching at secondary and higher secondary level, All-India, 2014
Quintile classes Average annual Private expenditure on course Percentage of students opting for Average annual expenditure on
private (household) spending on fees as a percentage of average paid coaching paid coaching (Rs.)
course fees (Rs.) annual household expenditure
Secondary Higher secondary Secondary Higher secondary Secondary Higher secondary Secondary Higher secondary
1 1044.3 2329.4 13.0 29.1 31.1 25.6 1333.3 1850.5
2 1276.4 2453.1 10.7 20.6 37.2 33.6 1734.5 2450.2
3 1926.8 3297.5 12.3 21.0 33.1 28.7 1911.0 2559.7
4 3332.9 4384.4 15.9 20.9 37.1 34.6 2537.8 3779.0
5 9128.3 11,243.6 21.3 26.2 46.0 46.6 5916.8 9512.7
Source Calculated from NSSO 71st round
M. Majumdar and S. Mukherjee
Push-Out, not Drop-Out: Youth and Secondary Schooling in India 69

Table 5 Gap in age-specific participation rates among various social groups during 2007–08 (64th
round of NSSO) and 2014 (71st round of NSSO)
Age Gap between the Gap between Gap between Gap between urban
highest and Hindus and general castes and rural residents
lowest MPCE Muslims and STs
quintile classes
64th 71st 64th 71st 64th 71st 64th 71st
round round round round round round round round
Thirteen 16.4 14.9 15.5 8.5 10.6 6.8 5.2 2.9
Fourteen 22.9 20.1 18.7 13.0 15.7 7.5 8.8 3.7
Fifteen 28.8 26.1 17.7 12.8 22.8 14.3 11.3 7.3
Sixteen 32.7 42.8 15.8 19.8 21.6 19.7 14.8 13.0
Seventeen 35.1 47.2 15.3 17.4 22.0 21.9 16.3 10.3
Eighteen 34.0 47.2 10.5 16.0 21.1 21.8 16.6 11.9
Source Calculated from NSSO rounds 64 and 71

the challenges of educating poorer children so that their educational journey does
not get derailed.
Importantly, to ensure their educational progress does not detract from the need to
expect from them the attainment of high academic standards; indeed, on the contrary,
to expect high levels of learning from all students is both egalitarian and democratic
(Rose 2014). But the system has to make sure that the standards are fair and fitting
to facilitate learning for all, and not discriminatory and damaging for those who are
already disadvantaged. The school system cannot alone alter social exclusions and
inequalities that may make students drop out, but it can, through fair and appropriate
internal reforms, stop pushing them out.

Appendix

See Table 5.

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Secondary Education in Maharashtra:
Issues of Concern

Anuradha De and Meera Samson

Universalisation of elementary education has been prioritised in India for more than
two decades. More recently, the focus has broadened to include secondary education
as well and India committed to ensure availability, accessibility and affordability of
good-quality education for all young persons up to the age of 18. In 2009, Rashtriya
Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) was introduced to enhance access to sec-
ondary education and improve its quality. This was in line with the fourth SDG
which aspires to ensure that all girls and boys complete free primary and secondary
schooling by 2030. It is in this context that we explore Maharashtra’s progress towards
universalisation of secondary education, both in terms of its achievements and the
challenges that it faces.
Maharashtra is among the more developed States in India with the second highest
per-capita income in the country. It is also a relatively urbanised and industrialised
State.1 It is the second largest State in India in terms of area and population. The
literacy rate in 2011 was much higher than the national average (83% vis-à-vis
73%). Enrolment at elementary level is nearly universal, and the gross enrolment
ratio (GER) at the secondary stage is also higher (89%) than for India (78%) as a
whole in the year 2014–15.
However, the development is not even, either economically or educationally. Part
of these variations can be explained by the fact that in 1960, the State of Maharash-
tra was formed by consolidating three sociocultural regions with different physical
features and different histories of development—Western Maharashtra, Marathwada
and Vidarbha. The Kelkar Committee Report points out that the variations have
increased over the last decade. The State’s geography also directly plays an impor-
tant role in the variations. The narrow coastal regions in the west of the State lie

1 Forty-fivepercentage of its population live in urban areas (2011). Only 11% of its GSDP is
contributed by the primary sector (Economic Survey of Maharashtra 2013–14).

A. De (B) · M. Samson
Collaborative Research and Dissemination, New Delhi, India
e-mail: [email protected]

© Council for Social Development 2020 71

J. B. G Tilak (ed.), Universal Secondary Education in India,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5366-0_4
72 A. De and M. Samson

between the sea and the Western Ghats and get high rainfall. The inland areas in
the State form part of the Deccan Plateau. Numerous rivers and streams flow from
the west coast, towards the east, and the areas which lie in the river valleys are well
irrigated. Areas of the plateau which lie in the shadow of the Western Ghats are very
dry, as is much of the central part of the plateau. As one moves to the extreme east of
the State, rainfall levels rise again. The general accessibility and the access to water,
in particular, necessarily play a role in the variations in the levels of development
across the State (Kelkar Committee Report 2013).
Maharashtra is largely Hindu (79.8%),2 but also has a substantial proportion
of Muslims (11.5%). A significant proportion is from disadvantaged communities.
Scheduled Tribes are 14.6% of the population. These include a number of Nomadic
Tribes (NTs) and Vimukt Jati (VJs) or Denotified Tribes. Scheduled Castes are 11.8%
of the population.
This paper is based on a study of secondary schooling in Maharashtra done in
2015.3 Inputs for the study were taken from many sources. Secondary data pro-
vided the broad scenario at State and region level. Primary data through quantitative
and qualitative methods was collected from schools and villages/wards in selected
districts, to provide insights at school/habitation level. The data from the different
sources has been useful in understanding the situation from various perspectives—
the school providers, the administrators, the teachers, students and their parents. It
has been triangulated to provide a picture of the secondary education system in the
State.
The paper is structured in four sections. In the first section, some key features of
secondary education in Maharashtra, emerging from secondary data, and documents
are presented. In Sect. 2, we present findings from the survey of schools across the
State. Section 3 focusses on issues that are important for the adolescents and parents.
In the last section, we highlight some critical areas that have contributed to the present
scenario.

1 Key Features of Secondary Education in Maharashtra

Secondary data (UDISE, SEMIS, NSSO, education budgets and Board examination
results), available at the State, region and district levels, was analysed. Other govern-
ment documents on secondary education were also reviewed. Interviews with senior
education functionaries in Mumbai and Pune provided insights into the current sce-
nario. Altogether, there are 59 lakh students enrolled in Grades 9–12 in a total of

2 Census 2011.
3 The study was done by Collaborative Research and Dissemination in collaboration with UNICEF
(Maharashtra) and the Government of Maharashtra. The authors wish to acknowledge the contribu-
tion of all those involved and particularly to the critical inputs provided by Shruti Patil and Rahul
Sapkal.
Secondary Education in Maharashtra: Issues of Concern 73

100
85.6
80
56.3 58.8
60
GER
35.6
40
NER
20

0
Grades 9-10 Grades 11-12

Fig. 1 Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) and Net Enrolment Ratio (NER) at secondary and higher
secondary stages of schooling. Source Secondary State Report Card (2013–14)

nearly 24,000 institutions.4 Of these, 95% are co-educational, 4% are only girls’
schools and 1% only boys’ schools.5

1.1 Comparatively High GER at Secondary Stage, NER

Much Lower

GER, at secondary stage, was 85.6 (and, at higher secondary stage, it was 58.8) in
2013–14 in Maharashtra, indicating that the State is quite within reach of RMSA
targets,6 particularly for the secondary stage. However, less than 60% of those in the
14–15 age group are enrolled in age-appropriate grades (i.e. 9–10). The situation is
worse for students in the 16–17 age group, when the age-appropriate enrolment is
less than 36% (see Fig. 1).

1.2 High Proportion of Girls Enrolled in Secondary

and Higher Secondary Stages of Schooling

In contrast to several States in India, gender differences in enrolment in secondary

stage are not marked. Proportion of girls in secondary enrolment is high at 45.6%
and is still higher at higher secondary level (46.4%) (see Table 1). The proportion of
girls enrolled is similar to proportion of girls in the population as a whole.

4 Based on Secondary Flash Statistics (2013–14) and (2014–15).

5 Thisdoes not take into account the colleges which provide higher secondary education.
6 These are participation rates at secondary stage to be 90% and at higher secondary stage to be 75%

by 2017, and universal retention by 2020.

74 A. De and M. Samson

Table 1 Proportion (%) of

Grades % of girls
girls in secondary and higher
secondary stage in 2013–14 Grades 9 and 10 45.6
Grades 11 and 12 46.4
Proportion of girls in 14–17 age group 46.6
Source Secondary Flash Statistics (2013–14)

15

10

0
% of SC students % of ST students % of Muslim students
Grades 1 to 5 Grades 6 to 8 Grades 9 and 10 Grades 11 and 12

Fig. 2 Change in proportions enrolled over different stages of education among SC, ST
and Muslims, 2013–14

1.3 Lower Proportion Enrolled from Disadvantaged Social

Groups in Secondary and Higher Secondary Stage

If one looks at the enrolment of students from different social categories, a decrease in
proportion enrolled is noted with increase in stages of education—mainly among the
disadvantaged segments of population like the Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Muslims.
The enrolment data of Scheduled Caste students, on the contrary, shows a more
neutral picture—the proportion of SC students in total enrolment, at the primary
stage, is similar to that in the higher secondary stage (Fig. 2). But the decline is very
sharp among the ST students—a fall from 12.4 to 6.6%, and among Muslim students
from 13.6 to 7.5% (Secondary Flash Statistics 2013–14).

1.4 Dropping Out During Secondary Schooling—Peaks After

Class 10

Figure 3 shows the drop-out rates after Class 9, Class 10 and Class 11. We find that
the drop-out rate in 2013–14 is quite sharp between Classes 9 and 10 (8.5%), and
still sharper between Classes 10 and 11 (16.6%). The same pattern was seen in the
previous year.
Secondary Education in Maharashtra: Issues of Concern 75

Fig. 3 Dropout rates after Classes 9, 10 and 11. Source Secondary Flash Statistics (2012–13) and
(2013–14)

1.5 High Pass Percentages in the Board Examinations

in Classes 10 and 12

Critically important for secondary education is the performance of students in the

Board examinations7 at the end of Class 10 and Class 12.
UDISE data shows that the pass proportions are very high at secondary stage
(90% in 2013–14) (see Table 2. The pass proportions were already quite high in the
previous year at above 80%. But there has also been a sharp increase. In both years,
promotion rates are higher for girls than boys.
The pass proportion in 2013–14 at higher secondary stage (see Table 3) was
reported to be similar to that at secondary stage—very different from the previous
year when only 60% of those who appeared for the Class 12 examination were
declared to have passed. The sudden improvement in performances may indicate a
positive change, but the reasons behind the change need to be further explored to

Table 2 Pass percentages

Boys Girls Total
in Class 10
Board Examinations 2012–13 82.2 84.6 83.3
2013–14 88.7 91.5 90.0
Source Secondary State Report Cards (2013–14) and (2014–15)

Table 3 Pass percentages

Boys Girls Total
in Class 12
Board Examinations 2012–13 54.6 58.5 56.4
2013–14 87.8 91.6 89.5
Source Secondary State Report Cards data (2013–14) and (2014–
15)

7 Not
all children appear for examinations conducted by Maharashtra State Board. A considerable
number of children, particularly from elite private and government schools, appear for CBSE or
ICSE Board examination.
76 A. De and M. Samson

Table 4 Pass percentage of students from different social groups in Class 10 Board examinations,
2013–14
Social category Secondary board examinations Higher secondary board
examinations
General castes 92.8 91.2
Scheduled Castes 86.1 89.8
Scheduled Tribes 84.5 92.8
Other Backward Classes 89.4 91.5
Total 90.0 91.2
Source Secondary State Report Cards (2014–15)

arrive at a conclusion. There may have been a change in the manner assessments
were made, rather than reflecting an actual change in students’ learning levels.
As Table 4 shows, the pass percentages in Tenth Boards are lower for children
from Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes as compared to children from OBC and
‘general’ categories. It is interesting to note that such differences are not noticeable
for Class 12 Board examination.

1.6 High Proportions Enrolled in Government-Aided Private

Schools

Maharashtra has had a history of private participation in the provision of sec-

ondary education from colonial times, particularly in Western Maharashtra (lower
in Vidarbha and still lower in Marathwada where secondary schooling is reported to
have traditionally been provided by the government).
In 2013–14, of the 15,820 secondary and 7834 higher secondary schools in the
State, a major proportion (60%) were private schools which received financial sup-
port from the government on grant-in-aid basis. These private-aided schools had
more than three-fourths of students enrolled in Grades 9–12 (see Fig. 4a,b). The
government schools accounted for a very small proportion of enrolment primarily
run by local bodies/Zilla Parishads. There were also schools run by the Tribal Devel-
opment Department and by the Social Welfare Department, as well as schools aided
by these departments. Enrolment in the government schools was a higher proportion
at secondary level (7%) than at higher secondary level (3%) (see Fig. 4a, b).
It is worth mentioning that while government schools were run by various
departments, the private-aided schools were run by non-profit trusts, which var-
ied in their size and resources and management capacity. Within each category
of school management, there were considerable heterogeneity in management and
organisation.
There were also a substantial proportion of unaided schools, 32% among sec-
ondary schools and 36% among higher secondary schools. However, they accounted
Secondary Education in Maharashtra: Issues of Concern 77

Fig. 4 a Distribution of secondary enrolment in Maharashtra by school management in 2013–14.

b Distribution of higher secondary enrolment in Maharashtra by school management in 2013–14
Source Secondary Flash Statistics (2013–14)

for between 17 and 20% of student enrolment (see Fig. 4a, b). It is noteworthy
that four-fifths of students enrolled in Grades 9–12 in Maharashtra are enrolled in
non-fee-paying schools.

1.7 Cost of Schooling Increases Substantially at Secondary

and Higher Secondary Stages

From the ninth grade onwards, parents have to cover the cost of textbooks, notebooks,
stationery and uniforms in addition to other costs associated with schooling, though
in the government and government-aided school, no fees are charged. Till the eighth
grade, these are covered by the government (through Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan). Edu-
cation department does not collect information on expenditure on education. But
NSSO data, collected through reliable household surveys, indicates that average
annual expenditure per student enrolled at secondary/higher secondary level in 2014
in Maharashtra was Rs. 13,053, of which more than half was being spent on private
tuition (Table 5).
Costs at secondary stage were found to be much higher at 1.6 times costs at middle
stage. Costs at senior secondary stage were found to be 1.7 times that at secondary
stage.
Summing up, we note how the picture we get from secondary data is mixed. There
are many positives—high enrolment at secondary level and high pass percentages in
Board results at both secondary and higher secondary levels. However, the costs of
schooling are high at secondary and higher secondary level, particularly on private
tuition, and there is considerable drop-out after Class 10. GER is much lower at
higher secondary level (59), and NER is as low as 36, indicating that there is a long
way to go for universalisation of secondary schooling. In the next section, we focus
on the primary data collected in 2015.
78 A. De and M. Samson

Table 5 Average annual

Item of expenditure At secondary/higher
expenditure per student by
secondary level
items of expenditure in 2014
(in Rs.) Fees in school 4637
(miscellaneous)
Books and stationery and 2370
uniform
Transport 1990
Private tuition 6808
Other expenses 877
Total 13,053
Source Calculated from NSSO (2014) 71st round

2 Key Findings from the Field Research

The findings from the primary data come from a Statewide survey of 192 secondary
and higher secondary schools in urban and rural Maharashtra. These were govern-
ment and government-aided schools8 —unaided schools were excluded. Insights into
the working of the system also came through interviews with DEOs and BEOs in the
districts selected for the survey.

Sampling for the school survey

The sample was selected through a stratified random process. Maharashtra has
nine divisions for education administration.9 Mumbai division was excluded
(as schools were likely to be of a different character). Two districts were chosen
randomly from each of the eight remaining divisions. Twelve secondary/higher
secondary schools were chosen from urban and rural areas from each district
and selected randomly from a list of all government and government-aided
schools (offering Classes 9 and 10)10 , through a probability proportional to size
(PPS). The sampling strategy made it likely that government and government-
aided school of different managements in the selected districts are included.

The surveyed schools varied widely. Most schools were functional and were well
attended. However, several shortcomings were also observed.

8 Schools with only Grades 11 and 12 (also called junior colleges) were also excluded from the
sample.
9 Konkan; Pune; Kolhapur; Nashik; Amravati; Nagpur; Aurangabad; Latur; and Mumbai.
10 All schools with secondary and higher secondary classes were included in the sampling universe,

but those with only Classes 11 and 12 (referred to as junior college) were excluded.
Secondary Education in Maharashtra: Issues of Concern 79

Table 6 Student-classroom
Secondary schools Higher secondary schools
ratio in secondary and higher
secondary schools Minimum 22 23
Maximum 80 118
Average 49.3 60.1
Source CORD survey 2015

2.1 Large Class Sizes at Secondary and Higher Secondary

Level

The average student classroom ratio (SCR) in the surveyed secondary schools was as
high as 49 and in higher secondary schools was 60.11 However, the surveyed schools
varied in size (Table 6). More than one-third of the schools were comparatively
small—their enrolment in Grades 9–12 was not more than 200. At the other extreme,
one-tenth of the schools were extremely large, with multiple sections in each class and
more than 1000 children enrolled (in Grades 9–12). The higher secondary schools had
higher enrolment per grade and were the ones more likely to have multiple sections.
The maximum class size was 80 in secondary schools and 118 in higher secondary
schools. Teaching such large classes was a difficult task and had implications on the
level of engagement of teachers with students.
Enrolment in urban schools was usually much larger than in rural schools. The
average enrolment in Grades 9–10 in secondary schools in the rural areas was only
65, while in urban areas, it was approximately four times that figure—257. The rural–
urban differences were observed in higher secondary schools as well, but were less
pronounced.

2.2 Basic Infrastructure in Place, but Critical Gaps Exist

Secondary data indicates that infrastructure and facilities in secondary schools are
more than adequate. However, it is critical to find out how functional the facilities
are, and whether they are sufficient for the students. Else, the problems the students
and teachers face due to inadequate provision and lack of maintenance will remain
invisible.
Some schools had well-maintained buildings. This was, particularly, in the case
of urban schools run by large trusts. More generally, infrastructure was in need of
maintenance. The availability and usability of facilities were, in general, greatly
impacted by the availability of staff, or lack of it, to maintain the infrastructure and
facilities that were in place.

11 Our data excludes institutions with only Grades 11 and 12 for which SCR was reported to be

particularly high. This explains why SCR at both secondary and higher secondary stages from
UDISE, 2013–14, was as high at 51 and 66.
80 A. De and M. Samson

Schools, usually in the rural areas, had small buildings comprising a few class-
rooms. One government secondary school was in urgent need of repair: ‘water comes
into the rooms during the rains. There are not enough desks for students. Most of
them were broken. The drinking water was reported to be not safe to drink. There
were fans only in the office, the staffroom and the laboratory. The entrance gate was
broken’.
The classrooms were usually large, with adequate benches and long tables. In some
cases, there was overcrowding, particularly when there was very high enrolment. And
there were schools where students had to sit on the floor. In several schools, there
was evidence of construction of new classrooms while the present classes were being
held in tin sheds or by sharing the building with another institution during school
hours.
While basic infrastructure was available in a large number of the surveyed schools,
the schools were not safe and secure. At least half the schools had no concrete
boundary walls, or the walls were such that they could easily be scaled. Many had
only a wire fencing around the school. This is a major problem in that students could
come and go as they wished. The problems are aggravated by the fact that even when
schools had gates, they were not usually locked. During the school survey, it was
observed that the gates were locked in only around one-fourth of the cases, and only
on very rare occasions was there a person manning the gate.
It is surprising that in a substantial proportion of secondary and higher secondary
schools (22.4%), there were no lights and fans at all. In a few schools, lights and fans
were functional in some rooms like the office and staff rooms, classrooms of higher
grades, but not in others. At the other extreme, there were schools with all rooms
equipped with lights and fans, and even speakers and video monitoring facilities.
While most schools had arrangements for drinking water, these were not adequate,
especially in those schools with high enrolment. Students were observed to bring
water from home.
The situation was more problematic with regard to usable toilets. Almost all
schools had at least one toilet each for boys and girls—very similar to the data
available from UDISE. Only in approximately three-fifths of the schools were these
toilets functional. This was due to lack of cleaning and maintenance. Running water
in toilets was, particularly, scarce. In addition, in nearly half the schools, there were
only one toilet for boys and one for girls, and this was a major problem where
enrolment was high.
In only half the surveyed schools (52%) was there running water in toilets. This
made the toilets difficult to use. The drought-ridden districts were especially affected.
In Jalna, the survey team observed that though the majority of the schools surveyed
had many toilets, with some of them newly constructed, they were not used because
of lack of water. Young people had to relieve themselves in the open, a sad indictment
of the facilities provided to them (Table 7).
Less than half the schools had any ramp built for ensuring ease of access for
CWSN. Nearly 40% of school buildings were double or triple-storeyed, but no pro-
vision was made for them to be accessible to CWSN. Accessibility of toilets was
Secondary Education in Maharashtra: Issues of Concern 81

Table 7 Availability and

Toilet facilities Proportion of schools
usability of toilets in surveyed
where the following
schools
facilities are
Available Usable
At least one separate toilet for boys 94.1 59.9
At least one separate toilet for girls 94.7 58.2
Running water in toilets – 51.7
Source CORD Survey 2015

Table 8 School
Proportion (%) of schools with Rural Urban
infrastructure in urban and
rural schools Usable lights 61.0 86.3
Usable fans 50.4 72.5
Running water in toilets 39.0 78.4
Usable toilet for boys 49.6 78.4
Usable toilet for girls 46.8 82.4
Source CORD Survey 2015

even more restricted. Only in less than 10% of the schools were the toilets accessible
to CWSN.
Infrastructure and facilities were much better in the urban than in the rural areas.
The table below compares schools on several parameters and indicates the enormous
variations that exist. In general, urban schools were larger and better funded. They
were, more often, run by the larger trusts. Among the surveyed government schools,
those managed by the Zilla Parishads and the Tribal Development Department had
poor infrastructural facilities, and these were more likely to be in rural areas (Table 8).
In urban areas, about one-fourth of schools had poor infrastructure on the selected
parameters whereas in the case of the rural areas, this applied to at least half the
schools.

2.3 Important Gaps in Library and Laboratory Facilities

Secondary schools are expected to have a library for the students, a laboratory for
science classes and a computer laboratory. Secondary data indicates that there is
a shortfall in facilities like availability of library, science laboratory and computer
room. The survey confirms this and gives additional information on functionality of
these facilities. It revealed that while nearly 70% of the surveyed schools reported
having a designated library room and 78% a designated science laboratory, only in
less than 50% of the schools were these rooms functional. In particular, the schools
which had a shortage of rooms were seen to use the same space for multiple purposes.
82 A. De and M. Samson

In many schools, field investigators noted that science laboratories did not have
adequate equipment and also were in no state to be used. Some examples indicating
students’ lack of access to these facilities are given below.
• In a school in Gondiya, the same room doubled as a science laboratory, computer
room and sports room.
• The library or science laboratory was seen to be used as staff meeting rooms.
• In many schools, the library books were stored in the staff room or the principal’s
room.
• A school in Bhandara (Nagpur division) had no separate laboratory or library.
Instead, the laboratory equipment was stored in cupboards located in a corridor.
The library books were stored in a cupboard in the headmaster’s room.
• In a poorly maintained Zilla Parishad school in Osmanabad, the students com-
plained that even though the school had a science laboratory and a computer room,
they were never used.
Overall, students were disappointed about the limited opportunity they had to do
any science practicals as well as to make use of library facilities in their school.
The situation was more positive regarding computer laboratories. A large majority
(83%) of surveyed schools had a computer room, and most of these (77%) were
reported to be functional. Irrespective of whether the school had a separate computer
room or not, more than 90% of the schools had computers, and they were observed to
be used. This was a recent phenomenon, as in 60% of the schools, the computer room
was built in 2010 or later. In several schools (24%), the computers were purchased
with RMSA funds.
There were problems for students in this area too. The number of computers
usually varied between 6 and 12—and, given the class size, this meant limited access
for individual students. Nearly half the schools also did not have separate computers
for staff. There were some schools where computer classes were not being held at
all. In one such school, there were computers in all the classrooms but no teachers
for the subject. The computers were also not in working condition and had not been
in use for two years.
Overall, here too we found urban schools comparatively well equipped, with more
than 70% of them having a usable library, a usable science laboratory and a usable
computer room. In rural areas, only 37% of schools had a usable library and only
39% of schools had a usable science laboratory.
It is important to note that the usability of the library facilities and the science
laboratories, in particular, was affected by the lack of sanctioned posts in both gov-
ernment and government-aided schools for this work. In their absence, the work fell
on the teachers.
Secondary Education in Maharashtra: Issues of Concern 83

2.4 More Teachers Needed for Specific Subjects

During the school survey, very few principals talked of shortage of teachers as a major
issue, with PTR being low in most schools. But in one-third of the surveyed schools,
they did report a shortage of teachers for specific subjects like science, mathematics
and English.
The grant-in-aid norm in Maharashtra is to finance salaries of all teachers and non-
teaching staff in sanctioned posts. It was reported that schools faced a problem when
additional teachers were required because of increase in enrolment or introduction
of new subjects or on account of retirement of the earlier staff. The candidate chosen
by the school management needed to be approved by the District Education Officer.
The whole process was quite time-consuming. In the interim period, teachers were
funded by the school management in aided schools.
The District Education Officers confirmed the difficulties brought up by the school
with regard to lags in sanctioning of additional teaching posts. The DEOs spoke of
many vacant teaching posts and said that no new posts had been sanctioned in the
government and government-aided schools in recent years. Some schools had surplus
teachers (specifically those in which enrolment had declined), while there were vacant
teaching posts in other schools. Progress in rationalising teacher appointments was
reported to be slow.
The schools dealt with these shortages in different ways. One was to allot more
classes to each teacher, giving them less time for preparation, corrections and so
on. The other was to appoint teachers on contract.12 Four secondary schools had
employed contract teachers.
At the higher secondary level, the difficulties in recruiting teachers were aggra-
vated further, particularly for commerce and science teachers. When schools had
only one section of a stream in Classes 11 and 12, with numbers too few for a full-
time regular teacher’s post to be sanctioned, teachers have to be recruited either on
part-time or on contract basis. Qualified teachers, particularly in the commerce and
science streams, were reported to find the approved rates for contract teachers too
low. Several higher secondary schools had, however, employed contract teachers for
some of the subjects taught only in Grades 11 and 12.

2.5 Language Issues: Introduction of Semi-English Medium

Schools

The schools covered in the survey were primarily of Marathi medium (65%). There
were a few Urdu medium schools. A significant development noticed was the signifi-
cant number of semi-English medium schools (28% of the surveyed schools), where

12 Teaching posts in government and government-aided schools are reported to be highly valued.
The government has now put in place a policy where contract teachers will be regularised after
three years, which is likely to make even contract teacher jobs very attractive.
84 A. De and M. Samson

Fig. 5 Distribution of 6.3

schools by medium of
instruction Marathi medium
28.3
English medium
Semi English medium
64.9 Any other
0.5

science and mathematics were taught in English, and other subjects in Marathi (or
Hindi or other Indian languages).
This development was introduced by the Education Department in 2009.13 Marathi
medium secondary schools were encouraged to have at least one division in which
science and mathematics would be taught in English in Grades 5–10. This would
help the existing schools in two ways. First, it would stem the outflow of students
to English medium schools, which had been rapidly increasing,14 to the extent that
an absolute decline in enrolment in Marathi medium schools had been reported.15
Second, on account of this reported decline in enrolment, there were surplus teachers
in many schools and these teachers could be retained if they were able to teach in
the new semi-English sections (Fig. 5).16

2.6 Working Days and Working Hours Need Monitoring

While secondary schools are expected to function 230 days in a year, during the
fieldwork, it was seen that apart from the official holidays declared by the State gov-
ernment, the schools in different locations were closed for various reasons. Besides,
there were days when the schools were officially open but had very low attendance
of teachers and students. These included days when local body elections were held
in some districts—schools were disrupted for a week, as the teachers had to attend
the training, and then make arrangements to hold elections in school. During Ganesh
Puja, though only three to four days were officially declared as holidays, it was diffi-
cult to find students and teachers in school on the days preceding the official holidays

13 Government Resolution SANKRIN 2009/(576/09)/MASHI-1, ibid.

14 The state government allows the setting up of schools by private trusts or societies on a self-
financing basis. This, along with parents’ increasing interest in English medium education, has
encouraged the setting up of fee-paying English medium schools.
15 This is in spite of the fact that the government responded to parents’ interest in their children

learning English by introducing English as a subject in Class 1 in government and government-aided

schools from the year 2000. See Government Resolution Supra 1099:180/99/PRASHI-5, cited in
‘Policies of Maharashtra Government regarding English Teaching’, at http://shodhganga.inflibnet.
ac.in/bitstream/10603/9412/12/12_chapter6.pdf.
16 Thakare (2012).
Secondary Education in Maharashtra: Issues of Concern 85

Table 9 Distribution of
Type of schools Proportion of schools with
surveyed schools by number
of shifts One shift Two shifts
Secondary schools 80.4 19.6
Higher secondary schools 33.7 66.3
All schools 57.0 43.0
Source CORD Survey 2015

as well as some days after. There were considerable variations in the number of days
the schools were actually functioning (Table 9).
There were also variations between schools in the number of working hours. A
major reason for this was whether the schools were single-shift schools or double-
shift schools. A study of the school timings showed that while a single-shift school,
on average, functioned for around six hours, the hours were shorter for both the shifts
in the double-shift schools. The morning shift, in particular, functioned for five hours
or less.
There was a great difference between the secondary and the higher secondary
schools. The majority of secondary schools were single-shift schools (80.4%). Only
those with high enrolment and limited infrastructure functioned in two shifts. How-
ever, two-thirds of the higher secondary schools (66.3%) were functioning in two
shifts. In these schools, Grades 11 and 12 were more commonly held in the morning
shift and the secondary grades in the afternoon shift. The reason why the higher sec-
ondary sections, with larger curricular workload, are kept in the shorter morning shift
is not clear. It is possibly related to norms that are required to be met at secondary
and higher secondary stages of schooling.

2.7 Board Examination Results Good, but not Explained

by School Quality

The results of the Class 10 Boards in the surveyed schools were very positive in the
previous year—where more than 85% schools had a promotion rate higher than 80%.
The average promotion rate was 90%. This appears to be an unusually high perfor-
mance, given the variations in school quality and considering that not all schools
were functioning well.
In several schools, it was noted that though the promotion rates were high in
the Class 10 Board examinations, the promotion rates after Class 9 were quite
low.17 It is likely that this is done in order for schools to show better results in
the Board examinations. This trend was observed particularly in the Zilla Parishad
and other government-managed schools. However, it is reported to be an issue in

17 In
some private-aided schools, on the contrary, it was seen that the schools which had low
promotion rates in the Board examination had a very high promotion rate after Class 9.
86 A. De and M. Samson

secondary schooling across the State, and the government is considering monitoring
the examinations in Class 9 so as to avoid this phenomenon.
The very high pass percentages in the Class 10 Board examinations can be partly
explained by the high marks scored in the internal assessment. Thirty per cent of all
subjects are assessed internally by the school teachers. Thus, a student who scores
high in the internals may pass the Boards even if she scores poorly in the exter-
nal examinations. Further, students were reportedly being given high marks in the
internals.
The Class 12 Board results were even better. This can be due to the fact that there
is a selection process when admitting students to Class 11. First, all the students
who had failed or had compartmentals in the Tenth Boards are likely to drop out
from formal schools. Some drop out on account of this transition between schools.
Choosing streams at the higher secondary level allows for further selection (and
filtering out) to happen. The schools which have a better reputation have the option
of getting students with higher marks. This process of gaining access to schools
and streams of choice is not a smooth one, and some students, particularly from
disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds, do end up falling through the cracks
and dropping out of formal schooling altogether. Here too, the Board results are
impressive even though the schools vary in quality.

2.8 Critical Role of DEOs and BEOs: Multiple

Responsibilities and High Workload

The district- and block-level education administration was organised differently. At

the district level, separate District Education Officers were in charge of primary and
secondary education. But at block level, the Block Education Officers are responsible
for primary and secondary education as well as adult literacy. The BEOs, thus,
have limited time to focus on secondary schools and to coordinate with the DEO of
secondary education. Non-teaching duties, such as elections and the data collection
during the decadal censuses, curtail their time further.
There were many vacant posts of DEOs and BEOs in the 16 districts covered
in the survey. Often, they have to take on the responsibilities associated with more
than one post. Recruitment to these posts is reported to occur extremely slowly. As
these administrative posts serve as an important link between the schools and the
Education Department, vacancies slow down the normal functioning of the education
system significantly.
The DEOs and BEOs had multiple responsibilities. Their daily routine was
reported to involve large amounts of bureaucratic paperwork. They are the govern-
ment authorities at ground level who have to take forward the policies and schemes
adopted at the State level by the Directorate of Education and the Board of Secondary
and Higher Secondary Education. There are a large number of schools under their
supervision, and in addition, there is the need to deal with applications for recognition
Secondary Education in Maharashtra: Issues of Concern 87

and/or aid by new schools. Much of their working time is spent on forwarding docu-
ments sent by the schools to the Directorate of Secondary Education and, similarly,
forwarding to the schools the responses received from the department. Examination
times are particularly busy for them as the Secondary Board of Education does not
have its own staff below regional level.
All the DEOs and BEOs reported that they have to deal with problems related to
litigation18 on an ongoing basis. There are several hundred cases pending in each
district, and the DEOs and BEOs have to spend a considerable amount of time being
present at court proceedings. They also reported that responding to RTI queries takes
up a good deal of their time.
While one of the main duties of the education officers is to ensure that quality
norms are met by the schools under their jurisdiction, very limited time is available
for school inspection. With large number of schools under the jurisdiction of each
officer and the rapid expansion in the number of private unaided schools, only select
schools could be visited. Apart from the new schools, much of their limited time
was spent in visiting schools with low enrolment or poor results, or schools against
which complaints had been received. The fact that the conveyance costs for these
school visits have to be met by them was reported to act as a disincentive. To facilitate
the process of monitoring, the schools are expected to submit regular reports of their
activities and grade themselves. But the education officers said that this was not done
by many schools.

3 Some Challenges Reported by Adolescents and Their

Parents

A smaller qualitative study, involving visits to households in urban and rural sites
in four selected districts, provided data on the experiences of adolescents during
secondary schooling, as well as factors in their home environment which facilitate
or impede their efforts to access secondary education. Interviews with parents and
adolescents were conducted using a semi-structured schedule.

Selection of districts: Four out of the 16 surveyed districts were chosen for
the qualitative research. To ensure geographical coverage, one district from
each of four different education divisions was selected, based on district-level
indicators such as male–female literacy rates and proportions of SCs, STs and
minorities in the surveyed districts. Amravati, Nashik, Solapur and Jalna were
the districts selected.19

18 Theseare cases in which teachers have taken the trusts (which own private-aided schools) and
the government to court on salary and appointment-related issues.
88 A. De and M. Samson

Selection of sites: Within the selected districts, one urban and one rural school
from those surveyed were selected, and for household survey, a site in the
vicinity of these schools was finalised. Between 15 and 20 households, with
at least one child in the 14–18 age group, were selected purposively to ensure
that households with adolescents who have dropped out, and those with ado-
lescents enrolled in Grades 9–12, can be interviewed. As exclusion from
secondary schooling is likely to be concentrated in lower income groups
and/or marginalised social groups (Dalits/tribals/minorities), selection of such
households was prioritised.

The household interviews were supplemented by discussions with groups of ado-

lescents, where possible. The triangulation of information from different sources in
each site has given an in-depth understanding of the situation with regard to sec-
ondary education in that context for children from different socio-economic back-
grounds. This phase of fieldwork provides rich information on how, in spite of a rel-
atively developed secondary education system, children from disadvantaged social
and economic background struggle to complete secondary education.

3.1 Access to Secondary Schooling Is an Issue

In the rural areas, at the secondary level, young people had limited or no choice since
there was mostly only one government or aided school in the vicinity which they
had to select even if they were not particularly in favour of it. Urban areas, generally,
provided more options to parents and students to choose from.
Respondents reported that higher secondary schools, in particular, were often not
at convenient distances from their homes, and they had to spend a fair amount of
time in travelling to get to school. This problem was acute in rural sites of all the
four selected districts. In three of the rural sites, all the students needed to travel to
the nearest town/city if they wanted to continue their education beyond Class 10. In
one site, there was a higher secondary school, but it offered only the arts stream.
Students and parents often complained that transport facilities, which did exist,
were not tailored to facilitate their reaching school in time or getting home at the end
of the school day.

19 Amravati is part of the Amravati division (Inland Eastern) and has a high Muslim population.

Nashik is part of Nashik division (Inland Northern). It has a large Scheduled Tribe population
which is as high as 40% in rural Nashik. It also has a high proportion of Muslims, in one of its
urban blocks. Solapur is part of the Pune division (Inland Western). It has a high Scheduled Caste
population of 15%. Jalna is part of Aurangabad division (Inland Central). It is economically poor and
extremely drought-prone. Gender differentials in literacy rates are high (males 81.5% and females
61%) Maharashtra Human Development Report (2012).
Secondary Education in Maharashtra: Issues of Concern 89

• Irregular bus services, sometimes, meant that students missed their first classes.
In the rural site in Amravati, students had to travel for an hour to get to their school
where they were enrolled in Classes 11 or 12.
• Students from Jalna complained that they spent 2–3 h travelling to and from
school, while accounting for the delay caused by waiting for buses.
In some cases, students had to walk substantial distances to get to the bus stop
and this was a cause of concern for adolescent girls, especially during the evening
hours. There were some costs associated with this travel though most students were
availing of the discounted travel pass20 provided by the government.
The need for setting up of more schools also comes through from the interviews
with DEOs and BEOs, who reported that in the last five years, no new government
or aided schools had been sanctioned in the areas in which they worked. Neither had
any government and government-aided schools been upgraded to higher secondary
stage.

3.2 Costs of Schooling Increase Substantially at Secondary

and Higher Secondary Stages

Secondary data from households surveyed showed increased cost of schooling at this
stage. The families interviewed for the study reported that this spike in expenditure
after Class 8 posed a substantial burden. At this stage, expenditure on books and
transport was high. Expenditure on private tuitions added to the expenses. Among
our respondents, the amount spent per month on tuitions was reported to vary from
Rs. 200 to Rs. 1000. Parents were apprehensive about the teaching in schools.21 This
fuelled the reliance on tuitions, study guides, model answer sheets, notes, etc. The
problem was acute for families with more than one child in these stages of schooling.

3.3 Issues Related to Teaching and Learning Activities

in School: Students Struggle to Cope with Curricular
Demands

Students shared their views about different subjects taught in school. They needed
a lot of preparation for the annual examinations in Classes 9 and 11, and the Board

20 The pass needed to be renewed every 3 months. Getting the pass made and renewed was reported

to be quite cumbersome. If there was any waiting period for the renewal, students reported that their
costs increased substantially.
21 Some parents are keen for their children to excel to increase their opportunities to get better

employment opportunities. Some parents are apprehensive that their child may fail. They are con-
cerned about the amount they spend during the Board examination years and are reluctant to spend
this amount second time.
90 A. De and M. Samson

examinations in Classes 10 and 12. It appeared that much of this consisted of rote
learning.
Most students enjoyed studying Marathi because they found it easy to understand
and follow. However, English was difficult for a lot of students. While they expressed
eagerness to speak English fluently, they experienced difficulties in comprehension
as also grammar.
Students in Classes 9 and 10 reported struggling with the level of difficulty of the
curriculum in mathematics and science, in particular. These were the subjects for
which students resorted to tuitions and extra coaching. Many parents and students
thought that this was imperative to get good marks in these subjects. One parent in
Nashik was very worried that her son refused to take private tuitions because she
thought that he could not do well without the extra help. An important concern for
students was the way in which science was taught. Students reported that teachers
demonstrated the experiments rather than allowing students to carry them out them-
selves. When asked how they cope with their practical examinations, students said
that they either get some help during the examinations or simply manage somehow.
Computer education was of great interest, but students and parents complained
that students were not given functional computer skills. Students get very little face
time with the computer and said they were asked to use this little time to explore
programs like Paint which they did not see as holding much value. From the responses
gathered about computer education given in school, it appears that it might be difficult
for students to complete the basic tasks listed in the Class 10 ICT textbook.
Most students were unaware of vocational courses. In schools where vocational
education was available, it did not appear to be taken seriously. These courses required
higher fees which made them unaffordable for many. The classes were often held at
a centre close to the school, but not in school. This travel out of school meant that
students often missed parts of their first or last class. Apart from this, students said
they found little value in these sessions as they hardly got a chance to do any practical
hands-on work. Instead, much of their time was spent in journal completion and in
making drawings.

3.4 High Opportunity Costs of Schooling

As students move on from early adolescence, the opportunity cost of their time
goes up, with expectations that they will contribute to the household economy in
some way, whether through earning and/or household chores. There was a large
proportion of students who were overage for their class (higher proportions in rural
areas compared to urban areas). Being older made them more vulnerable to dropping
out of school—boys would be under greater pressure to earn, and girls would be under
greater pressure to get married as they turned 16 years and above. There were also
pressures on girls to earn but far less than that on boys. The overage problem was
particularly acute among those in rural areas.
Secondary Education in Maharashtra: Issues of Concern 91

Boys from poor families in urban areas are seen to be the most vulnerable to
dropping out of school at this stage. It is likely that they are responding to pressures
to earn coupled with opportunities to earn. In general, motivation for education was
high among SC families, compared to other disadvantaged groups.

3.5 Demand for Secondary Education for Girls Varied

While secondary data did not show a major gender difference in enrolment, the
household interviews indicated that the demand for secondary education for girls
varied. There were some who wanted their daughters to take up a professional degree.
Parents in the SC community22 were particularly keen on educating their daughters.
A parent from Nashik told us that their daughter had done her graduation, and they
would insist that after marriage, her husband would let her continue her education.
They were very keen that their child takes up a job and be self-reliant. Such sentiments
were reflected in the fact that there was, generally, no marked gender differential in
school participation. School participation was, in many cases, slightly higher among
girls.
Pressure on girls to drop out to do household chores does exist even while parents
and young girls are keen on education. Sunita, an 18-year-old girl from the urban
site in Solapur, had to drop out of school to take care of household chores. She had
an elder sister who carried the load, but, after her marriage, Sunita had to take up the
responsibility of looking after the house and the her family livestock. Her parents
spent most of their time on the farm and refused to allow her to study and attend
school.
There were parents who were not keen on girls continuing their education after
the 10th grade. An important concern for those who did not want their girls to study
further was safety. Related to this were accepted community norms with regard to
education. In some cases, these norms seemed to suggest that if a girl is educated
beyond a certain grade, she would find it difficult to find an appropriate match for mar-
riage. Community norms were also important because they indicated the appropriate
age for girls to get married. Parents’ aspirations for their daughters were tempered
by these norms as much as by what was financially viable. There were instances
wherein girls had dropped out because they were already married or were soon to be
married. Some girls told us how their parents either were already looking for matches
or had arranged for them to be married soon.
In general, the parents interviewed were reluctant to aspire for their daughters to
go out to work and earn money. Some felt that it was wrong to take money from
daughters, and that in any case their earnings should go to their husband’s family.
However, several parents were keen on seeing their daughters’ learning skills to be

22 SC and ST students were supposed to receive scholarships. Some students did report that they

were accessing scholarships like Savitribai Phule for girls. However, not all adolescents from SC
and ST families reported receiving these scholarships.
92 A. De and M. Samson

more independent. They were eager to enable them to fend for themselves after their
marriage. Several parents had got their children enrolled into sewing classes because
they felt this would enable them to earn money from the comfort of their homes.

3.6 Failure in Examinations a Critical Reason for Dropping

Out

All these factors (lack of access to a functional school in their vicinity, high costs of
schooling, curriculum-related issues, pressures to work, social norms) contribute in
different ways to young people dropping out of school, particularly for those from
disadvantaged groups. These students were also most likely to have difficulty in
clearing the Board examinations.

Vishesh
Vishesh from Pandharpur had to quit school after he failed in the 10th grade
because the family was too poor to allow him to continue with his education.
His father had been jobless for 4 months because of the drought and could not
pay for his schooling. Vishesh had to take up odd jobs to support his family.
Vishesh, who is 18 years old, works as a farm labourer and does other manual
tasks like digging wells. Vishesh also works on the family farm, looks after
their cattle and sells milk to a dairy. He works for over 8 h apart from the time
he spends in housework.

Out of our sample of 96 adolescent respondents, 24 had dropped out of formal

schooling at some point after Class 8. The last straw in nearly all cases appeared to
be failure to clear the annual examinations. Often, children were not even allowed
to write the examination externally. Some parents asserted that if the child had not
failed, she would have been allowed to study further. A corollary to this is that when
parents were asked how far they would like their child to study, we frequently heard
parents assert that they would keep the child in school as long as she did not fail. Girls
were, particularly, vulnerable to being taken out of school as demand for schooling
for them was weak and more so among Muslim families.

Sana
In a Nashik family, when a young girl failed in one subject in the Class 10
Boards, her father decided she should drop out. Neither the mother nor the
daughter was in a position to go against his decision. This was in spite of
the fact that the girl in question was extremely articulate and outspoken, and
harboured dreams of joining the civil services. Her mother reported that she
Secondary Education in Maharashtra: Issues of Concern 93

had undertaken a lot of financial hardships to put her daughter through school.
Now they were under pressure to finalise the girl’s marriage.

3.7 Limited Information About Pathways to Better

Employment Opportunities

The study involved discussion with students who were to pick their stream in Class
11 either in the next couple of months or in a year. However, most students were
clueless about what they wanted to pursue. Often, they were confused about which
stream they would have to select to secure a job of their choice. For instance, a Grade
10 respondent thought it best to choose the science stream to become a chartered
accountant. This respondent was studying in a highly reputed private school in Sola-
pur. This example provides an insight into the even greater need for information for
students who were in less fortunate situations.
Students often did not know where to turn for advice about career choices and
options, other than older siblings and parents. Students’ aspirations also seemed to be
restricted by their lack of information about possibilities. The problem is more acute
in rural areas. A reason for concern is that many students believed that education up
to Class 12 was enough to get them a job.
One restriction is that many options and subjects are not easily accessible to
students. Children from rural areas seem to be very eager to move out of their village,
one, out of necessity and two, to realise any possibility of fulfilling their ambitions.
In urban areas, one heard of more varied choices of profession than in the rural areas.

4 Factors Which Play a Critical Role

In spite of major achievements, the challenges are many. Several systemic factors
appeared to be at the root of these challenges and prevented their resolution. These
are highlighted in this section.

4.1 Lack of Sufficient Resources

Much of the negatives in the schooling system have emerged from lack of sufficient
resources. The overall government budget on secondary education has been increas-
ing, but at a slow pace, while enrolment at this stage has increased rapidly. This has
impacted the secondary schooling system in two ways. First, it is possibly the main
94 A. De and M. Samson

Fig. 6 Growth in the number of schools: government, private-aided and private-unaided. Source
Data of 1973–74 to 2010–11 calculated from statistics of School Education; data for 2013–14
calculated from Secondary State Report Card

reason behind the variations in school quality. The composition of the budget shows
that most of it is spent as a grant-in-aid to the private schools, and that too to cover
primarily their salary expenditure. Very small amounts remain for other heads of
expenditure.23
Second, the limited investment by the government in secondary schooling has
led to expansion of the private unaided sector. In Fig. 6, we map the changes in
proportion of government and private schools over the last 50 years. The number of
government schools has remained more or less constant, and even declined in the last
five years. Private-aided schools have dominated throughout. There was a huge spurt
in aided schools between 1986–87 to 1998–99. However, over the last five years,
the growth has levelled off. It is the private-unaided school sector which has been
increasing since 1978–79, and in the last five years, there has been a huge spurt in
these schools. All these changes are very much in keeping with the policy changes
with regard to recognition and aid.
Third, the administrative set-up for secondary education is overstretched, with a
surge in the number of schools and enrolment. At ground level, the administrative
staff has not increased proportionately, and there are a large number of vacant posts.
This has led to multiple duties for the district- and the block-level education officers,
with very limited time allocated to inspection and monitoring of schools. A major part
of their working hours goes into routine work, resolution of disputes and attending
court cases.
Additional resources are available from the central government which has been
providing finance for non-salary expenditure to cover several activities in government
schools through RMSA. But the State was able to make only limited use as its schools

23 Analysis of Budgeted Expenditure on Education (2010–11) to (2012–13).

Secondary Education in Maharashtra: Issues of Concern 95

were usually private-aided.24 Over time, rules have changed and more RMSA funds
have been allotted to private-aided schools but they are still quite limited.
Interviews with headmasters and education officers indicate that there have been
frequent changes in the provision of aid to private schools. It is, thus, seen that aid for
different private schools (which receive grant-in-aid) was not uniform and changed
according to current government policies. At the two ends of the spectrum are those
getting 100% aid (which includes those set-up decades ago) and those which get no
aid and are entirely self-financing. Among the rest, there are schools with varying
proportions of salary costs covered at different points in time. There are also some
schools which can access a grant to cover non-salary expenses. Resource constraint
is one of the important reasons behind these changes. This has led to a complex
system in which identities of private schools change over time. Thus, schools which
are unaided at a given point in time may be partially aided at another point in time.
In addition to the fact that the identity of schools varies over time, we have variations
within the same school even at a given point in time. Part of the school may be aided,
partly unaided.

4.2 Multiple Institutions Involved in Secondary Schooling

Multiple departments are involved in administration of secondary schools, and lack of

coordination among their activities has added to the variation in school quality. Apart
from the State Education Department, the Tribal Development Department (TDD)
and the Social Welfare Department (SWD) are actively involved in setting up and
financing secondary schools, setting up hostels for students studying at secondary and
higher secondary levels, and providing pre- and post-matric scholarships. At district,
block and school levels, the Directorate of Secondary Education is responsible for
all schools that are managed by the Department of Education, but has little to do
with schools run by TDD, SWD or any other departments. The survey indicated that
there is a need to have some level of uniform standards and norms across all schools
to be monitored by a single body.
The Ministry of Human Resource Development plays a very important role
through various centrally sponsored schemes, including RMSA. The Board of Sec-
ondary and Higher Secondary Education also plays a critical role in the secondary
level, and all schools, run by different management, are under the Board to comply
with guidelines on academic issues. While the Directorate of Secondary and Higher
Secondary Education, the Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education
and SCERT all have separate jurisdictions, there is some overlapping as well. For
example, these bodies have introduced their own quality improving initiatives such
as teacher training and monitoring and inspection activities. These different inter-
ventions are not coordinated by the directorate. The impact would be much greater

24 The impact of RMSA contribution was not visible in the government schools covered in the

survey.
96 A. De and M. Samson

if the initiatives were part of an overall and clearly defined plan to maximise their
impact on the system. This is, particularly, important in the context of the crunch on
resources.
The State has taken several steps to strengthen the system, but these need to
be better coordinated. While GPS mapping has been successfully completed, new
schools have not come up according to the plan. A new database, quite similar to but
more comprehensive than UDISE data, was set up by the State government to help
education administration in planning and monitoring. But there is little evidence that
either data set is used at school level for actual planning and monitoring.

4.3 Variations in Quality of Education at Primary and Upper

Primary Levels

The quality of schooling the students have had before the secondary stage plays
a critical role in how students are going to fare at this stage. At the beginning of
secondary schooling (in Class 9), there are students who are reported to have low
levels of learning, and the curricular demands for the Board examinations are quite
high. While education officials and teachers are very aware of this problem, there are
no provisions in the current schooling system to deal with it in any way. Additional
effort to bring these children up to the desired level of competencies is needed from
the beginning of Class 5 itself and, at the very least, from the beginning of Class 9.

5 Concluding Remarks

As we have seen, the present education system has achieved a lot, but has not been
able to provide good-quality secondary schooling for all. Children from tribal com-
munities and Muslim families have the lowest participation in secondary schools.
The schools, set up by the Tribal Development Department and the Social Wel-
fare Department, or the Urdu medium schools set up for the Muslim children, are
expected to address this exclusion, but they all face different issues, arising from
lack of resources and lack of coordinated and focussed attention. While targeted
interventions are required in order to address the problems of adolescents from these
groups, there is also a need to ensure that the school system facilitates their inte-
gration into the mainstream, rather than marginalising them further. Major changes
in policy and interventions are required to provide good-quality non-fee charging
secondary education to students from disadvantaged groups that are falling through
the cracks.
Whatever the shortfall in provision of secondary schooling, whether it is an issue
of access or quality, the impact is felt particularly by adolescents from disadvantaged
Secondary Education in Maharashtra: Issues of Concern 97

groups. Their personal circumstances do not allow them to compensate for the defi-
ciencies in the system, and they are the ones who are most vulnerable both to having
low learning outcomes and to dropping out of the system without completing even
Class 10.
Students’ school experience differs with schools they get enrolled in. There are
variations within the aided schools which form the majority of the secondary schools
in Maharashtra. Run by trusts of different sizes, they vary enormously in their infras-
tructure, facilities and functioning. Similarly, there are major differences between
urban and rural schools, and secondary schools and higher secondary schools. The
few government secondary schools are mostly in specific regions in the State, are run
by different departments and are generally underfunded and functioning poorly. The
stratification is more acute at the higher secondary stage, where the unaided sector
has grown in importance in recent years. Among the marginalised groups—SCs,
Muslims and STs—it appears that students from SC families appear to be coping
with the system and are most likely to complete secondary education. However, they
may not be able to follow a pathway with good prospects. The choice of streams in
Class 11 is determined by the students’ learning competencies developed in earlier
years. It is likely that many students from socially disadvantaged groups select arts
because their marks were not good enough or the school they join does not offer any
other stream or they themselves lack the confidence that they could cope with more
difficult subjects. This works to their disadvantage in the long run.
Universalising secondary education in Maharashtra requires action from the mul-
tiple stakeholders involved—various government departments/trusts/teachers, par-
ents and students. The government appears to be veering towards improving the
prospects of those at the top of the social ladder by allowing for a greater role for
the private-unaided sector. Such actions have grave consequences for those at the
margin.

References

Analysis of Budgeted Expenditure on Education 2010–11 to 2012–13. New Delhi: Department of

Higher Education.Government of India (2014).
Economic Survey of Maharashtra 2013–14. Mumbai: Directorate of Economics and Statistics,
Government of Maharashtra (2014).
Kelkar Committee Report. (2013). Report of the high level committee on balanced regional devel-
opment issues in Maharashtra. Mumbai: Planning Department. Government of Maharashtra
(2013).
Maharashtra Human Development Report 2012: Towards Inclusive Human Development. [Lead
Author: Usha Jayachandran]. Pune: Yashavantrao Chavan Academy of Development Adminis-
tration (2014).
NSSO. (2014). India: Social consumption—education survey 2014, National sample survey 71st
round. New Delhi: Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.Government of India
(2014).
Secondary Flash Statistics (2013–14): Secondary Education in India: Progress towards Universal-
isation. Delhi: National University of Educational Planning and Administration (2014).
98 A. De and M. Samson

Secondary State Report Card (2013–14): Secondary Education: State Report Cards. http://udise.
in/src.htm.
Secondary State Report Cards (2014–15). http://udise.in/src.htm.
Thakare, J. D. (2012). The study of the language problems in the schools of semi-English classes.
http://shodh.inflibnet.ac.in/handle/123456789/403.
 Private Education, Equity, Quality
and Justice in Secondary Education
Changing Public–Private Mix in School
Education and Its Implications for Policy

Achin Chakraborty

1 Introduction

For long, quantitative expansion as indicated by increasing enrolment of children

in schools had been the primary concern while reckoning progress in elementary
education in India. In spite of the fact that the architects of Sarva Siksha Abhiyan
(SSA) did qualify ‘education’ with ‘quality’ wherever the word appeared, the most
visible indicator of progress in the past fifteen years has been increasing enrolment at
the primary, upper primary and secondary stages, ever since the SSA was launched in
2001 as a massive programme to improve the public provisioning of school education.
That the quantitative expansion has not been matched by improvement in quality is
now a rather commonplace observation. However, even on the enrolment front, a
significant achievement in the recent years has been bridging of the gender gap
through a relatively faster growth in enrolment of the girl children.
The task of reckoning progress in elementary education in quantitative terms
is far from straightforward. Serious measurement and data problems prevent one
from making unambiguously conclusive statements. However, to make any evalua-
tive statement—conclusive or otherwise—one has to depend on the available data
on indicators that are widely accepted as ‘standard’. The indicators for reckoning
progress can be generally of two kinds—input-type and outcome-oriented. Even
though ideally we should focus on the ultimate outcome, i.e. universalisation of
school education with quality learning, the common practice is to look at gross and
net enrolment ratios (GER and NER) and the rate of drop-out, which are taken as
indicators of outcome, ostensibly for unavailability of time series data on learning.
Examples of input-type indicators are pupil–teacher ratio, student-classroom ratio,
percentage of schools with girls’ toilet and so on.

A. Chakraborty (B)
Institute of Development Studies Kolkata, Kolkata, India
e-mail: [email protected]

© Council for Social Development 2020 101

J. B. G Tilak (ed.), Universal Secondary Education in India,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5366-0_5
102 A. Chakraborty

If universalisation with quality learning is considered to be the ‘culmination out-

come’, percentage of out-of-school children might be considered as an intermediate
outcome which would reflect non-enrolment and drop-out. The standard indicators
of enrolment, such as the GER and NER, are obtainable from the District Information
System of Education (DISE). Notwithstanding the massive data collection efforts of
the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and National University
of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA), which have culminated in
DISE and later U-DISE, estimates of even such basic indicators of enrolment as the
GER and NER are rather unreliable.
The GER at the primary level has been exceeding 100 since the beginning of SSA.
Since GER at the primary stage is defined as the ratio of the number of children
enrolled in primary classes and the number of children in the age group 6–11, the
numerator is likely to exceed the denominator if a good number of enrolled children
are either below six or above ten. In other words, GER cannot be used to track
progress towards universalisation of enrolment. Theoretically, NER should provide
the information on out-of-school children as it takes the numerator as the number of
children in the relevant age group who are enrolled. But actually, the NER figures
based on DISE data show such unbelievable year-to-year movements at the national
and state levels that any attempt to track progress based on these figures would be
frustrated. For example, the latest DISE reports show that the average GER and NER
at primary level are 105.98 and 90.78, respectively, which look reasonable. But the
State Report Cards show rather absurd NER figures for the states, whereas primary
NER in Chhattisgarh is 98, that in Himachal Pradesh is 86.7. In other words, while
in Chhattisgarh, about two percent children in the age group 6–10 are out of school,
in Himachal Pradesh, such children form 13.3%, which is clearly absurd because
Himachal Pradesh is known to have moved much closer to universalisation vis-à-vis
Chhattisgarh.
An alternative source of data has been the Annual Survey of Education Reports
(ASER). Since 2005, Pratham, a reputed non-government organisation, has been
conducting nationwide surveys every year on various aspects of elementary educa-
tion and provides comparable time series data on a number of important indicators
including estimates of out-of-school children and learning achievement. As expected,
the percentage of children aged 6–14 who are out of school in rural India has declined
since 2006, but in the past four years, it has remained sticky around 3.4 (Fig. 1). On
the other hand, data from NSS 71st round (2014) shows that about ten percent of
Indian children between the ages 6 and 13 were not attending school in 2014.

2 Resource Allocation Priorities: Equity and Efficiency

While charting out strategies to achieve universalisation of elementary education

in India, the standard policy view tends to focus on the shortfall in physical and
financial resources from certain normative standards and ends up recommending
substantial enhancement of allocation of public resources to the sector in question.
Changing Public–Private Mix in School Education and Its … 103

Fig. 1 Percentage of Indian (rural) children aged 6–14 who are out of school. Source ASER, various
years

The proponents of this view, who might be called supply wallahs (Banerjee and Duflo
2011), seem to believe that it is the inadequate spending and inadequate physical
infrastructure that is behind the poor education outcomes in India. They are often
criticised by the demand wallahs who believe that unless there is enough interest
among the parents to educate their children, there is no point in setting up schools.
Even though it is generally acknowledged that the educational outcome is the result
of the supply-side as well as the demand-side factors. Inadequate supply fails to
generate adequate demand as the potential users remain unaware of the value of
the service if the service itself is unavailable or of poor quality. Therefore, there
is a strong case for improving the school infrastructure no matter how weak the
demand appears to be. The supply wallah position can hardly be dismissed as there
is plenty of evidence from the history of Europe and America which brings out most
forcefully the role of the government in promoting mass education which in turn led to
sustained economic and social development. Those experiences later inspired Japan
to achieve universalisation of school education by the first decade of the twentieth
century, largely driven by state initiatives. Later, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore,
Hong Kong and China followed more or less similar routes (Dreze and Sen 2013).
Table 1 presents a select number of indicators of school infrastructure for the past
several years. Apart from the first indicator, which is the ratio of primary to upper
primary schools, all other indicators refer to primary schools. As expected, there has
been a steady improvement in all these indicators in the most recent years. What is
to be noticed is that, while the overall pupil–teacher ratio has substantially declined
between 2008–09 and 2015–16, the percentage of single-teacher schools has not
declined as much. Most of these single-teacher schools are likely to be those with
low enrolment. As a matter of fact, the last column shows that the percentage of
schools that have enrolment less than fifty is not only substantial but also gradually
increasing. This seems to pose a difficult problem of balancing efficiency of resource
 104

Table 1 Trends in select indicators of primary school infrastructure in India

Ratio of % % of schools with % of schools Student-classroom Pupil-teacher % of % schools having
primary single-teacher student-classroom with ratio ratio schools enrolment < 50
to upper schools ratio > 30 pupil-teacher having
primary (primary) ratio > 30 girls’
schools toilet
2008–09 2.3 13.3 42.9 47.7 35.0 34.0 44.4 26.7
2009–10 2.2 12.3 40.6 45.8 32.0 33.0 51.0 27.1
2010–11 2.1 11.8 38.7 42.4 31.0 32.0 52.2 27.8
2011–12 2.1 10.8 37.2 40.8 30.0 31.0 65.4 28.4
2012–13 2.1 11.8 33.5 37.0 27.0 28.0 85.3 29.2
2013–14 2.0 11.5 30.4 32.0 25.0 26.0 84.2 31.3
2014–15 2.0 11.1 27.5 29.0 24.0 24.0 83.5 32.3
2015–16 2.0 10.67 25.7 26.0 23.0 23.0 97.0 33.5
Source DISE, various years
A. Chakraborty
Changing Public–Private Mix in School Education and Its … 105

allocation with the goal of universalisation with quality. A lone teacher in a primary
school with 4/5 classes cannot do justice to students even when total enrolment is
as low as fifty or less. On the other hand, from resource point of view, allocating
four teachers to teach less than fifty children would imply a high cost per child.
The other notable aspect is that the country-level averages musk the fact that the
indicator values increasingly deviate from these averages as we shift our focus from
the country to states, districts and further down.
How sensitive have the resource allocation priorities been to these kinds of spatial
disparities? In other words, do we generally observe that the districts with relatively
low outcome achievement at the beginning of a period are also the ones that expe-
rience greater improvement in certain indicator during the intervening period? The
answer, alas, is in the negative. In Andhra Pradesh, for example, the changes in the
percentages of single classroom schools between 2003–04 and 2011–12 are in fact
positively correlated with the district-level literacy rates in 2001, which means that
the districts with low literacy rates in 2001 are also the ones in which the declines
in the percentages of single classroom schools are the smallest (Fig. 2). This goes
contrary to what is expected from spatial equity point of view.
In Bihar, for another example, there is high positive correlation between the decline
in the percentage of schools without girls’ toilet during 2003–04 and 2011–12 and
female literacy in 2001 (Fig. 3). In other words, districts with relatively low female
literacy in 2001 also experience smaller decline in the percentage of schools without
girls’ toilet, which is perverse from spatial equity point of view.
The evidence from other countries on the role of physical infrastructure in educa-
tional outcome is rather ambiguous. But in the Indian context, in a rather crude way,
we find a positive correlation between a composite index of school infrastructure

Fig. 2 Correlation between changes in percentages of single classroom schools between 2003–04
and 2011–12 and literacy rate in 2001 for districts of Andhra Pradesh. Source DISE and Census
2001
106 A. Chakraborty

Fig. 3 Correlation between changes in percentages of schools without girls’ toilet between 2003–04
and 2011–12 and female literacy rate in 2001 in districts of Bihar. Source Same as above

and the percentage of out-of-school children. Figure 4 presents the scatter plot of
the two. While the former is taken as an indicator of resource inputs, the latter as
an outcome indicator. The composite index has such components as the percentage
of single-teacher schools, the percentage of single classroom schools, the ratio of
primary to upper primary or secondary schools and so on. These indicators confine
themselves to only the government schools. By and large, the states that are lagging
behind others in terms of school infrastructure are also likely to have more out-of-
school children. That the relationship is negative and strong enough shows that there
is a strong case for improving infrastructure of government schools in states where
the percentages of out-of-school children are high. This needs to be reemphasised
since of late the SSA is being criticised for being excessively focussed on expansion
of inputs with consequent neglect of the quality aspect. That the quality aspect is
not being emphasised as much as it should be is no reason for ignoring the positive

Fig. 4 Correlation between percentage of out-of-school children and index of school infrastructure.
Source ASER and DISE
Changing Public–Private Mix in School Education and Its … 107

Table 2 Trends in learning achievement by children in government and private schools

% children in Std III who can % children in Std V who can
Read at least Std I Do at least Read at least Std II Do division
level text subtraction level text
Govt Private Govt Private Govt Private Govt Private
2009 43.8 58.2 36.5 49.7 50.3 63.1 36.1 46.2
2010 42.5 57.6 33.2 47.8 50.7 64.2 33.9 44.2
2011 35.2 56.3 25.2 44.6 43.8 62.7 24.5 37.7
2012 32.4 55.3 19.8 43.4 41.7 61.2 20.3 37.8
2013 32.6 59.6 18.9 44.6 41.1 63.3 20.8 38.9
Source ASER, Pratham Foundation

contribution the school inputs make in attracting children to schools so that fewer
children remain out of school.

3 And Quality of Outcome

At the all-India level, there are mainly two sources of information on learning achieve-
ment. Besides ASER, the other source is the reports based on occasional National
Achievements Surveys conducted by NCERT. Contrary to what is observed about
school inputs which have shown steady progress in the recent years mainly because of
increased financial allocation through the SSA, there has been no sign of improve-
ment in the learning outcome as reflected in standard test results As a matter of
fact, according to ASER data, most indicators of learning outcome show a declining
trend overall (Table 2). The declines are hard to explain. One possible explanation is
that as the system progresses through quantitative expansion towards universal enrol-
ment, the children with disadvantaged background find themselves in schools. As the
schools become more inclusive, the average performance may deteriorate initially.
What is really worrying is the relatively sharper decline in learning achievement in
government schools.

4 Understanding Public–Private Mix

While agreeing with the view as we do that the supply side must be strengthened,
we might still want to know how the enhanced expenditure would be translated into
better outcomes. There is no unique pathway from expenditure to outcome, for it
depends on the ‘system’ in place. By ‘system’, we mean all kinds of providers and
consumers of services who interact as active agents. The increasing preference for
108 A. Chakraborty

private providers in education and health care by a section of the population is a case
in point.
One of the most significant aspects of school education in India is the growth
in enrolment in private schools. Although the growth of private schooling in India
is quite visible even in rural areas, the implications of this change remain poorly
understood ostensibly because of data limitations. Official statistics obtainable from
such sources as the DISE provide unreliable information on private enrolment. How-
ever, for the past couple of years now, ASER has been filling this gap. It is rather
ironic that the exponential growth in private enrolment has hardly been affected by
the enactment of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education ACT
2009 which emphasises the state’s duty to provide elementary education free of cost.
Parents seem to continue to vote with their feet in favour of private schools.
We argue in this paper that we need to take into account the nature of the pub-
lic–private mix as a system, while specific forms of supply-side interventions are
envisaged, and without which, certain interventions may lead to unintended conse-
quences. The lack of interest in understanding the role of the private sector while
situating it in the overall context of the system may lead to unintended consequences
of the policy. Although the growth of private schooling in India is quite visible even
in rural areas, the implications of this change remain poorly understood ostensibly
because of data limitations. Official statistics obtainable from such sources as the
DISE provide very little information on private enrolment. However, at least for
the past couple of years now, an alternative source of data called Annual Survey of
Education Report (ASER) has been filling this gap.
From the viewpoint of the basic theory of choice, one can postulate that if parents
are supposed to know what is best for their children, then by observing their choice,
we come to the inevitable conclusion that private schools are of better quality than
the existing public schools, at least in the parents’ perception. If this perception
turned out to be wrong, people would have learnt from it and revised their choice.
The fact that enrolment in private schools is rising fast shows that people’s belief is
somewhat vindicated. However, the puzzle does not go away. The wide variety of
small, unrecognised and unregulated private schools, frequently with poorly trained
teachers, would hardly convince one about the superiority of private schools vis-à-vis
the government schools.
In school education sector, the definition of ‘private’ is never clear-cut since many
so-called private schools are heavily funded and regulated by the state governments,
and there is no uniform pattern across the states. In some states, subsidies cover a large
proportion of total expenses of private schools, and government control over hiring
and firing of teachers, salaries, and student admissions criteria accompany these
subsidies. Thus, in terms of the sources of funding and controlling of the decision-
making like recruitment of teachers, public–private categories turn out to rather
varied, instead of being bipolar cases of ‘pure’ private and ‘pure’ public. However,
the data sources are not fine-tuned to capture this complexity. Figure 5 draws on the
Annual Survey of Education Report (ASER) 2006 and 2012. Two points need to be
noted here. First, private enrolment as a percentage of total enrolment varies from
as low as 6.2 (Odisha) to 59.6 (Kerala). And second, in all the major states, except
Changing Public–Private Mix in School Education and Its … 109

Fig. 5 Percentage of children age 6–14 years who are enrolled in private schools. Source ASER,
2006, 2012

Bihar, enrolment in private schools has increased between 2006 and 2012. In India,
the percentage of children age 6–14 years who are enrolled in private schools has
increased from 18.8 to 28.3.
It is often alleged that the growth in private schools is due to inadequacy of
public provisioning, which in turn is the result of inadequate financial allocation
to education (Jha and Parvati 2014). The vacuum created by the absence of public
facilities is supposed to have been filled by the private sector which is essentially
driven by the profit motive. In this view, the emergence and growth of the private
sector in elementary education are the results of the failure of the public sector.
As a consequence, most expert committees express the expectation that once the
public provisioning improves following their recommendations, the importance of
the private sector will automatically come down. However, the ‘revealed preference’
for private schools cannot be ‘explained’ by the supposedly low quality of government
schools, as there might be a two-way relationship between the two. While low quality
of government schools disappoints the quality conscious parents who in turn exercise
their ‘exit’ option by opting out, the exit itself further deteriorates quality as it is likely
that the first ones who opt out of the government facility are the most vocal sections
of the population, leaving behind the parents who find it difficult to put pressure on
the school management to improve quality (Hirschman 1970).
Figure 6 shows the scatter plot of rural poverty headcount ratios and the percent-
ages of enrolment in private schools across major states. It roughly shows a negative
relationship between the two. What it means is that lower percentages of people living
in states with relatively low levels of rural poverty generally tend to ‘choose’ private
schools for their children. In states with high rural poverty, the effective demand for
private schooling is likely to be relatively low, and therefore, private schools have
not spread as fast as in less poor areas.
110 A. Chakraborty

Fig. 6 Rural poverty and enrolment in private schools across Indian states. Sources ASER 2012
and Planning Commission

Economists have long been trying to understand the question of public provision-
ing of private goods, such as education. Why do the governments do what they do?
In the normative literature, the reasons that are put forward for government interven-
tion in the provision of education are externalities or other market failures such as
imperfect information. Besides the market failure argument, one can bring in what
Stiglitz calls ‘ethical failure’ as well, which roughly says that even if the market is
efficient in the static allocative sense, there is still the possibility that a large number
of children cannot access school education.
In the positive literature though, public provision of education is viewed as a form
of redistribution. For example, Epple and Romano (1996) or Glomm and Raviku-
mar (1998) view it as redistribution from the rich to the poor since the poor do not
have enough means to finance private education. In the context of higher education,
Fernández and Rogerson (1995) show that public provision of education is actually
redistribution from the poor to the rich, where the former are financially constrained
from attending universities. Gradstein and Kaganovich (2003) perceive public edu-
cation as redistribution from the old (who do not benefit from education) to the young
(whose future income is positively correlated with education). Pritchett (2013) raises
an even more fundamental issue with the state’s ‘desire’ to provide schooling. He
asks why did governments produce schooling rather than simply finance it, as they
did with many other services? While schooling was expanding fast, why was there
a deliberate elimination of citizen engagement and reduction in the local control of
schools? While there were multiple factors behind direct provisioning by the gov-
ernment, the decisive element, according to Pritchett, was the desire of nation states
(or state power) to control the socialisation of youth. He argues that, while all other
goals of schooling can easily be achieved without government ownership, socialisa-
tion could only be achieved with direct ownership. Here, we are not going to discuss
the merits of Pritchett’s suggestion to make a separation between provisioning or
direct production and the issue of finance. The idea of a kind of voucher system in
Changing Public–Private Mix in School Education and Its … 111

school education in India was put forward in the Approach Paper to the 11th Five
Year Plan, and we made an extensive critique of the idea (Bagchi et al. 2006). We
have not seen the idea to have resurfaced again in policy documents, though some
experiments seem to have been conducted in a few states (Shah & Shah 2017).

5 Conclusion

In this paper, we have posed the issues of quantitative expansion and quality in
elementary education against the backdrop of the changing role of the public provi-
sioning of education vis-à-vis the growing private schooling in almost all the Indian
states. In discussions of quality of elementary education, it is not usually seen that
the issue is posed in a systemic fashion connecting it to the changing mix of public
and private enrolment. Recent data showed that about ten percent of Indian children
between the ages of 6 and 13 were not attending school in 2014 (NSS 71st round). On
the other hand, enrolment in private schools has grown significantly in the past ten
years (ASER). If increasing enrolment in private schools shows increasing demand
for education and parents’ willingness to pay for it, why are a good number of chil-
dren not in school? In this paper, we threw some light on a little discussed aspect of
the system of organisation of education service delivery. While charting out strate-
gies to achieve universalisation of elementary education in India, the standard policy
view tends to focus on the shortfalls in physical and financial resources from certain
normative standards and ends up recommending enhancement of allocation of pub-
lic resources to quantitatively augment the infrastructure (the supply wallah view a
la Banerjee and Duflo 2011). A diametrically opposite view is commonly held by
the financial press in India, which sees any government expenditure on the social
services with suspicion and dubs such expenditures ‘populist’. The supply wallah
position can hardly be dismissed as there is plenty of evidence from the history of
Europe and America which brings out most forcefully the role of the government
in promoting mass education which in turn led to sustained economic and social
development. Those experiences later inspired Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singa-
pore, Hong Kong and China to achieve universalisation of school education (Dreze
and Sen 2013). While agreeing with this view, one might still want to know how the
enhanced expenditure would be translated into better outcomes. There is no unique
pathway from expenditure to outcomes, for it depends on the ‘system’ in place. By
‘system’, we mean all kinds of providers and consumers of services who interact as
active agents. In this paper, we have an attempt to identify certain features of the
system that need to be taken into account whenever specific forms of supply-side
interventions are envisaged, and without which, certain interventions may lead to
unintended consequences. Certain empirical features of the education sector in India
in the recent period are highlighted in support of our argument.
We have argued that while there is still a strong need for focussing on the supply-
side issues that would further improve the equity aspect of both quantity and quality,
any policy intervention has to be sensitive to the system in place, where, by system we
112 A. Chakraborty

mean the entirety of the public and private providers on the one hand and the changing
preferences of different classes of consumers of the services (here the parents of the
children) responding to the supply side.

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Bagchi, A. K., Banerjee, D., & Chakraborty, A. (2006, August 5–11). A critique of the approach
paper to eleventh plan. Economic and Political Weekly, 41(31), 3346–3350.
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4, 57–84.
Fernández, R., & Rogerson, R. (1995). On the political economy of education subsidies. Review of
Economic Studies, 42, 249–262.
Glomm, G., & Ravikumar, B. (1998). Opting out of publicly provided services: A majority voting
result. Social Choice and Welfare, XV, 187–193.
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cussion paper no. 3950. London, Center for Economic Policy Research. https://cepr.org/active/
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Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.
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pdf.
Expanding Education Market
and Parental Choice for Secondary
Schools in India: Evidence from IHDS
Data

Pradeep Kumar Choudhury

1 Introduction

The contribution of education to development and socio-political transformation of

societies is widely recognised all over the world. In addition to direct contribution
of education to economic growth and development (as discussed in human capital
theory), it also produces many externalities that contribute to building a better society
in terms of making an individual capable and self-reliant. It plays a critical role in
human development and enables the development of human capabilities required for
overall progress of the society. Education produces an array of social benefits such
as reduction of poverty, improvement in income distribution, reduction in crime,
improvement in the health status of the population and better life expectancy, rapid
adoption of new technologies, strengthening of democracy, ensuring civil liberties
(Tilak 1994a, 2004). Further, it has the effect of releasing the disadvantaged from
the bondage of serfdom and inequality and help them achieve higher social mobility
(Singh 2016: 1). Education is considered as an enabling factor for social prosperity
and political stability and is, therefore, increasingly being viewed as an instrument
of development, a foundation for the exercise of human rights and building human
capabilities. It contributes to the prosperity and stability of democratic societies
through creating well-informed citizens (Friedman 1955). Education is considered
as a public good, as a merit good, as a human right and as an investment, a critical
investment for individual as well as national progress. It works as a powerful instru-
ment for socio-economic development of the nation and for building a strong and
vibrant knowledge society (Tilak 2018). Therefore, education plays a critical role
in accelerating economic growth, reducing inequalities, achieving socio-political
transformation of societies, and overall prosperity of the nation.

P. K. Choudhury (B)
Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi 110067, India
e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]

© Council for Social Development 2020 113

J. B. G Tilak (ed.), Universal Secondary Education in India,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5366-0_6
114 P. K. Choudhury

Secondary education is a crucial stage in the educational hierarchy as it serves as

the gateway to access higher education and also prepare the youth to join the world
of work (Mishra 2015). It is well argued that providing access to secondary educa-
tion is essential to ensure the continuation of reforms, aimed at achieving economic
growth and development and also in realising the goals relating to universal primary
education as the children completing primary education expect to pursue secondary
education (UNESCO 2013). It serves as a bridge between primary and higher educa-
tion and is considered an important segment of the school education system. Further,
access to secondary education is linked with economic and social development and is
considered as one of the strongest instruments for improving health, gender equality,
peace and stability in society. The study by Lewin and Caillods (2001) reveals
that secondary education promotes the development of a skilled and knowledgeable
citizenry through formal reasoning, critical thinking and problem-solving skills. It
contributes to students mastering literacy, numeracy and acquiring an understanding
of the world around them. Tilak (1989, 2007) has argued that secondary education has
a significant effect on the redistribution of income, promoting growth and reducing
poverty as compared to primary education. It plays a critical role in transforming the
economy, fostering social justice and ensuring a higher quality of life, by increasing
the social, occupational and economic levels of the households.
With the realisation that secondary education plays a crucial role in development of
the society, India has witnessed a significant expansion of this sector in post-2000s. In
2016–17, there were about 249,089 institutions offering secondary (including senior
secondary) education to around 62 million students in India. An important feature of
secondary education in India is a high proportion of private schools—government-
supported private institutions and, more importantly, private-unaided institutions as
a proportion of all schools. The share of private-unaided secondary schools (Grade
9–12) is 33%, accounting for an enrolment share of 35% in 2016–17 (U-DISE Flash
Statistics 2016–17, NIEPA 2018). The world’s largest experiment in private education
is being run in India today as large shares of its population are attending private
schools (Tabarrok 2013: 11). The expansion of private schools in India is instrumental
in its gaining popularity among poor households while challenging the hegemony of
the middle class who used to monopolise these schools. Many poor parents use their
scarce resources to send their children to private schools in India (Muralidharan and
Sundararaman 2015).
In the era of growing incidence of private schooling, several studies have exam-
ined the determinants of private versus public school choice, both in the Indian
and international contexts (Alderman et al. 2001; Tilak and Sudarshan 2001; Glick
and Sahn 2006; Muralidharan and Kremer 2008; Nishimura and Yamano 2013;
Yaacob et al. 2014; Kumar 2018). The parental preference is changing from just
attending school to seeking quality education that works as a reliable conduit to
higher education as also to enter the job market and this preference applies to even
rural areas and among urban poor. The aspiration for English as medium of instruction
among poor households is considered as a key factor that drives demand for private
schooling in India. This is largely due to the linkage that such households associate
between the English knowledge, middle-class jobs, social distinction and elite status
Expanding Education Market and Parental Choice … 115

(De et al. 2002; Dixon and Tooley 2005; Nambissan 2012; Tabarrok 2013; Singh
2015). The study by Singh (2015) finds a substantial positive effect of private schools
on English learning in the rural areas of Andhra Pradesh. Similarly, Thorat (2011)
has pointed out that teacher absenteeism and negligence in government schools have
led to this trend. The increasing popularity of fee-charging private schools in India is
due to parental dissatisfaction with government schools (Desai et al. 2009; Karopady
2014). Kingdon (1996), in fact, argues that the rising income of the households and
the breakdown in the quality of government schools are the two possible reasons for
the growth of private schools. The importance of quality schooling on subsequent
investments on education and labour market outcomes is well recognised in studies
on the new economics of education. Parents believe that private schools can provide
a better future for their children by providing quality education, which motivates
them to make necessary investments in private school education for their children
(Galab et al. 2013; Bhattacharya et al. 2015).
It is well observed that the proliferation of private schools, along with several other
important policy interventions on school education, has brought changes in parental
choice with regard to schools system in India. There is also changing institutional
space within which households make decisions about the choice of schooling. The
private schools, that were earlier catering to the needs of elites and the middle class,
are now growing to meet the demand of poor households. Several studies reveal
that low-fee private schools (LFPS) are considered as popular choice among poor
parents in India as these are conveniently located within poor settlements and, hence,
are easily accessible, especially for girls (Tooley and Dixon 2007; Srivastava 2008;
Nambissan and Ball 2010; Harma 2011). Figlio and Stone (2000) have argued that
parents, who send their children to LFPS, may care about other outcomes, such as
discipline, extra-curricular activities, religious matters and strengthening the social
capital by interacting with peer group. However, there is little empirical evidence to
examine parental choice for schools in the complex social and institutional contexts,
despite the availability of few studies on private schools in India. Until recently, the
literature on private schools in India has been dominated by mapping its expansion
across States; and studies on school choice and parental demand for private schools
are quite limited. Though there are few works on expansion of private schools, choice
between private and government schools is of relatively recent origin and needs
further investigation. Also, available studies in these areas in India have largely
focussed on lower level of schooling, and there is hardly any work on secondary
schools. Using IHDS data, this paper seeks to address two important questions in
this context. First, it examines the changing trend and pattern of demand for private
secondary schools in India between 2005 and 2012. Second, the study explores the
factors that parents consider important in making their choice for secondary schools.
To capture the heterogeneity in parental choice for schools, I analyse here the effects
separately for region (rural/urban), gender and economic status of the households.
This study contributes to the existing literature by examining parental choice for
schools at secondary level, as the available studies in this area have largely focussed
on the lower level of schooling. From a broader perspective, the paper also relates
116 P. K. Choudhury

to the recent developments in the literature on private sector’s intervention in school

education in India and how it has changed the educational landscape in India.
The rest of the paper is organised as follows. Section 2 describes the data set and
methodology used for the study. The results and findings of the study are discussed
in Sect. 3. The descriptive analysis, in the first part, explains the changing trends
and pattern of demand for private secondary schools in India between 2005 and
2012. Using probit regression, the second part of the discussion focusses on the
determinants of parental choice for private secondary schools. Section 4 discusses
major policy implications of the study and concludes.

2 Data and Method

2.1 Data

This paper has used individual-level unit record data from two rounds of India
Human Development Survey, designed jointly by the University of Maryland, USA,
and the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), New Delhi
in 2005 (IHDS-I) and 2012 (IHDS-II). These are nationally representative, multi-
subject surveys of the households located in both rural and urban areas covering
33 States and Union Territories of India, with the exception of Lakshadweep
and Andaman and Nicobar. IHDS-I covered 41,554 households located in 1503
villages and 971 urban neighbourhoods. Similarly, IHDS-II covers 42,152 house-
holds residing in 1420 villages and 1042 urban habitats. This is a panel data set
in which around 83% of the households covered in 2005 were re-interviewed in
2012, and the response rates were more than 90% for both the rounds. IHDS has
broad spectrum of information on several socio-economic aspects such as educa-
tion, health, employment, poverty, gender relations, social capital, etc. On educa-
tion, IHDS rounds provide detailed information, both at household and individual
levels. At the individual level, particularly for those in school/college, it provides
information on household investment in education, study environment in institu-
tion, outcome variables like reading-writing-arithmetic skills, and, most importantly,
choice of institutions by the households. Unlike other national level data sources
(e.g. NSSO), IHDS offers a greater scope to study the dynamics of school choice by
relating it with several other socio-economic and institutional characteristics.

2.2 Measure of Secondary School Choice

Since the primary interest of the paper is to understand the parental choice for
secondary schools, we limit the analysis to the children who are currently enrolled in
secondary education (Classes 9–12). This includes 9582 children in 2005 and 13,363
Expanding Education Market and Parental Choice … 117

in 2012 with more than 90% of them falling in the age bracket of 14–18 years.
The original IHDS data in both the rounds classify schools as EGS, government,
government-aided, private, convent, Madrassa and other/open schools. The descrip-
tive analysis takes into account the three broad types of schools that are available
in the survey: government, government-aided and private. The private schools also
include convent schools for the analysis. However, for empirical exercise, we do
not differentiate between government and government-aided schools, instead we
combine them as government schools and the rest as private school.
There are three different types of schools in India with respect to manage-
ment: government schools, private-aided (also referred as government-aided
private schools) and private-unaided schools. The government schools are owned,
funded and managed by the government. Teachers are hired and allocated to indi-
vidual schools by the department of education. The private-aided schools are essen-
tially quasi-government in nature—run by private management, but have teaching
staff funded by the government and follow Grant-In-Aid codes. They are akin to
government schools in many respects, following the same curriculum, syllabi, text-
books, eligibility criteria for teacher appointment and many other rules and regu-
lations of the government (Tilak 1994b; Mehrotra and Panchamukhi 2007). The
private-unaided schools are fee-charging schools run by private management and
receive no grants or aid from the State, but they might receive public subsidies in
the form of tax concessions and concessions in tariffs covering land, building and
electricity. These schools are entirely self-financing but are recognised by the State
and follow regulations laid down by the State. The fully private unaided schools have
complete autonomy in management, hiring of teachers and non-staff, etc. Besides
these three broad categories, there are also private-unaided schools that are ‘unrecog-
nised’ and do not comply with government regulations. Unlike earlier studies, this
chapter makes a clear distinction on the state of private unaided schools in India as
they seem to open school choices beyond public funded schools as well as a new
destination of market for education.

3 Method

The parental choice for secondary schools and its variations across different socio-
economic groups in India are examined in the paper, using both descriptive statistics
and probit model. The probit estimations are based on unweighted data, while house-
hold level weights are used for the descriptive statistics. The descriptive figures are
given for both 2005 and 2012 to understand the changing pattern of the choice for
secondary schools while the probit results are estimated using the sample of 13,363
secondary school-going children obtained from IHDS II data. Whether the child has
enrolled in a government or private secondary school (Secschool_Choice) serves as
the dependent variable in the analysis. The Secschool_Choice is defined as a dummy
variable, as follows:
118 P. K. Choudhury

Secschool_Choice = 1, if the child is enrolled in a private secondary school

= 0, otherwise.

To understand the dynamics of school choice at secondary level, seven probit

regression models are estimated: overall, gender (male/female), region (rural/urban)
and economic status of the households (poorest/richest). The set of explanatory vari-
ables included in the probit model is gender, region (rural/urban), social category,
household head’s education, household head’s occupation, household asset, current
grade of the student, and number of male and female children (in the age group of
0–14 years) in the family.1 The choice of these explanatory variables for the probit
models is influenced by the availability of data, and the findings of the previous
studies on demand and choice for schools, both in the Indian and international
contexts. It is expected that socio-economic, demographic and institutional factors
have considerable influence on choice of secondary schools in India, particularly with
the increasing role of private sector in school education. Therefore, a few important
variables are included in the probit models to capture the dynamics of school choice
in the secondary level, and the estimation results are shown in Table 1.

4 Results and Discussion

4.1 Changing Pattern of Demand for Private Schools:

Descriptive Results

This section discusses the changing pattern in the demand for private secondary
schools between 2005 and 2012. To analyse this, the share of students enrolled
in government, government-aided and private schools by important individual and
household characteristics (gender, social category, region, household asset and house-
hold head’s education) are calculated and shown in Tables 2, 3, 4, and 5 in appendix.
Though the schools are categorised into three to get the picture better, the discussion
here has focussed on the changing pattern of demand for private secondary schools
vis-à-vis government secondary schools between 2005 and 2012. In 2005, around
27% of the students had enrolled in secondary school which has gone up to about 31%
in 2012 (Fig. 1). Interestingly, the increase in the demand for secondary education in
private schools varies with few important socio-economic characteristics discussed
in the paper.

1 For details on the variables used in the regression, see Table 6 in the appendix. Summary statistics

of the variables used in the probit estimation is given in Table 7.

Table 1 Determinants of participation in secondary private schools: probit estimates
Variables All Male Females Rural Urban Poorest (Q1 ) Richest (Q5 )
Gender_female −0.0388*** − − −0.0377*** −0.0386*** −0.0317 −0.0540***
(0.00740) (0.00876) (0.0130) (0.0208) (0.0167)
Region_urban 0.107*** 0.0987*** 0.117*** − − 0.0784 0.183***
(0.0104) (0.0145) (0.0149) (0.0568) (0.0209)
HH asset quintiles
Assets_Q2 0.00175 0.00551 −0.00639 0.0153 −0.0333
(0.0146) (0.0195) (0.0217) (0.0138) (0.0658) − −
Assets_Q3 0.00321 0.0174 −0.0125 0.0292** −0.0274 − −
(0.0149) (0.0205) (0.0218) (0.0148) (0.0629)
Assets_Q4 0.0747*** 0.1000*** 0.0476** 0.0780*** 0.0960 − −
(0.0159) (0.0219) (0.0231) (0.0167) (0.0625)
Expanding Education Market and Parental Choice …

Assets_Q5 0.214*** 0.243*** 0.185*** 0.202*** 0.245*** − −

(0.0184) (0.0252) (0.0269) (0.0214) (0.0634)
HH head occupation
Agri_allied −0.0285** −0.0249 −0.0322* −0.0191 −0.0586* −0.105* 0.0126
(0.0117) (0.0163) (0.0168) (0.0143) (0.0299) (0.0588) (0.0271)
Wage_labour_others −0.0519*** −0.0516*** −0.0532*** −0.0479*** −0.0540*** −0.0257 −0.0530***
(0.0100) (0.0140) (0.0143) (0.0147) (0.0142) (0.0601) (0.0191)
Social groups
OBC −0.0261** −0.0380*** −0.0109 −0.0238* −0.0236 −0.00320 −0.0804***
(0.0106) (0.0146) (0.0154) (0.0128) (0.0183) (0.0419) (0.0214)
(continued)
119
Table 1 (continued)
120

Variables All Male Females Rural Urban Poorest (Q1 ) Richest (Q5 )
SC −0.0995*** −0.106*** −0.0918*** −0.0847*** −0.118*** −0.0566 −0.224***
(0.0115) (0.0163) (0.0162) (0.0139) (0.0202) (0.0440) (0.0264)
ST −0.0888*** −0.109*** −0.0634** −0.0781*** −0.0841** −0.0802 −0.0580
(0.0181) (0.0253) (0.0258) (0.0205) (0.0371) (0.0488) (0.0618)
Muslim −0.0438*** −0.0390* −0.0472** −0.0427** −0.0330 −0.0492 −0.0360
(0.0146) (0.0208) (0.0205) (0.0198) (0.0223) (0.0587) (0.0309)
OMR 0.0720*** 0.0498 0.101*** 0.0965*** 0.0208 0.0416
(0.0260) (0.0353) (0.0384) (0.0345) (0.0396) (0.0354)
HH head education
Primary_UP 0.0174 0.0352** 0.000366 0.00394 0.0338 0.00922 −0.107**
(0.0114) (0.0155) (0.0168) (0.0122) (0.0269) (0.0237) (0.0536)
Secondary 0.0441*** 0.0394** 0.0513*** 0.0288** 0.0492* 0.0726* −0.0245
(0.0132) (0.0179) (0.0195) (0.0146) (0.0290) (0.0411) (0.0534)
Higher_Secondary 0.0600*** 0.0560*** 0.0660*** 0.0581*** 0.0478* 0.0524 0.00470
(0.0139) (0.0190) (0.0204) (0.0160) (0.0290) (0.0464) (0.0531)
Graduate 0.117*** 0.120*** 0.114*** 0.0638*** 0.153*** 0.104 0.118**
(0.0152) (0.0210) (0.0221) (0.0186) (0.0295) (0.0710) (0.0524)
NCHILDM 0.00380 0.00354 0.00632 −0.000479 0.00834 −0.00928 0.0350***
(0.00434) (0.00606) (0.00635) (0.00505) (0.00806) (0.0119) (0.00987)
NCHILDF −0.00456 −0.0150** 0.00283 −0.00747 −0.00206 −0.0132 −0.0104
(0.00415) (0.00671) (0.00535) (0.00471) (0.00805) (0.0111) (0.0104)
(continued)
P. K. Choudhury
Table 1 (continued)
Variables All Male Females Rural Urban Poorest (Q1 ) Richest (Q5 )
Grade_level 0.00386 0.00590 0.00276 0.0135*** −0.0128** 0.00519 −0.0303***
(0.00342) (0.00485) (0.00494) (0.00405) (0.00599) (0.00982) (0.00740)
Log-pseudo likelihood −6629.0908 −3625.2864 −2966.3916 −3826.7442 −2674.0597 −448.2377 −1926.5537
Pseudo R2 0.1829 0.1828 0.1848 0.1632 0.1851 0.1991 0.1305
Observations 13,005 6,960 6,024 8,203 4,788 1,129 3,215
Source Author’s calculation from the unit-level record of IHDS II
Notes (a) Estimation gives the marginal effects and (b) figures in parenthesis are standard errors
*** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.10
Expanding Education Market and Parental Choice …
121
122 P. K. Choudhury

Fig. 1 Changing enrolment pattern in private secondary schools in India, by major socio-economic
factors. Source Estimated by the author based on unit level of data available from IHDS (2005 and
2012)

There is six percent increase in enrolment in private secondary schools among

male students (27.1–32.9%), while this is around two percent for females (27.4–
29.6%) between 2005 and 2012. This confirms the pro-male bias in household invest-
ment on education (and, therefore, the choice of schools) as found in some earlier
studies, particularly in the context of rural India (Himaz 2009; Azam and Kingdon
2013; Saha 2013; Kaul 2018). In 2012, close to half of the students were enrolled in
secondary private schools in urban areas, while this was around 24% in rural areas
(Fig. 1). However, it is quite surprising to note that the increase in the enrolment in
private secondary schools between 2005 and 2012 is higher in rural areas (4.62%)
as compared to urban areas (2.74%). This, perhaps, reveals the changing dynamics
in the demand for schools in rural areas, as discussed in some of the recent works
(Karopady 2014; Singh 2015). The other important household characteristic, that
is associated with the variation in the demand for private secondary schools, is the
educational level of the household head. Around 20% of the students, whose house-
hold heads education is below primary, have enrolled in private schools, while this
figure is 51% for the households whose heads have completed graduation and above
(Fig. 1).
Paying capacity of the households plays an important role in accessing private
schools in India as they charge very high fees and also parents spend a significant
share of their income on many other non-fee items such as transport, stationary
and school uniform. This is significantly visible in the analysis, as the demand for
private secondary schools has increased with the increase in economic status of the
households measured in terms of asset quintiles in both 2005 and 2012 (Fig. 2). The
enrolment of students in secondary private schools is 2.83 times higher for the richest
households (top asset quintile) as compared to the poorest households (bottom asset
quintile) in 2012, and this was 2.81 times in 2005 (Table 4). Further, the gap in the
enrolment in private secondary schools has widened between 2005 and 2012 (10.3%
among the richest households and 3.54% among the poorest households). Therefore,
Expanding Education Market and Parental Choice … 123

Fig. 2 Changing enrolment pattern in private secondary schools in India, by household asset quin-
tiles. Source Estimated by the author based on unit level of data available from IHDS (2005 and
2012)

over the years, the private schools are accessible to rich in greater numbers, and this
further widens the economic inequality in society.
The variations in the demand for private secondary schools by social category
reveal some interesting pictures. The enrolment share in private secondary schools
for the household belonging to HUC, OBC, SC and OMR has gone up between 2005
and 2012, while there is a very negligible increase for ST households. The highest
increase in the enrolment is among OBCs (7.32%) followed by SCs (5.65%) and
HUCs (4.45%). Quite surprisingly, the enrolment share in private schools among
Muslim households has declined from 31.25 to 29.65% in this period (Table 5).
The changing pattern in the demand for private secondary schools clearly supports
the larger argument that the expansion of private schools in India is benefiting the
households with better socio-economic and cultural capital.

5 Empirical Results: Probit Estimates

5.1 Choice of Secondary Schools by Gender

Gender inequality in private school enrolment is typically attributed to a selection

bias towards boys wherein low-resource households that cannot afford to send all of
their children to private schools choose to enrol boys over girls (Mcloughlin 2013). It
is argued that parents may prefer to send boys to private schools for receiving quality
education because of underlying socio-economic and cultural factors in India. Private
schools are costly and, thus, may increase the discrimination against girls in India
where preference for sons prevails widely. Several studies have examined the issue
of gender disparity in overall access to schools, grade progression and household
investment on education in developing countries, including India (Alderman and
King 1998; Aslam and Kingdon 2008; Glick 2008; Azam and Kingdon 2013; Saha
2013; Sahoo 2017). However, there are very few studies on girl’s access to private
schools in India, despite their massive expansion in recent years. The literature on
124 P. K. Choudhury

gender-based discrimination in private schooling is limited in the context of India

(Maitra et al. 2016). There is little empirical evidence on parental choice for schools
by gender using national level household surveys in India. Furthermore, few recent
studies on this (Woodhead et al. 2013; Sahoo 2017) have focussed on lower levels of
school education. Therefore, looking at the choice of secondary schools by gender
adds to a smaller set of recent research on gender gaps and private school enrolment
trends in India.
The probit estimates find that female students are 3.8% points less likely to be
enrolled in private secondary schools than boys; and this difference is more in the
rural areas. The households belonging to rural areas are 3.7% points less likely to
send girls to private schools as compared to 3.9% points in urban areas, accounting
for an intra-regional gap of 0.2% points. This result confirms the descriptive statistics
shown in Table 2, that is around one-third of male students access private secondary
schools in comparison to 29.6% among females. Gender gap in attendance in private
school was also evident in the study by Woodhead et al. (2013) in Andhra Pradesh.
Azam and Kingdon (2013) find a difference in household expenditure on education
by gender and have argued that boys are more likely to be sent to private schools
and, therefore, households invest more on them to provide better quality education.
Using World Bank’s Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) in Uttar Pradesh,
Sahoo (2017) shows that there is an intra-household gender bias (pro-male) of six
percentage points in private school enrolment among children, aged 6–16 years, and,
more importantly, it is rising over time. Socio-economic and cultural factors play a
critical role in the pro-male bias in the matter of accessing private schools in India.
Daughters receive less human capital investment than sons as parents inherently place
a relatively low value on females in India (Kingdon 2005; Sahoo 2017). Besides, it
is argued that parents have a preference for better quality education for boys (by
investing more) over girls. These findings bring out ‘gender equity’ as a matter of
serious concern in the access to private secondary schools, particularly in rural India.
Two probit models are estimated for male and female samples separately for a
detailed examination of gender bias in private secondary school enrolment. For both
male and female samples, urban households are more likely to send their children to
private schools as compared to rural households. However, the effect is higher among
female students (11.7% points) than male students (9.8% points). This reveals that
pro-male bias in the demand for private secondary schools is quite strong in rural
areas vis-à-vis the urban areas. Gender inequality in the secondary school choice
between poor and rich households in India reveals that even the richest households
(quintile 5) are 5.8% points more likely to send their male children to private schools
than the poorest households (quintile 1). Similarly, the girls of Scheduled Caste
(SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) households have less probability in getting access to
private schools than the boys of the same social category. The girls of SC and ST
households are doubly disadvantaged in being girls and also belonging to lower social
groups. However, quite interestingly, the results find that the household head’s educa-
tion plays a critical role in minimising the intra-household gender bias in accessing
private secondary schools in India. Households, with educated heads, have a higher
Expanding Education Market and Parental Choice … 125

probability of sending their female children to private schools as compared to illit-

erate households. For example, household heads with secondary level of education
are 5.1% points more likely to send their girl children to private schools than the
illiterate household heads, while this probability is 3.9% points among males. This
may be due to the increased awareness level among the educated parents towards
providing quality education to female children and, therefore, minimising gender
bias in the school choice.

5.2 Choice of Secondary Schools by Region

There is a striking difference in the choice for private schools among the rural and
urban households. The findings show that urban households are 10.7% points more
likely to attend private schools than rural households. This may be due to the fact
that the parents in urban areas are well aware of the importance of education for
their children (therefore ready to invest more on their children) as compared to
households from rural areas. Also, private schooling is much more spread in urban
than in rural areas, making physical access more challenging (Kingdon 2017). The
study by Woodhead et al. (2013) finds that the largest single factor affecting a child’s
chances of attending a private school is living in an urban area.
The rich–poor gap in the probability of attending private secondary schools is
found to be higher in urban areas than in the rural areas. The richest households in
urban areas are 24.5% points more likely to send their children to private secondary
schools than the poorest households, while in rural areas this is 20.2% points. Simi-
larly, with the increase in the household head’s education, students of urban areas
have relatively higher chances of attending private secondary schools as compared
to rural households. The children of households, with their heads’ education level
being graduation and above, have 15.3% points higher probability of attending private
schools than the illiterate household heads, while this figure is 6.4% points in rural
areas. The other important factor that plays a critical role in the dynamics of school
choice between rural and urban households is the social groups. Though in both rural
and urban areas, students belonging to SC and ST households have less chance to
access private secondary schools, the effect is higher in an urban set-up. For example,
students of ST households have 8.4% points less chance to attend private schools
in rural areas, while this is 11.8% points in urban areas. This may be due to the
fact that the cost of attending private schools in urban areas is very high and, as
such, it becomes really difficult for SC and ST households to access these schools.
However, the caste dynamics in the school choice between rural and urban regions
is an important issue and need further analysis.
The relationship between current grade (may be considered as a proxy of age
of the child) of the child and enrolment in private secondary schools in rural and
urban regions reveals some interesting results. The increase in the student’s grade
reduces the probability of accessing private secondary schools in urban areas while
it is positively related in the rural areas. This may be due to the fact that households
126 P. K. Choudhury

prefer to send their children to private schools at an early age in urban areas and
continue there till Grade 12. However, parents in rural areas enrol their children
in government schools at the secondary level (Grades 9 and 10) and transfer them
to private schools as they reach the higher grade (Grades 11 and 12), as Grade 12
results largely decide the future career path, including access to higher education.
A detailed analysis, particularly tracking the student enrolment by school type, may
reveal some interesting results, which is, however, outside the scope of this paper.

5.3 Secondary School Choice Between Poor and Rich

Households

Household wealth (measured by the household asset) has emerged as an important

determinant in the choice of secondary schools in India. Probit results show that
students from the richest families (quintile 5) have higher probabilities of accessing
private secondary schools than those belonging to the poorest households (quintile
1). The students belonging to the richest households (top asset quintile) have 21%
points higher probability of accessing private secondary school as compared to those
from the poorest households, and the coefficient is statistically significant at one
percent level. Similarly, students of fourth asset quintile households (second richest
group) have seven percentage point higher probability of sending their children to
private secondary schools as compared to the poorest households. In 2011–12, only
about 19% of the students from the poorest households were sending their children
to private schools, while it was more than 55% for the richest households (top asset
quintile). In 2004–05, these figures were 16% and 45% respectively (see Table 4). The
study by Harma (2011) concludes that private schools are by no means accessible to
poor households due to the high fees charged by them. Similar result was also found
in the study by Woodhead et al. (2013) in the context of Andhra Pradesh. But to
address the expanded demand, private schools are extending their reach to lower and
lower middle-income families by opening low-fee private schools. To understand the
issue better, two separate probit models are estimated for the top and bottom asset
quintiles (columns 7 and 8, Table 1). Interestingly, pro-male bias in accessing private
secondary schools exists even among the richest households in India. Among the
richest households, the probability of sending boys to private schools is 24.3% points
as compared to 18.5% point for girls. Thus, females from the richest households are
5.8% points less likely to enrol in private secondary schools as compared to boys.
Similar is the case among households belonging to asset quintile four (Q4 ), though
the difference in the probability of accessing private schools is relatively less (5.3%
points). The findings reveal that with the increasing cost of private schools in India, a
household’s ability to pay plays a significant role in the parental choice for secondary
schools, particularly in urban areas.
Expanding Education Market and Parental Choice … 127

The intra-regional variation (rural-urban gap) in the probability of attending

private school is 18% points among the richest households and seven percentage
points for the poorest households. More clearly, though both rich and poor house-
holds in urban areas have higher chances to enrol their children in private secondary
schools than in rural areas, the effect is relatively stronger among rich households.
This reflects the difference in the affordability between rich and poor households in
sending their children to private schools. However, given the heterogeneity in the
private school market in recent years, it is important to examine the type of private
schools accessed by the poor and rich households in urban areas. To what kind of
private schools the poor households in urban areas are sending their children? Are
these private schools too different from the kind of schools accessed by the children
of rich households? These are some of the important questions that need further
academic engagement and research. Looking at the schools as a binary construct
(government and private) may not completely reveal the school choice dynamics in
India though it helps in providing a broader context to the issue.

5.4 Other Important Covariates

The other important factor affecting the likelihood of attending private secondary
school is education of the household head or, in this case, the highest education
of the adults (more than 21 years old) in the household. The probit results show
that households with the highest adult education level of graduation and above are
12% points more likely to send their children to private schools than households
whose highest adult education is below primary. Higher educated parents may be
concerned about the quality of education, and, consequently enrol their children
in fee-charging private schools, on the understanding that private schools provide
better quality education (Tilak and Sudarshan 2001; Muralidharan and Kremer 2008).
Quite interestingly, educated parents and households do not have much gender bias
in sending their children to private schools. This may be due to the increase in the
awareness level of the household that minimises the discrimination in the choice of
schools between boys and girls. Further, this matters more for urban households as
compared to rural households. The descriptive results show that in 2011–12, around
51% of the children attended private schools from households having highest adult
education level of graduation and above while it was 20% for the households whose
highest adult education level was below primary.
Closely related to other household characteristics, social group (caste and religion)
is also associated with the demand for private secondary schools in India. As private
education is regarded as a symbol of social prestige, one can expect that higher the
caste hierarchy, the higher would be the probability of demand for private schools and
vice versa (Tilak and Sudarshan 2001). In a recent study, Bhattacharya et al. (2015)
find that general caste students are more likely to attend private schools in India.
Several other studies have also found that forward castes’ households in India are
far more likely to send their children to private schools as compared to Scheduled
128 P. K. Choudhury

Caste and Scheduled Tribe households (Desai et al. 2009; Woodhead et al. 2013;
Singh 2015). The probit results show that students belonging to low socio-economic
settings such as Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Muslims are less likely
to attend private schools than the upper caste Hindu students. However, students of
other minority religions have fair chances to attend private schools as compared to
upper caste Hindus. The effect of the social groups on the choice of secondary private
schools is higher in urban areas than in rural region. In 2011–12, close to half of the
students from OMR groups (40% among upper caste Hindus) were attending private
schools, while this figure was only about 19% among STs (Table 5).

6 Conclusions

Using two rounds of IHDS data (2005 and 2012), this study analyses the pattern and
determinants of parental choice for secondary schools in India. In particular, poten-
tial factors determining parental decision on school choice are examined by region
(rural/urban), gender and economic status of the households. The probit results find
that female students are 3.8% points less likely to be enrolled in private secondary
schools than boys; and this difference is more in rural areas and among poor house-
holds. This finding suggests that households prefer to send their sons (than daugh-
ters) to private secondary schools that are more expensive and which they perceive
to be better in quality. The analysis suggests a striking difference in the choice for
private schools among the rural and urban households—urban households are 10.7%
points more likely to attend private schools than rural households. We also find that
the choice for secondary schools is strongly determined by the paying capacity of
the households—students from richest families (quintile 5) have 21% points higher
probability in access to private secondary schools than the students belonging to
the poorest households (quintile 1), and this gap is higher in urban areas than rural
areas. Further, the analysis suggests that probability of attending private schools
increases with the rise in the highest level of education of adults of the household.
The households, having the highest adult education level of graduation and above,
are 12% points more likely to send their children to private schools than the house-
holds whose highest adult education level is below primary. This study, thus, shows
quite conclusively that the expansion of private schools in India has made significant
changes in the parental aspirations and choice for schools.
Secondary education is considered as a gateway to accessing higher education
and preparing youths to join the labour market. Considering the importance of
secondary education on socio-economic development, the Rashtriya Madhyamik
Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) scheme (a flagship programme for the development of
secondary education) was launched and implemented across India in 2009–10 to
enhance access as well as improve the quality of secondary education. It was envis-
Expanding Education Market and Parental Choice … 129

aged to provide quality secondary education to all by 2020. Though there is fair
progress in enrolment rates in secondary education, with the initiation of RMSA, it
is important to examine as to who all are accessing what kind of schools and this
study has made an attempt in this direction. However, the scope of this study is
limited as it has examined the issue at all-India level while also not getting into many
other important debates in the area of school choice. For instance, it is important to
understand the expansion of private schools at the sub-national level—in the State,
district and even in Talukas. Similarly, given the heterogeneity in the expansion of
private schools in India, it is quite useful to examine parental choice for different
types of private schools at secondary level. For a more nuanced understanding of the
issue, attempt should also be made to discuss the dynamics of shifting of children
from government to private secondary schools as it is happening very rapidly, even
in the rural areas.

Appendix

See Tables 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7.

Table 2 Distribution of enrolment by types of secondary schools and gender in rural and urban
India
2004–05 2011–12
Government Govt. aided Private Total Government Govt. aided Private Total
Rural
Male 67.64 12.37 19.99 100 63.98 10.30 25.73 100
Female 68.28 13.13 18.58 100 67.62 10.28 22.10 100
All 67.90 12.69 19.41 100 65.68 10.29 24.03 100
Urban
Male 45.64 11.23 43.14 100 43.60 9.92 46.47 100
Female 44.96 13.35 41.69 100 47.04 9.26 43.70 100
All 45.30 12.28 42.42 100 45.23 9.61 45.16 100
Total (R + U)
Male 60.84 12.02 27.14 100 56.94 10.17 32.89 100
Female 59.36 13.22 27.43 100 60.42 9.92 29.66 100
Total 60.18 12.55 27.27 100 58.57 10.05 31.37 100
Source Author’s calculation from the unit-level record of IHDS I and II
130 P. K. Choudhury

Table 3 Distribution of enrolment by types of secondary schools and educational attainment of

the head of the household
2004–05 2011–12
Government Govt. Private Total Government Govt. Private Total
aided aided
Below 71.06 11.52 17.42 100 71.15 9.26 19.59 100
primary
Up to upper 65.98 13.69 20.33 100 64.99 10.07 24.94 100
primary
Secondary 56.97 11.21 31.83 100 57.66 10.63 31.71 100
Higher 52.07 15.4 32.53 100 51.36 9.9 38.74 100
secondary
Graduate 48.27 10.74 40.99 100 38.5 10.4 51.09 100
and above
Source Author’s calculation from the unit-level record of IHDS I and II

Table 4 Distribution of enrolment by types of secondary schools and asset quintile of the household
Asset 2004–05 2011–12
quintile Government Govt. Private Total Government Govt. Private Total
aided aided
1 72.30 11.67 16.03 100 71.08 9.35 19.57 100
2 74.52 10.81 14.67 100 70.72 8.90 20.38 100
3 73.08 9.60 17.32 100 66.67 10.00 23.34 100
4 59.86 15.02 25.12 100 54.72 11.07 34.21 100
5 41.68 13.18 45.14 100 33.87 10.66 55.46 100
Source Author’s calculation from the unit-level record of IHDS I and IHDS II

Table 5 Distribution of enrolment by types of secondary schools and social group

Social groups 2004–05 2011–12
Government Govt. Private Total Government Govt. Private Total
aided aided
Hindu Upper Castes 52.89 12.06 35.05 100 50.39 10.11 39.50 100
Other Backward Classes 60.12 13.54 26.34 100 56.05 10.29 33.66 100
Scheduled Castes 73.17 10.54 16.29 100 68.05 10.00 21.94 100
Scheduled Tribes 72.33 9.41 18.26 100 71.63 9.75 18.62 100
Muslim 57.57 11.18 31.25 100 63.42 6.93 29.65 100
Other Minority Religions 33.94 25.36 40.70 100 29.37 23.87 46.76 100
Source Author’s calculation from the unit-level record of IHDS I and II
Note HUC = Hindu Upper Caste; OMR = Other minority religions—includes Christian, Sikh, Jain and
others
Expanding Education Market and Parental Choice … 131

Table 6 Notation of the variables used in the probit model

Notation Name of variable Definition
School_Choice School choice 1, if an Individual has participated in private
secondary school; 0, otherwise (dependent
variable)
Gender Male 0, if an individual is male
Female 1, if an individual is female
Location Urban 1, if an individual resides in an urban area
Rural 0, if an individual resides in a rural area
Social group
UC_Hindusa UC Hindus 1, if an individual is upper caste Hindu, 0,
otherwise
OBC OBC 1, if an individual is OBC Hindu; 0,
otherwise
SC SC 1, if an individual is SC; 0, otherwise
ST ST 1, if an individual is ST; 0, otherwise
Muslim Muslim 1, if an individual is Muslim; 0, otherwise
OMR OMR 1, if an individual is Christian/Sikh/Jain.
etc.; 0, otherwise
Highest adult (>21 age) education of the HH
HAE_BPa Illiterate or below primary 1, if the HAE is illiterate or below primary;
0, otherwise
HAE_UP Primary or UP 1, if the HAE is primary or upper primary;
0, otherwise
HAE_SEC Secondary 1, if the HAE is secondary; 0, otherwise
HAE_HSE Higher Secondary 4, if the HAE is higher secondary; 0,
otherwise
HAE_Graduate Graduate 4, if the HAE is graduation and above; 0,
otherwise
HH assets index
Assets_Qa1 1st quintile (poorest) 1, if the student belongs to HH asset quintile
1; 0, otherwise
Assets_Q2 2nd Quintile 1, if the student belongs to HH asset quintile
2; 0, otherwise
Assets_Q3 3rd Quintile 1, if the student belongs to HH asset quintile
3; 0, otherwise
Assets_Q4 4th Quintile 1, if the student belongs to HH asset quintile
4; 0, otherwise
Assets_Q5 5th Quintile (richest) 1, if the student belongs to HH asset quintile
5; 0, otherwise
Grade_level Grade enrolled The current grade of the student
HH head occupation
(continued)
132 P. K. Choudhury

Table 6 (continued)
Notation Name of variable Definition
Salaried_employeesa − 1, salaried, regular and businessman; 0,
otherwise
Agri_allied − 1, Agriculture and Allied, rural labour; 0,
otherwise
Wage_labour_others − 3, Others; 0, otherwise
NCHILDM − Number of male child in the family
(0–14 years old)
NCHILDF − Number of female child in the family
(0–14 years old)
UC = Upper Caste; OBC = Other Backward Caste; SC = Schedule Caste; ST = Schedule Tribe
a used as reference category in the probit model

Table 7 Summary statistics of the variables used in the probit estimation

Variable Observations Mean Stand. dev. Minimum Maximum
Sec School_choice (Dep. Var.) 13,028 0.3159 0.4649 0 1
Gender 13,363 1.4599 0.4984 1 2
Location 13,363 0.3694 0.4827 0 1
UC_Hindus 13,345 0.2374 0.4255 0 1
OBC 13,345 0.3422 0.4745 0 1
SC 13,345 0.2126 0.4092 0 1
ST 13,345 0.0698 0.2548 0 1
Muslim 13,345 0.1092 0.3119 0 1
OMR 13,345 0.0289 0.1674 0 1
HAE_BP 13,363 0.1635 0.3698 0 1
HAE_UP 13,363 0.3329 0.4713 0 1
HAE_SEC 13,363 0.1837 0.3873 0 1
HAE_HSE 13,363 0.1610 0.3675 0 1
HAE_Graduate 13,363 0.1589 0.3656 0 1
Assets_Q1 13,358 0.0969 0.2958 0 1
Assets_Q2 13,358 0.1956 0.3967 0 1
Assets_Q3 13,358 0.2143 0.4103 0 1
Assets_Q4 13,358 0.2443 0.4297 0 1
Assets_Q5 13,358 0.2489 0.4324 0 1
Grade_level 13,363 10.3692 1.1178 9 12
Salaried_employees 13,362 0.2526 0.4345 0 1
Agri_allied 13,362 0.3531 0.4779 0 1
Wage_labour_others 13,362 0.3943 0.4887 0 1
NCHILDM 13,363 0.7252 0.8768 0 7
NCHILDF 13,363 0.6496 0.9190 0 9
Expanding Education Market and Parental Choice … 133

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The Power Game: A Case Study
of a Private School in Odisha

Amrita Sastry

1 Introduction

A child is initiated into the process of learning from the moment he/she is born.
As the child grows up, the needs and desires keep step with him/her. These become
diversified and complicated with time. Not every need can be met at home, around the
family. Hence, the child steps out of home into the precincts of a formal institution
called school. Thus, a school becomes the first ‘other’, the outside entity which a
child encounters away from the gaze of family. Being the chief ‘other’, the school
has immense potential and responsibilities in shaping the child into a responsible
citizen. Hence, education in school is the child’s introduction to ‘formal’ learning.
A typical day at school begins with the ringing of the school bell, children in
uniform lined up for the morning assembly, the school gate closes, the late-comers
rounded up in a separate group (an act of formal punishment for flouting rules), call
of attendance-formal education begins with the introduction to the idea of discipline
and punishment. Here, the question that requires attention is what is the purpose
of schooling? Schooling is often considered as one of the most important agencies
of socialisation. History, science, politics, language, literature, art, music, sports,
morality, ethics-school opens up facts and stories about culture and human civilisa-
tion, about modes of behaviour and etiquettes, about universalism and particularism,
about the untenable dynamics of ‘us’ and ‘them’ etc. Schools, as the formal agents of
socialisation, are responsible for training the child in a manner that is quite different
from training by the family. The school, being the most stable socialising agent, exer-
cises strategic power relations on its members. It not only teaches the child about
conformity to the societal norms but also inculcates the ideas of critical questioning.

A. Sastry (B)
Deparment of Sociology, Jesus and Mary College, University of Delhi, Opposite Bapu Dham,
Chanakyapuri, New Delhi 110021, India
e-mail: [email protected]

© Council for Social Development 2020 137

J. B. G Tilak (ed.), Universal Secondary Education in India,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5366-0_7
138 A. Sastry

Thus, the school serves as a catalyst, wherein dynamism is valued, besides acting as
a stabilizer by promoting the idea of obedience and conformity.
If one looks at the idea of schooling, it is born out of the necessity to perpetuate
an established view of the society. It acts as a mediator between the ‘particularistic
values’ of family and the ‘universalistic values’ of the world outside. Schools enable
change of the diverse population into one society with a shared national identity
while preparing the young generations for their future citizenship roles. School, as
an organisation, has goals which are formally prescribed, membership, a hierarchical
order and a lot of other informal goals, like getting a formal degree, orientation for
higher goals, fostering competitive spirit, friendship etc. The school is seen as a
hub for different kinds of activities and also a space where relationships of different
kinds are constructed, constituted, maintained, contested and celebrated. From its
inception, formal schooling has been designed to discipline the body, regulate the
minds, and inculcate the values of punctuality. Some of the other functions have
always been the shaping of conduct and beliefs, as well as the acquisition of a
particular form of knowledge through a prescribed curriculum. Performances in the
schools, in terms of writing an essay, tests, exams or the behaviour of the child in
the classroom, is regarded as evidence of the child’s intelligence. Formal schools
not only have some kind of moral and patterned expectations from the children, but
also from the teachers as well as the parents. And slowly, these expectations take
the shape of school culture which is then regarded as the ‘culture of learning’. Thus,
the ‘culture of learning’ within the school set-up is not created in a day or two but it
evolves over a period of time. It is reinforced by the day-to-day engagement with the
process of schooling. Hence, it is not a finished product. The ‘culture of learning’
changes with time, space and actors and evolves continuously. Since schooling is a
ubiquitous phenomenon in the world, a number of similarities are there in its patterns
of relationship and functioning, but each school has its distinctive quality too while
defining its ‘culture’. The core elements of the school culture would comprise of: A
shared sense of vision and purpose norms, values, beliefs and assumptions history
rituals and ceremonies structure of relationship and trust.
Weaving the core elements of culture into an artistic tapestry is similar to inventing
a magic word from the letters of the alphabet or stringing words together to create
a poem. Juxtaposed with one another, the letters and the words form a meaningful
expression. Similarly, by combining these elements of culture, a cohesive culture of
learning takes shape. Since each ‘culture of learning’ has its distinctive existence, it is
also important to look at it with a fresh mind. While societies and cultures are not the
same thing, they are mutually related because it is only through society that culture
is created and transmitted. Culture cannot be produced by just one individual; rather
it is shared and is, thus, continuously evolving through the everyday interactions of
its members in the society. It is shared by each member of the society. Thus, school,
being a mini-society, also transmits the culture to the next generation.
The Power Game: A Case Study of a Private School in Odisha 139

2 Colonialism and Education

In the Indian context, if one looks at the process of schooling historically, it can be
seen as one of the most favoured instruments of socialisation. The colonial interest
in educating Indians was based on two reasons. The first was to produce cheap
labour in order to assist them in their functioning while the second was to garner
the unconditional support of the dominant sections of the Indian society for the
establishment of the British Empire. For acquiring this support, the British very
cleverly infused their ideas in the Indian education system through the process of
schooling. As Avijit Pathak (2002), reflecting on colonialism and education, said,
Colonialism is about power. It hierarchizes the world. It privileges the colonizer; enables him
to suppress the colonized. And this violence is not just physical; colonialism is inseparable
from moral/cultural/symbolic violence. The colonized are generally a demoralized lot. It
becomes difficult for them to have faith in themselves. They tend to think that they are inferior
and they associate qualities like strength, courage, education and civilization—in fact, all that
is positive—with their colonial masters. Colonial education, needless to add, is an important
component of this ideological apparatus. As one looks at the history of colonial education,
one realizes how education played a key role in the process of legitimization. The meaning
of English/modern education, (a gift from colonial masters) was primarily an exercise of
cultural invasion. It condemned all our civilizational ideals and equated knowledge with
Western ideas; it was not particularly sensitive to the history of our educational heritage.
Besides, in a subtle way it legitimized colonialism, because the colonial masters looked like
great school teachers (learned adults) from whom, as passive/ignorant children, we must
learn the fundamentals of knowledge!

This shows that the socialisation through the schools, initiated during the colonial
rule, compelled the natives into a different way of thinking and acting, primarily
through a British lens. The British intellectual, Thomas Babington Macaulay, in his
Minutes of Education (1835), cleverly deployed the funds of education to create a
class of individuals in India who were Indians by blood and colour but English by
opinion, tastes and ideas. Macaulay was a utilitarian and he could foresee the power
of English education which would justify the Britishers ‘civilising’ mission. And he
justified the very idea that English education was modern, a symbol of humanism
and political altruism, and was given to Indians as a gift from the Britishers. Like
Charles Grant, even Macaulay advocated cultural imperialism without having any
respect for Indian culture and civilisation. The lure of English education was barely
resisted by many Indians like Raja Rammohan Roy and many Bengali bhadraloks.
For them, this English education was a promise of a new era. Poromesh Acharya
has also reflected in his writing on Bengali bhadralok that none of the ambitious
class of Bengal resisted this elitist English education. Many of them saw this as an
important opportunity for lucrative employment and, hence, they ignored its negative
effects. However, this attractiveness of English education did not help the Indians gain
techno-scientific knowledge, with the knowledge remaining merely literary in nature.
Thus, this colonial education was successful in creating a small section of English-
educated babus, primarily from the upper castes who majorly joined the colonial
government jobs like civil services. Despite these consequences, not everything was
reprehensible about colonial education. It furnished a secular idea and a new kind
140 A. Sastry

of critical consciousness among the people of India which, in turn, ironically, sowed
the seeds for the process of decolonisation—a classic case of constructive effect of
colonial education. Not everyone was happy with the agenda of colonial education
and, hence, the dissenters saw a new possibility. Thus, the plan of the colonialist was
not successful for a long period and their idea backfired on them with the emergence
of revolt and vociferous criticism against colonial rule. The criticism of colonial
education led to revivalism, which was based on glorification of the ‘nationalist’
Hindu past and this was problematic in nature. As Pathak (2002) observes, ‘In a multi-
religious society like ours, revivalism would always appear extremely hegemonic; it
would like to destroy the identity of minority communities. In other words, it could
prove to be a debacle in the freedom of the oppressed and marginalized sections of
society…there was indeed a revivalist current in the ‘nationalist’ pursuits. Moreover,
the lower castes needed their emancipation …Instead of viewing colonial education
as alien; it sought to see great potential and possibility in it for the emancipation of
India’s marginalized castes’.
There were many like Ambedkar, Mahatma Gandhi, and Rabindranath Tagore
who resisted colonial education and wanted to develop an alternative perspective.
Gandhi felt that English language has made us strangers in our own land. Ambedkar
was apprehensive about the colonial apathy towards the lower castes where it came to
educating them. Similarly, Tagore was critical about the disconnectedness of colonial
education with the everyday life of the Indians. But slowly the dissent of these people
was forgotten and as India gained freedom, a Nehruvian idea of education, paralleled
with the idea of modernity and scientific temper, took shape. The Nehruvian agenda
was a break as well as continuity since it tried retaining our culture with a blend of
scientific modernity. ‘In a way, Nehru was the child of modernity. He believed that
India must modernize herself, overcome her fixation with the past, and enter the new
era. He disliked the glorification of past… ‘India’ must break with the much of her
past, and not allow it to dominate the present. Nehru was known for his celebration
of scientific temper… His vision of modernity was essentially Western, with emphasis
on industrialization, secularization and material well-being’ (Pathak 2002).

3 Post-Colonialism and Schooling

In post-colonial India, with the scientific temper of Nehru, schools continued to be

the ideal agency of socialisation that paved the way for social change. For a new
nation-state in the making, both modernity and science became an integral part of
education, paving the way for change. For Kumar (1992/2004) ‘schooling is ‘as an
agent of preservation and social transformation’.
In post-Independence India, the Radhakrishnan Commission (1949) emphasised
on science and technology. Similarly, Kothari Commission was appointed in 1964–
66 for advising the Government on the national pattern of education in order to
develop education in all aspects and at all stages. Dr. D. S. Kothari, who headed
the commission as chairman, also articulated the need for scientific education. The
The Power Game: A Case Study of a Private School in Odisha 141

commission recommended that ‘the destiny of India is now being shaped in her
classrooms’. After a thoughtful deliberation and nation-wide brainstorming on the
Kothari Commission Report of Education, the Commission realised the absence of
a concrete policy in the field of education and proposed a common school system
of public education. This would create an egalitarian atmosphere with an urge to
fight educational inequalities. This paved the way for the formulation of the National
Education Policy in 1968. Based on the historical situation, the socio-cultural milieu
and in order to meet the challenges in post-Independence India, the National Policy
of Education 1968 marked a significant step. It tried to bridge the gap created by the
colonial rulers and focussed on promotion of ‘national progress’, ‘citizenship and
culture’ while emphasising on strengthening of ‘national integration’. In 1986, the
NPE was reviewed. It stressed the need for promoting technical/managerial educa-
tion for the growth of industry. It also highlighted the need for equal opportunities for
the marginalised sections and for the abolishing of inequality through the provision
of various scholarships, with special reference to rural India. In order to improve the
quality of primary education and primary schools countrywide, the NPE called for
a ‘child-centric approach’ and launched ‘Operation Blackboard’. In 1992, the NPE
was revised again with the objective of keeping core constitutional values of democ-
racy, socialism, secularism and professional ethics intact in India. The NPE (1992)
made three commitments with regard to elementary education: universal access and
enrolment, universal retention of children upto the age of 14, and improvement in
the quality of education.
The NPE (1992) also favoured a national framework for curriculum in order to
evolve a national system of education in keeping with the cultural and geographical
diversity of India and, at the same time, ensure a common core of ideals and value
system along with the academic components. The National Curriculum Framework
(NCF) was, thus, formed to serve as a manual and a reference for the implementa-
tion strategy of curriculum, actions and benchmarks for pedagogy, monitoring and
evaluation in the country as envisioned by the NPE. In 1975, the NCF was designed
by the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT), and was,
subsequently, revised in 1988, 2000 and 2005. The recent NCF (2005) focusses on
innovative pedagogy to be implemented in the classroom so as to make education
more diverse and contextual. It also focusses attention on the plurality of textbooks
and on overhauling of the examination system and imparting training to teachers in
order to encourage critical thinking and holistic learning in schools.
Hence, post-Independence India has visualised an education system that is
primarily oriented towards science and technology. Science promotes the idea of tech-
nology leading to development. Science encourages rationality and critical enquiry
and, hence, it is problem-solving and practical in nature. However, the preoccupation
with modern technologies and its negativity was also cited in all the commission and
policies. Since it is only through education that there is a possibility of coexistence of
tradition and modernity, education must bring about a synthesis of change-oriented
tendencies with continuity of cultural traditions. The paradox in our educational
policy lay at the level of implementation, thereby creating a gap between the ideal
and real. For example, till date even after the introduction of economically weaker
142 A. Sastry

section (EWS) quota, equal access to quality education remains a distant dream. Even
though the numbers of government schools have increased in quantitative terms, qual-
itatively they languish. The pathetic state of affairs of the government school led to
the emergence of a parallel system of private schools that brand themselves on the
basis of quality education, AC buses and classrooms, swimming pools and English
as the primary medium of instruction. This duality within the education system is
the reality today wherein children from the affluent class can afford to attend private
schools whereas those from the poor class takes the education route through govern-
ment schools. And this leads to a ‘sponsored upward mobility!’ These private schools
portray themselves as exclusive in nature since their selection is primarily based on
‘merit’ even as they charge hefty tuition fees which everyone cannot afford to pay.
This creates categorically different class clienteles for such schools. Thus, the failure
to implement egalitarian values in the process of schooling creates a huge gap, rein-
forcing the superiority of elite schools over the government schools. These so-called
elite schools create their own symbols, imageries and behaviour patterns, that act as
a mirage chased by all, but provide entry to only those who have social, economic
and the cultural capital. Thus, the purpose of schooling gets defeated in the system
of schooling and by the structure of schooling. In the process, socialisation through
schools only reinforces and breeds class discrimination.

4 Aspiring Middle Class in the Cosmopolitan City

of Odisha

Rourkela, as a city, saw the emergence of the middle class through the process
of educational development and industrialisation. Education provided an important
means to enhance their social standing or class position. The obsessive desire in
middle-class parents is to see their child as different from others. This idea of
‘different’ and ‘otherness’ can be understood as a projection of cultural capital
through which these middle-class families seek to assert their liberal credentials
and secure their class position. The ability to move in and out of spaces marked as
‘other’ indeed became part of the process through which this particular faction of
the middle class come to know themselves as both privileged and dominant.
Although they would have preferred their child to be sent to a government school,
they eventually realise that there is a dearth of good government schools. Since the
aspirational middle class wants their children to be happy in an environment that will
also provide them with necessary skills and a quality life, they prefer private schools
over the government ones. One can see a growing demand, in post-colonial India, for
English medium private schools among the middle class which regards the cultural
capital as an indispensable component to expand and validate their cultural assets.
Another important development, that changed not only the country as a whole but also
affected the cosmopolitan cities, was the introduction of post-liberalisation policies.
Post-1990 s the country, as a whole, witnessed a structural change in its economy,
The Power Game: A Case Study of a Private School in Odisha 143

that had its ramifications in the education system. A new market for private English
medium schools, along with various coaching centres, mushroomed in a short span of
time and this fuelled the aspirations of the growing middle class to give their children
the best ‘cultural capital’. The forces of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisa-
tion have ushered phenomenal changes. Anthony Giddens (1990), in his book ‘The
consequences of Modernity’, drew attention to ‘time-space distantiation’—the ways
in which space and time shrink and compress, distances annihilate and a progressive
inter-dependent approach begins—as a phenomenon attracting every one. This neo-
liberal era led to the emergence of a different kind of thinking which is positively
related to material wealth, comfort, luxury, and is driven by market forces and domi-
nated by consumption. It is here that the middle class gives in to these market forces
and wants to see their children develop independent attitudes and provides them with
cultural (linguistic competence, general and specialised culture) and social capitals.
These needs of the middle-class parents are not vital ones; rather, they are ‘socially
created needs’, as stated by Herbert Marcuse (2012) in his book ‘One Dimensional
Man’. Marcuse expressed the view that these socially created needs have nothing to do
with basic needs and, hence, they are ‘false needs’; so unnecessary in nature. But the
middle class, in order to satiate these false needs, represses the genuine needs, sacri-
fices life, misses the opportunity to enjoy life in its true sense and goes to the extent of
depriving others of their basic needs. The middle class, with their aspirational goals,
are carried away by these superimposed goals either by the media or market forces.
They become mere consumers in the market-driven society and also seek to define
others on the basis of their consumption. People start recognising themselves on the
lines of the commodity that they possess. In this consumption-dominated society,
education has become a consumer good and schools its institutional variant. And to
keep the system going in the present modern era, we should keep consuming. Hence,
the world ‘out there’ is not a material to be shaped by the human skills but becomes
an item to be purchased. As individuals, we feel free to choose from among a surfeit
of options, but, in reality, our choices, determined by our needs, are actually the
creation of the system and, thus, we end up being ‘trapped’ by market forces without
our knowledge.
Sancho (2016) has also highlighted, in his classic ethnographic study of Kochi
(Kerala) city, as to how the emergence of private international schools is meeting the
middle-class aspirations in the city Sancho is of the opinion that the rapidly growing
Indian middle class has a different consumption pattern, aspiration and lifestyle.
Hence, one may questions: who are these middle classes and who claim to be middle
class. This has become a contested field especially post-liberalisation India. Thus,
any attempt to define this class in an ‘objective’ manner would not only be impossible
but would also be a foolish endeavour. He explored through his paper that
the middle class emerges as a constantly renegotiated cultural space that is always at odds
with itself and where the terms of inclusion and exclusion are being transformed in global-
izing India. While the school boasted about its efforts to keep up with the time and make
students internationally competent, their everyday activities were most crucially focused
on satisfying the core aspirations of the bulk of its middle-class students—centered very
much on India and on gaining access to reputed higher education institutions. However, in
144 A. Sastry

promoting a demand for internationalized forms of education, and with it particular kinds
of ideal practices, aspirations, embodied behaviour, and subjectivities, as a form of unified
middle-class aspiration and marker of distinction, the school ultimately summoned legit-
imacy for projects and desires that favors a dominant minority. After all ‘the historically
specific models of the educated person encouraged in schools often represent the subjec-
tivities which dominant groups endorse. What we may be seeing here is the emergence
of internationalized schooling as a middle-class aspiration and a marker of class status, by
which the internationalness of private schools will become a marker of ‘superior’ educational
quality to that which would be experienced in local schools.

This shows how the middle class is looking for the private schools and, eventually,
as consumers getting trapped. The private schools also try to promote their schools as
per the requirement of the system, by showcasing an all-round, emotionally balanced
education, which the middle-class parents are increasingly in search of. For the
rising middle-class parents, having enough money at their disposal to spend on the
education of their child, these skills are easily pursued by sending their child to the
private schools where academic drive is taken as given. For the parents, who regard
the government school as a risk that is not providing them enough options, private
schools provide the answer. The private schools take advantage of this opportunity by
branding their institutional identity with a good packaging that caters to the dreams
of millions of parents with an aspiration to give their child the best education. All this
leads to the emergence of ‘international’, ‘public’ schools mania among the growing
middle class and the pseudo internationalism tag gives a feeling of being ‘branded’
which distinguishes and pushes their status to a higher notch.
In Rourkela too, a wide array of private English medium schools have mush-
roomed in a very short span of time. The most important reason behind this sudden
upsurge is the place’s industrial township character and increasing urbanisation.
These private English medium schools are treated as consumer goods and, thus,
are hierarchically superior for the consumers in terms of prestige and status. These
schools function as vehicles of class segmentation which can also be seen in the works
of Bourdieu and Paul Willis. While focussing on the ‘class’ as culture and the hege-
monic nature of middle-class culture, they have shown how children from working
class backgrounds feel alienated at school. The various ways to reinforce this hege-
monic power in the cosmopolitan city of Rourkela can be seen in the fancy names
of the various playschools, to begin with, such as ‘Little garden school’, ‘Bachpan
play school’, ‘Merryland International play school’, as well as the specifications
listed in the admission criteria. In this process, class segmentation is strengthened
and becomes a stark contrast to the ideals of education for all and, in reality, it
runs two parallel processes of schooling viz. government as well as private schools.
Government schools are considered as below par (compared to private school) in
terms of hierarchy, and where hardly anybody wants to send their kids. The educated
elite of Rourkela, identified in terms of its large service sector professionals, were
not sending their kids to the Government school. Thus, the English medium private
school acted as a class determinant in Rourkela city. One can easily see the reproduc-
tion of this class-cum-language divide which has eventually led to the emergence of a
dual educational system, with the government schools using the vernacular—‘odia’
The Power Game: A Case Study of a Private School in Odisha 145

as a medium of instruction and the so-called English medium private schools. This
shows a clear shift of choice of the middle-class parents wherein factors like caste,
sub-caste and lineage are no longer playing a decisive role in choosing the school.

5 Power Game in the Everyday Life of Schooling

As Beteille (1992, p. 17) would argue that ‘the family among middle-class and upper
middle-class Indians is changing its orientation away from lineage, sub-caste and
caste, to school, college and office and that parents are not willing to leave the future of
their children to caste and karma’. Educated middle-class families in Rourkela have
a good knowledge of the reputation of various schools and have their own priorities
in their choice of school. And this choice of the school by the parents depended on
their own socio-economic backgrounds. Sometimes parents also consult their peer
groups and the recommendations they get from the latter enables them make the
‘right choice’ in so far as the school is concerned. Thus, in this manner, the choice of
the school also indicates the families’ social position while heralding the beginning
of social power in the larger society. And once the kids are admitted to the school, the
parents as well as the children get an exclusive brand label that the school represents.
The school, in turn, also uses the names of the parents as part of an informal branding
to influence others and create an image for itself. The end result is a circular process
of mutual symbolic capital exchange between the schools, on the one hand, and the
students and their families, on the other. Both create and help in sustaining the identity
by generating a different ‘class’ category. This reinforces Bourdieu’s argument that
class is more than economic capital and it should be understood in terms of social
and cultural capital as well. The private schools, thus, become ‘sacred space’ and
goods for consumption for the middle-class families.
The school, being a ‘sacred space’, looks at the manifestations of power in various
ways, depending upon the context. And, sometimes, there is a coexistence of both
positive and negative power. Here, I am reflecting on two aspects viz.:
1. How power controls, enables, awakens or isolates its member in the creation of
the culture of learning?
2. The normal practices by the members of the institution to negotiate with power
in their day-to-day functions, and how they engage with the imposed structure,
strategise or try to modify them.
The nature and form of everyday practices will help us in critically appreciating the
various cultural codes that exist in the school set-up and how these codes are processed
by the school through various power dynamics. There are a lot of unstructured,
unwritten codes that are also unconsciously getting created everyday and move along
this route by forming a part of the culture of learning. An example that can be cited
in this context is the daily practice in the classroom (in the absence of teacher), the
corridors, the playground, the staff room, the recess time etc. What I understood over
the period of my research is that even though for the majority of them power was
146 A. Sastry

enabling and they had internalised it, for many others, it was still like mending their
ways in a hard way to deal with it. Keeping the context in the background, I will
now focus on the narratives to understand the diverse articulations of power in the
school through the lens of the actors/stakeholders, such as the students, the teachers,
the principal and, to some extent, the parents also.
Considering the fact that the students spend much of their time in school, their
opinion was significant in shaping the foundation of the school culture as also to
assess the power dynamics. The classroom dynamics is, generally, egalitarian in
nature and students, through their participation, create a ‘peer culture’ which is
informal in nature. Unlike the other school processes, such as educating the students,
following the fixed curriculum, prescribed medium of instruction, the routine prac-
tices of following the timetable, etc. which are formally laid down, the dynamics of
the peer culture has an informal element about it. However, this does not mean that
the peer culture is not in the control of the school authority but, nevertheless, it is
that space of the students where they have their own criteria and judgement of good
and bad. In the absence of the teacher, the classroom turns into an informal space
for bonding and interaction. A visible example of this can be seen in the imme-
diate change in the sitting arrangements of the students after the teacher has left
the classroom. In the absence of the teacher, the body language becomes informal,
the bonding increases with informal talks, taking a quick bite from the tiffin etc.
The classroom culture can be interpreted in the presence and absence of the teacher.
As Thapan (1991) would say, ‘Pupil culture is not some kind of entity in itself but
exists only in relation to many components of school life; in fact, it is an ensemble
of relationships’.
During the informal conversations and observations in the classroom set-up, it
was evident that the moment the teacher leaves the class, the sub-groups within the
classroom emerge. The basis of these sub-groups have various parameters, like being
cotravellers in the same bus, residential proximity, sharing of interest/hobbies like
dance, music or painting, long-term classmates since nursery and many more. But
these parameters were the prominent ones; the hidden parameters of the formation
of the sub-groups were based on their ranks and intelligence. If one examined the
sub-groups within the class from close quarters, the pattern that emerged was, ‘all-
rounders’ constituted one group, ‘average student’ another, students, who were more
into sports, had their own sub-groups, ‘silent studious ones’ in another and so on.
Not everybody could be a part of every group and it seems an informal membership
into these sub-groups also had some criteria to be fulfilled before their membership
was accepted into that group. These informal group dynamics were also known
to the teachers and it was prevalent in all classes. As the students move to higher
classes, these divisions become more evident since they start understanding the cut-
throat competition outside the school. From Class VIII onwards, the divisions start
intensifying, as slowly the students start getting oriented towards the Board exams
they would have to face in the future. According to the teachers, the sub-groups within
the classroom culture were functional to the extent that they created an atmosphere
of ‘healthy competition’ among the students. For instance, the students wanted to do
well in their weekly tests, craved for good marks, wanted to be in the good books
The Power Game: A Case Study of a Private School in Odisha 147

of the teacher, etc. Those students, who lagged behind also, wanted to be part of the
groups of the good students.
The teachers also felt that these kinds of groupisms were healthy for the classroom
dynamics, though my observations revealed things to be quite contradictory. I found
a boy very shy in the class, hardly talking to even his bench mate and not part of
any group. In the school parlance, he was in the ‘slow learner’ category and was
also admitted through the ‘economically weaker section (EWS) quota in the Right to
Education Act’. In class since he was a ‘slow learner’ (not good at studies), he had no
‘good friends’. My interaction with him began with a ‘God Promise’ (by swearing
in the name of God, not to share his secrets with anyone) and while he was travelling
with me in the school bus, he confided, ‘All of my classmates are good to me; it’s
just that I don’t fit into their group. So I stay in my own world. They help me when
I am absent and show me their class work copies and guide me before the exams. I
want to be like them, so I study hard on my own way. During exams I fear a lot as I
have a lot of pressure at home. I am not that good at studies as my friends are and
so I have to study more. They are good in studies, I am not… so I don’t feel bad if no
one talks to me. But when teachers in the class tell my friends to help me, I feel bad,
because then everybody looks at me. I feel as if I have done something wrong’.
While the perception of the student showed a positive view, it was evident that
he wanted to be a part of the reference group—‘good students’. He did not want to
be labelled by the teacher. In the classroom dynamics, labelling the student had a
negative effect as it led to ‘self -fulfilling prophecy’ for the student. It was evident that
in the classroom, there was lot of competition among the students in terms of getting
a good rank and good marks. For many other students, who were bright in their
studies, ‘slow learners’ were not their competitors as they knew that these students
could never move up the hierarchy since they had already been typecast. As one
student shared, ‘I don’t have any problem helping friends who are not very close to
me in the class and, especially, who are little slow, because in any case they are not
my competitors. I don’t see them as a threat to my position in the class’.
These constructions and deconstructions of relationships at various levels, percep-
tions of interactions and working of power dynamics among teachers, between
teachers and parents, between students and parents, were all done in the name of
the child. Here, the child becomes a silent observer and also learns to internalise this
process just like learning lessons in classrooms. There is no doubt about the fact that
the child’s mind is ‘schooled’ and whatever the teachers say in the class becomes the
gospel for him. It is evident in the process of schooling, the power dynamics oper-
ating within the classroom makes some students create their own self-image which
is, actually, a reflection from others (in this case, to some extent, it is both from the
teachers as well as from their own peer groups). This takes us to the idea of C. H.
Cooley’s (1902) theory of ‘Looking Glass Self’, where the perception of the society
affects the construction of self-image. One can say power can be positive to strengthen
the in-group (intra) solidarity, but, at the same time, this solidarity can plant the seed
for ‘ethnocentric’ biases and create a hierarchy in the classroom set-up. Teachers
acted as the role models for students, student’s mind being schooled—idea of disci-
pline was cherished by them, and examinations acted as motivation for many. Power
148 A. Sastry

was seen everywhere in the everyday rituals of schooling, it was omnipresent and,
hence, seen as normal. Routines became rituals; it got aligned with the organisational
flow of the events in school and everybody was dancing to the music and celebrating
it without any explicit resistance. Teachers were rational with their power, the prin-
cipal was authoritative in his isolation, students were strengthening the culture of
learning by following the social facts and parents were emotionally concerned with
their particularistic values.
After viewing the entire process of schooling from close proximity, the deeper
questions that pervade my thinking as a researcher/teacher/mother are—‘Are we
really getting educated for grades?’, ‘Does the existence of the student in the class-
room get defined only on the basis of the information he/she has acquired and repro-
duced in the examination?’, ‘Is there any way one can think of providing any alter-
native to the power game in the process of schooling?’, Can we diffuse the notion of
power in the everyday lived experience of the child in the classroom?’ I know it may
sound very utopian, poetic and, indeed, many may term me as philosophical, but as
a researcher I have to speak my mind and provide an alternative. By virtue of this
research work, I realised problematising everything is easy; looking at the everyday
functioning of the school from a critical perspective is even easier. After all, a trained
sociologist cannot take things for granted. But what I realised as the biggest problem
for a researcher is to evolve a new method, to provide an alternative which might
not look very ambitious now but, over a period of time, it can become an everyday
practice—a ‘social fact’.
Hence, the alternatives that I am trying to suggest will focus majorly from the
perspective of the students, since in the ladder of hierarchy, they are the bottom,
the most ‘powerless’ and ‘vulnerable’. As a researcher, I know that to do away
with ‘power’ is a ‘utopia’ but to possess ‘power with sensitivity’ is a possibility.
My extensive engagement and everyday interaction in the process of schooling has
enabled me to look at some innovative possibilities through which the notion of
power can be sensitive in the culture of learning.
The school should recognise that everyone is a learner. The basic aim of schooling
is not to ‘sort out’ students based on their apparent learning capability, rather it is
to bring out and increase their inherent ability to learn. If one picks any student
in the class, he/she would say that he/she wants to learn. The reason behind the
process of schooling is learning new things. The desire of every student will be to
have a successful and rewarding life, and it is the onus of the school to mentor them
virtuously in that search. Student’s belief in their ‘self’ begins with the teacher’s
belief in them. They perceive the teacher as the larger societal reflection. As C. H.
Cooley (1902) would say, ‘I am not what I am, I am not what you think I am, I am
what I think you think I am’. Thus, it is very important for the teacher to empower
each student in the class for strengthening their ‘self-perception’. Hierarchy will
eventually disappear if each student is placed under one category i.e. ‘learner’. The
moment the teacher categories the students in the class as ‘slow learner’, ‘bright’,
‘intelligent’, ‘lazy’ etc, sorting begins and hence sub-groups emerge in the classroom
dynamics. ‘Intelligent’ and ‘bright’ ones feel more powerful and others are powerless.
This leads to labelling of the child and, eventually, the slow learner goes unnoticed
The Power Game: A Case Study of a Private School in Odisha 149

and, finally, gives up in the race. On the contrary, if each teacher in the classroom
makes it clear from the beginning that ‘everyone is a learner’ in the class, including
the teacher himself/herself, then the question of ‘power’ does not arise. Everyone
is equally learning in the class, the students are not only learning from the teachers
but also from their fellow friends, the school gatekeeper, the gardener, the sweeper,
the bus driver and many others. Similarly, the teachers are also learning from their
students, fellow teachers and various other members of the school. The reason why
the students will start learning from everyone is that they see their teachers are also
learners and the teachers are learning from them. Thus knowledge, being a powerful
product only possessed by the teacher, is not there and everyone is learning. Hence,
in this process of learning where everyone is a learner, no one is superior and no one
is inferior. Hierarchy disappears and the idea of learning is cherished.
The assessment should be made part of a learning system and not hierarchising
the students. Assessments done through examination are important activities within
the process of schooling as it is only through this process that the institution can
showcase the progress in a formalised manner. The school notice board proudly
displays the rank holders and their photographs. No doubt, it is a matter of pride
for the school and that is how these private schools attract their future customers.
The present system of assessment is based on the principle of standardisation. Each
child will be assessed on the parameter which is already fixed by the system. The
uniqueness and speciality is not taken into account in this process. For example,
a student in the class may not be good at studies but may be a very nice keyboard
player, or singer or any other activity. But since the assessment system is standardised
and based on academic subjects; the student is categorised as a ‘failure’. Thus, we
need to introspect on the mechanism of assessment in terms of its place in learning
activity along with the potential and real audiences. Innovative ideas should be flouted
within these social practices and with people having different interests and who can
negotiate the content, process and meaning of assessments.
Thus, by proposing these changes, and in this journey to empower the students, I
feel the role of a teacher is vital. It is the teacher who, at the micro-level, can make
this suggestive possibility a ‘reality’. The teacher, as a facilitator, helps the student
to unfold his or her creativity. Creativity is a kind of limitless expression, which
is present in every child. It is the experience the child is exposed to which decides
whether it will develop or not. After all, it is ultimately the teacher who will plant
the seeds for change. It is not important for the teachers, ‘what they know’, but it is
more important to see ‘what they do with it’.

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Regional Diversity, School Leadership
and Quality of Education
in North-Eastern States

N. Mythili

1 School Leadership and Regional Diversity Influencing

Student Learning

School leadership is the second most important factor after teacher quality (Leith-
wood et al. 2004). It constitutes 25% of the total effects on student learning (Robinson
et al. 2008, 2009) as it has ‘compositional effect’ (Martimore 1998) with ‘social
mix’ of right attitudes (Thrupp 1999). Such attribute allows the leader to ask
right questions, instead of providing answers to followers, to consider issues on
how to ensure staff, school structures, external links and resources for effective
learning (Tie 2011) by creating conditions for teachers to teach effectively (Dinham
2008). School principals build teams, translate vision for successful learning of all
students, cultivate leadership in others, help teachers upgrade their skills and use
data to foster school improvement (Mendels and Mitgang 2013). They focus on
knowing what is happening with teaching and learning and even find ways to release
creative energy of teachers and students (Sackney and Mitchell 2008, p. 126). They
mediate in student learning by effecting improvements in school climate, academic
capacity of teachers and their professional learning, school culture, besides managing
instructional programmes, staff participation in decision-making and data-informed
decision-making on school processes (Hallinger and Heck 1996; Leithwood et al.
2006; Shen et al. 2016). Therefore, leading a school is a specialist occupation
requiring specific preparation and development (Bush 2008). Indeed, many teachers
perceive that their leadership practices and teaching skills have improved after they
have undergone well-structured university courses on school leadership even though
such a course is not a prerequisite for leadership purposes (Strevig et al. 2013).

N. Mythili (B)
National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, 17-B Sri Aurobindo Marg,
New Delhi 110016, India
e-mail: [email protected]

© Council for Social Development 2020 151

J. B. G Tilak (ed.), Universal Secondary Education in India,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5366-0_8
152 N. Mythili

Transformational leadership practices make a small but practically important

contribution to overall student achievement (Leithwood and Jantzi 1999; Marks
and Printy 2003) including the internal state of individual teachers (Leithwood and
Sun 2012; Ross and Gray 2006). Pedagogical leadership is nearly four times more
effective than transformational leadership for student learning outcomes (Robinson
et al. 2008, 2009). Collaborative leadership builds capacity for academic improve-
ment of teachers (Hallinger and Heck 2010, 2011), whereas distributive leadership
contributes to overall school improvement (Gronn 2000; Spillane 2006).
Notwithstanding these merits, core leadership practices must be commensurate
with school’s immediate context to lead change (Klar and Brewer 2013) because
these practices are influenced by culture (Safran et al. 2014). For example, a study
by Hallinger and Murphy (1985) shows that school heads, working in poor urban
areas, nurture strong personal vision of education for creating positive learning envi-
ronment to support teachers and students. In another study, Louis et al. (2010) found
that the role of the school head is crucial for schools to come off their low base
under challenging circumstances. These two studies confirm the observation made
by Leithwood et al. (2006) that it is not the leadership practices, by themselves, but
the manner in which leaders apply the same in concert with their unique environment
determines the degree to which they influence student learning.
Stevenson and Stigler (1992) concluded that cultural variations in beliefs ulti-
mately explain differences in the organisation of schooling and in the practice of
learning in East Asian cultures. Chinese and Japanese societies allow no excuses for
lack of progress in school, regardless of one’s current level of performance since
opportunities for advancement are always believed to be available through more
effort. High scores in a test are interpreted as a sign of diligence (Cheng 1998).
This is due to surface-level differences, reflecting visible dissimilarities, and deep-
level dissimilarities, reflecting basic values (van Vianen et al. 2004). These influence
social integration of individuals into new settings (Harrison et al. 1998). Differences
in ethnic identity, historical background, geographical characteristics (e.g. seaside
or mountain regions) may cause significant cultural differences between the regions
(Kaasa et al. 2014). Most important cultural differences can be characterised by
four dimensions: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism–collectivism
and masculinity–femininity (Hofstede 1980). Hence, it is important to study how
school leadership paths differ from region to region to address regional diversities
of contexts and why they differ?
In India, until recently, the role of school head was not considered distinct from that
of teachers. Only in senior secondary schools, principals spend more time on manage-
ment, administration, staff management, finances, etc. Raising concerns about the
quality of school leadership in India, Govinda (2006) and NUEPA (2010) emphasised
the need for improving working conditions of school heads, with several systemic
constraints inhibiting them from performing effectively. The school head, in partic-
ular, is removed from his/her primary responsibility of academic activities such as
teaching–learning process, development of teachers professionally, ensuring student
learning, etc. Most of the responsibilities are shifted to new academic structures
such as cluster resource centres and block resource centres, created under Sarva
Regional Diversity, School Leadership and Quality of Education … 153

Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), leaving the school head with record maintenance, civil
works and so on. Sujatha (2011) found that only self-motivated school heads could
ensure school success. Therefore, there is a shift in the roles of the school heads
from leading schools to day-to-day management of activities. It is coupled with
the government’s policy of reducing their participation in the academic activities. In
spite of reduced academic responsibility, principals emphasise on teacher develop-
ment to connect with other leadership practices such as shared vision, school climate
and child focus (Mythili 2017), especially when state- and district-level leadership
leads education through network governance and good governance to improve school
quality (ibid, 2019d). Mythili also traces the path by which women leaders traverse to
succeed and legitimise their leadership roles. Women’s ladder for school leadership
consists of five steps—‘aspire’ to become leaders, ‘acquire’ the leadership position as
school heads, ‘achieve’ by gaining acceptance as leaders from teachers, community
and staff, ‘ascend’ through their hard work to excel and ‘transcend’ the limitations of
the system to serve the cause of children’s education (Mythili 2019b). They emphasise
on academic leadership to excel besides being relationship oriented, people centred
and building trust, yet exercise restrained neutrality to navigate gendered notions
(Mythili 2019c). So, legitimacy of women’s leadership varies due to the interaction
between the perception of power differentials, status attribution and negotiation to
get different degrees of acceptance (ibid, 2019a).
Despite a series of systemic reforms since 1990s, lower levels of learning among
students persist since 1990s (first study was reported by Agarwal 1995) in India. The
recent report by World Bank (2017) observes that there is a crisis in learning among
students in developing countries such as India. Recent reports of National Assess-
ment Survey (NAS) by National Council for Educational Research and Training
(NCERT) in 2017 also reveal that there is a cumulative learning deficit among
students as they progress from lower to higher standards, i.e. from Standard 3 to
Standard 8 and, thereafter, to Standard 10 in Indian schools. These lower learning
levels get accentuated as regional variations further add to the already existing chal-
lenges. The responsibility ultimately falls on the school leadership to improve student
learning. If the influence of school leadership is neglected, then the significance of all
other important factors influencing student learning would be adversely affected. The
12th Five Year Plan aptly recognised the role of school leadership as one of the four
pillars for improving school quality (Government of India-Planning Commission
2013, p. 54). Since then, school leadership development has begun under the Flag-
ship programmes, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan
(RMSA) and now continued under Samagra Shiksha. Just as other important vari-
ables such as teachers, community, education policies, educational interventions,
and school physical environment have been examined since long, exclusive attention
to school leadership influencing student learning is required at least now in Indian
context especially considering the impact of regional diversity on ways of leading
by school heads in different states.
The research proceeds to develop a conceptual framework for school leadership
in the Indian context, based on studies across the globe and, apply it for studying
school leadership in two States. Hitherto, we do not have a broad conceptualisation of
154 N. Mythili

school leadership in the Indian context. Based on the conceptual framework, tools for
studying the leadership practices have been developed and data collected in the two
States. Subsequently, analysis of school leadership processes and practices has been
carried out. Based on the results obtained, different paths of school leadership have
been derived for the two States from the north-eastern region of India. Conclusions
have been drawn along with policy suggestions.

2 Building a Conceptual Framework for School Leadership

in Indian Context

The conceptual framework for school leadership has been developed by reviewing
the studies in the global context consisting of three major steps. Step1 one refers to
recognising the broad dimensions of school leadership. Step 2 engages in identifying
the major leadership factors that are found common as well as relevant to the Indian
context. In Step 3, other minor factors are positioned within the matrix of broad
dimensions of leadership and major factors.

2.1 Step 1: Identifying the Broad Dimensions of School

Leadership Practice

School leadership, essentially, involves influencing other people to perform at levels

which generate organisational improvement, effectiveness and efficiency (Leithwood
and Riehl 2003). Most discussions also carry the assumption that leading involves
a social influence process whereby intentional control is exerted by one person (or
group) over other people (or groups) to structure activities and relationships (Bush
2008). This influence is admixed with intentional control through legally sanctioned
authority and positional leadership in educational bureaucracy that perpetuates in
the hierarchical system in India. But a social influence is present when there is a
common purpose that gives direction for people to engage willingly and subject
themselves to influence. Thus, it is important for the leader not only to veil influence
but to supplement it by directing them along the accepted common lines defined by
purpose. This would provide legitimacy to his leadership rather than mere authority.
As such, the first dimension of school leadership is ‘influencing others’.
Leadership, necessarily, engages with others and through others for achieving
goals of the organisation (Spilliane 2005). It means that leadership can be spread to
others for working together and refers to distributed leadership (Spillane et al. 2007).
Distributed leadership compels creating a vision for the organisation towards which
others can work in tandem with each other (Bush et al. 2011), seeking a reasonable
level of agreement in the collective action about aims, mission, vision or goals. It is
provided through direction in the form of understanding, asserting and/or aligning
Regional Diversity, School Leadership and Quality of Education … 155

with the vision, mission, goals of the organisation (Drath et al. 2008). Leithwood and
Jantzi (2008) refer to it as direction setting, based on goals and motivation. Thus, the
second dimension is ‘directing others’.
Leading functions can also be accompanied by the charisma of the school leader.
But charisma does not sustain if the leadership is not driven by vision and profes-
sional competency. As such, instilling enthusiasm, triggering curiosity and encour-
aging innovations are different manifestations of leadership for learning, among
others, things which are meant to move beyond routine day-to-day works to trans-
form schools into learning organisations. It requires the school leadership to engage
with teachers and students, on the one hand, and community and parents, on the other.
Leadership is expected to provide them with new directions, avenues for thinking
out-of-the box, reflect and metacognise the nature of working to move beyond the
normative framework. Thus, leadership involves empowering others to work towards
the commonly accepted organisational goals and achieve them too (Leithwood et al.
2006). So, the third dimension is ‘empowering others’.
Leader’s actions, per se, do not mean much to colleagues and stakeholders, when
compared to meaningful interaction in a relational framework, which can transform
the quality of actions with a sense of commitment as well as for people’s empower-
ment. Nonetheless, school improvement depends on a large number of people because
innovations, teachers’ capacity building, student-centred learning and knowledge
creation are concurrently promoted (Harris 2003). Therefore, any empowerment
initiative necessarily involves demonstration, role modelling and bringing about
change through actions. Hence, it is imminent that working with others constitutes
a necessary dimension, the fourth dimension for school leadership perspective.
Four types of people closely interact with the school leadership across these
four leadership dimensions. They are: teachers, students, parents/community and
education officials in the department of education from different leadership positions
starting from school, cluster, block, district and State levels. Four dimensions of
leadership, together with four types of people positioned at different leadership levels
with whom school leadership engages, constitute the core of conceptual framework
for school leadership in the Indian context (see Fig. 1).

Fig. 1 Major dimensions of

school leadership practice
stakeholders
156 N. Mythili

2.2 Step 2: Identifying the Most Relevant School Leadership

Practices for Indian Context

Second step refers to identifying critical and major leadership practices by reviewing
research studies. Edmonds’s study (1979) proved that effective schools almost always
have leaders focussed on instruction. It is a major landmark study in school leadership
that took the shape of instructional leadership in later years. Collins (2011) proposed
five qualities of a leader whose school is at level five in the diagnostic framework
called ‘good to great’ schools, viz. rely on high standards as primary vehicle for
attaining goals, choose right people to work with, create a culture of discipline,
honestly look at facts and entertain difficult questions.
Cotton (2003) identified 25 leadership behaviours that positively affect outcomes,
attitudes, behaviours of teachers and students. Some of them are: safe and orderly
environment; vision and goal focussed on high level of student learning; high expecta-
tions for student learning; self-confidence; responsibility and perseverance; visibility
and accessibility; positive and supportive climate; communication and interaction;
emotional and inter-personal support; parent and community outreach and involve-
ment; rituals, ceremonies and other symbolic actions. Other leadership behaviour
traits include shared leadership, decision-making and staff empowerment; collabo-
ration, instructional leadership; ongoing pursuit of high levels of student learning;
norms of continuous improvement; discussion of instructional issues; classroom
observations and feedback to teachers; professional development opportunities and
resources and so on.
Leithwood et al. (2004) identifies four leadership practices by reviewing studies,
viz. setting direction, directing people, redesigning the organisation and improving
instructional programme. Marzano et al. (2005) identified 21 leadership behaviours
which they termed as responsibilities. Some of them are: affirmation, change agent,
contingent rewards, culture, communication, flexibility, focus, ideas and beliefs,
intellectual stimulation, involvement, knowledge, outreach, monitoring and eval-
uation, etc. Shannon and Bergeson’s (2007) nine characteristics of high-performing
schools provided the basis for school improvement in USA which are embedded
in three broad categories such as decide what is important; establish processes and
implement what is important; monitor and support implementation plans. They are:
clear and shared focus; high standards and expectations for all students; effective
school leadership; high levels of collaboration and communication; curriculum,
instruction and assessments aligned with State standards; frequent monitoring of
learning and teaching; focussed professional development; a supportive learning
environment; high levels of family and community involvement.
Leithwood et al. (2006) made seven strong claims about school leadership. These
claims include school leadership which is the second most important factor influ-
encing student learning; the way in which leaders apply basic practices, found
commonly among all leaders, matters rather than practices, by themselves; school
leadership demonstrates responsiveness rather than dictation; leadership considers
the context in which they work; it improves teaching–learning indirectly through
Regional Diversity, School Leadership and Quality of Education … 157

staff motivation, commitment and working conditions; practice distributed leader-

ship; and practice handful of personal traits that significantly influence leadership
effectiveness.
Robinson et al. (2008, 2009) found that five leadership practices influence student
learning. They are: establish goals and expectations; resource strategically; plan,
coordinate and evaluate teaching and learning; promote and participate in teacher
learning and development; and ensure an orderly and supportive environment. Organ-
isation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) observed that, among
the conditions that support teacher learning, school leadership stands first. Others are:
shared vision, relationships that build school culture and a positive climate which are
fundamental to staff development, logistical and social support (OECD 2010). It also
asserted that school principals can shape teacher professional development, define
school’s goals, ensure that instructional practices are directed towards achieving
goals, improve teaching–learning process, solve problems and so on.
Leadership also features in the hierarchy of factors, specifically focussing on
teaching, that are strongly related to school improvement and successful schools:
mission and goals, safe and orderly environment, climate of high expectations, strong
instructional leadership, time-on-task, frequent and learning-directed assessment,
and home–school relationship (Townsend 2011). Maringe and Molestone (2015)
identified six other factors that drive success and resilient schools against all odds
under conditions of multiple deprivations to be those of leadership, especially teams.
They include commitment to teaching and learning, a safe and orderly environment,
a culture of concern and a desire to improve the life chances of learners, working
with communities and parents to improve conditions of learning, and creating strong
ties with local and national education departments.
Recently, school standards and evaluation framework developed in India (NUEPA
2015) considered school leadership as an important domain in self-evaluation of
schools. It considers school’s vision and mission statements, school development
plan, management of day-to-day functioning of the school by school head, identifi-
cation of developmental needs of the school, management of change for continuous
improvement, utilisation of financial, human and material resources by the school
head, leading improvement in teaching–learning process by the school head, and
relationship with staff members in the school. Adopting a self-effacing approach to
meet the needs of people consists of promoting positive values, fostering citizen-
ship, personal, economic and social outcomes as important capabilities like student
academic outcomes (Day et al. 2016).
In short, school head is the central source of leadership even though there may be
many other sources of leadership in the school. It is, especially, true for creating a
learning environment in the school and ensuring student learning. For, Leithwood and
Sun (2012) preferred to include internal states of organisational members that are crit-
ical to their performance and classroom instruction. Maringe and Molestone (2015)
emphasised that leaders also need to understand what drives the human actions rather
than focus on actions themselves, and to look for underlying causes. Besides these,
teacher leadership (Harris 2003), distributed leadership (Gronn 2000), instructional
leadership (Hallinger and Heck 1996), transformational leadership (Bass 1990) and
158 N. Mythili

servant leadership (Maringe and Molestone 2015) styles are considered to be having
an impact on schooling processes.

2.2.1 Insights from Metareviews and Independent Studies

While the review was highly informative, it was also confusing because it high-
lighted a vast number of styles, processes, factors, practices and perspectives as
relevant without arriving at a convergence. Many studies also were of the nature of
prescriptive rather than evidence-based practices. Many independent studies were
largely pertaining to micro-analyses of minute actions or micro processes.
Though the studies reviewed above have widely used the four dimensions that
are discussed in Step 1, they are not explicitly referred, either directly or indirectly.
As a result, factors identified in nine metareviews and several other independent
studies were seen dispersed widely ranging from four to 25 factors. Though signif-
icant factors were brought forth by these studies, including some claims, they fail
to provide a comprehensive and a coherent perspective to understand and apply in
schools. It has resulted in discrete statements with factors dispersed and overlaps
between different factors, creating confusion while studying different reviews. All
these have rendered school leadership as lacking a systems view for conceptual under-
standing and meaningful practice. In counting the factors, a broad-based conceptual
understanding of school leadership is lost. Therefore, there is a need to align four
aspects in a comprehensive manner that is identified in step one and within which
certain pertinent factors can be made relevant. It enables us to arrive at a perspective
for school leadership for the Indian context.
See Table 1 for comprehensive presentation of the review of literature on school
leadership discussed so far. While the descriptive review has been carried out using
a chronological sequence, the summary given in Table 1 is presented according to a
number of factors identified.
The process adopted to arrive at a comprehensive perspective for school leadership
is going to be described, now. Firstly, seven important factors emerge as common and
most relevant for school leadership in schools across the globe from the review of the
studies discussed in Step 2. They are: vision building including shared vision, goal-
setting, school improvement, improving school conditions, commitment to teaching–
learning processes, achieving goals and student learning. These seven leadership
practices, when adapted to the Indian context, got reduced to five important areas
of school leadership practice. They are: vision building and creating a shared vision
(VB), goal-setting (GS), commitment to teaching–learning process (TLP), improving
school conditions for creating a favourable school climate (SC) and achieving goals
for student learning (AG). Other minor factors, found to be similar and/or common
across these studies, were also positioned suitably within the matrix or rubric of five
factors chosen for Indian context, spread across four major dimensions of school
leadership, that is discussed earlier. This matrix constitutes Step 3 which is described
forthwith.
Regional Diversity, School Leadership and Quality of Education … 159

2.3 Step 3: Positioning Other Minor Factors

in the Dimension-Factor Matrix on School Leadership

The four dimensions of the school leadership vary in their subtlety. Influencing others
can be subtler than the other three dimensions. Directing others may be more direct,

Table 1 A summary of the review of related literature

Metastudies Factors identified No. of factors
Leithwood et al. (2004) Setting direction, directing people, 4 factors
redesigning the organisation, improve
instructional programme
Robinson et al. (2009) Establish goals and expectations, resource 5 factors
strategically, plan coordinate and evaluate
teaching–learning process, promote and
participate in teacher learning and
development, ensure supportive and
orderly environment
Collins (2011) Rely on high standards for attaining goals, 5 factors
choose right people to work with, create a
culture of discipline, honestly look at
facts, entertain difficult questions
Townsend (2011) Mission and goals, safe and orderly 6 factors
environment, climate of high expectations,
strong instructional leadership,
time-on-task, frequent and learning
directed assessment, home–school
partnership
Maringe and Molestone (2015) Leadership of teams, commitment to 6 factors
teaching and learning, safe and orderly
environment, culture of concern, improve
life chances of learners, working with
community and parents, create strong ties
with local and national departments
Leithwood et al. (2006) School leadership is the second most 7 strong claims
important factor influencing student
learning; the way in which leaders apply
basic practices matters rather than
practices by themselves; school leadership
demonstrates responsiveness rather than
dictation; leadership considers the context
in which they work; it improves
teaching–learning indirectly through staff
motivation, commitment and working
conditions; practices distributed
leadership; and practices handful of
personal traits that significantly influence
leadership effectiveness
(continued)
160 N. Mythili

Table 1 (continued)
Metastudies Factors identified No. of factors
Shannon and Bergeson (2007) Clear and shared focus, high standards and 9 factors
expectations for all students, effective
school leadership, high levels of
collaboration and communication,
curriculum, instruction, assessment
aligned with State standards, frequent
monitoring of learning, and teaching,
focussed professional development,
supportive learning environment, high
levels of family and community
involvement
Marzano et al. (2005) Affirmation, contingent rewards, 21 factors
involvement, knowledge, outreach,
intellectual stimulation, monitoring and
evaluation, change agent, culture,
communication, discipline, flexibility,
focus, ideas and beliefs, input, optimiser,
order, relationships, resources, situational
awareness, visibility
Cottons (2003) Safe and orderly environment, vision and 25 factors
goal focussed, high expectations for
student learning, self-confidence, positive
and supportive climate, communication
and interaction, emotional and
inter-personal support, parent and
community outreach and involvement,
rituals, ceremonies and other symbolic
actions, shared leadership decision-making
and staff empowerment, collaboration,
instructional leadership, ongoing pursuit
of high levels of student learning, norms of
continuous improvement, discussion of
instructional issues, classroom observation
and feedback to teachers, support of
teacher’s autonomy, support for
risk-taking, professional development
opportunities and resources, protecting
instructional time, monitoring student
progress and sharing findings, use of
student progress for programme
improvement, recognition of achievement
of students and staff, role modelling
Regional Diversity, School Leadership and Quality of Education … 161

yet it calls for using influence subtly to get expected response from others, espe-
cially subordinates. Similarly, empowering others is accomplished through interac-
tion, understanding and practicing empathy with others. Empowering others remains
rhetoric unless it is associated with influencing others through intellectual conviction
and role modelling. Working with others uses all the other three dimensions as well as
an internal conviction in the leader to create a people-centred approach to leadership
forming a social glue, with a ‘we-we’ connect and ‘I-we’ connect. The intellectual
stimulation, driven by leadership knowledge and practices, embeds working with
others in a more meaningful manner.
As a leader, he/she influences, directs, empowers and works with all four types
of people–students, teachers and staff, parents and community, and system-level
functionaries. In turn, the school leadership is influenced, directed and empow-
ered by the four types of people. Hence, these four dimensions are not serial in
nature but interact organically as an open system in a relational framework between
the influencer-influenced, director-directed, empower-empowered and work-worker.
They correspond to four critical aspects on leadership knowledge, namely knowledge
for understanding, knowledge for reflection, knowledge for action and knowledge for
practice (Bolam 1999). All these are dynamic in nature. Building a conceptual model
for Indian context, therefore, acknowledges the evolving nature of understanding
school leadership, especially because it is in the nascent stage of development. The
various other factors, which interact across four dimensions and major five factors,
are mapped suitably. All three steps, together, complete the exercise of conceptual
framework for understanding school leadership in the Indian context (see Table 2).

3 Methodology

3.1 Sampling and Sample

Purposive sampling was used as it was felt essential to understand as to what works
well in the system besides discussing the challenges and issues. The intent is to recog-
nise the best efforts of school leadership, that have worked well, and utilise the same
in improving student learning and overall school quality. Sikkim and Manipur States,
situated in the north-eastern region of India, were the sites of study. Even though
anthropological and sociological studies are conducted considering these regions,
research in school education is yet to get the attention of scholars and academic
discourse.
The process and path traversed by school heads as leaders were investigated
during the time of implementation of school leadership development programme
(SLDP) by administering the tool developed for the study. School heads who proved
successful making a difference to school quality were nominated by the education
department to be participants and also as members of state resource group to undergo
10 days’ training on SLDP. SLDP provided appropriate space, giving adequate time
162 N. Mythili

Table 2 Conceptual framework of school leadership for Indian context

Core school School leadership dimensions
leadership Influence others Direct others (D) Empower others Work with
practices (I) (E) others (W)
Vision-building Model School Need to understand Establish
(including shared organisational culture—A what drives human strong
vision) (VB) values climate of high actions rather than partnership
Personal values expectation a focus on the with
of school head Leading learning actions themselves communities
Professional process and parents
values of school Self-effacing
head approach to
meet the needs
of people
Create strong
network and
ties with
education
departments
Goal-setting Demonstrate Facilitate Challenge Involve
(Setgols) high-performance teachers in setting performance SMC/parents
expectation individual goals standards of and teachers in
teachers and goal-setting for
students the school
Improving school Transformational Look for Develop structures Safe and
conditions for leadership underlying causes to foster orderly
creating a for Teacher participation in environment
favourable school behaviour school’s decisions A culture of
climate (Schl Create teams for concern
improve) collaborative Home–school
working relationship
environment Offer
Development of individual
community/parents support
Create a
productive
school culture
Distributed
leadership
Commitment to Provide Principal’s Facilitate teacher
teaching–learning intellectual instructional professional
process (TLP) stimulation leadership development
Achieving goals Student Learning-directed Desire to improve Ensure student
(achvgols) motivation student the life chances of engagement in
Promote positive assessment learners learning
values Foster citizenship
Personal,
economic and
social capabilities
Regional Diversity, School Leadership and Quality of Education … 163

to these participants to self-reflect on their leadership practices as well as think

critically about the underlying meaning of core leadership practices during different
sessions. Hence, collection of data on school leadership practices was carried out
more meaningfully.

3.2 Construction of Tool

A four-point rating scale was constructed, based on the conceptual framework devel-
oped for the study. Neutral statements of action on all five core leadership practices
were constructed across all four dimensions into which the roles of teachers, students,
parents, community and system-level functionaries were juxtaposed. School heads
self-reflected on their leadership practices and ticked one of the four options for
each action statement. These four options were: never practiced, sometimes prac-
ticed, mostly practiced and always practised which carried 1, 2, 3 and 4 scores,
respectively. Likert’s five-point scale was not used to avoid the effect of averaging.
Descriptors of leadership practices, considered for item construction under the
four dimensions of school leadership practice in the Indian context, are briefly
mentioned. These descriptors have been comprehensively presented in Tables 3, 4,
5 and 6 and are self-explanatory. Since the rating scale is treated as a self-reflective
exercise, a broad description of the minor factors is more relevant instead of adopting
the operational definition. Statements of action provide flexibility for the respondent
to interpret the action and reflect upon one’s own leadership practices for self-rating.
Basic features and presentation about broad dimension, major factors and minor
factors are already detailed in the conceptual framework. In the first major dimension
‘influencing others’, critical but essential factors were chosen that ranged from prac-
ticing personal values to promoting positive values among teachers for which school
heads established trust and provided intellectual stimulation. Extent to which these
were practised is captured by constructing 12 action statements. Table 3 presents the
descriptors on the first dimension of school leadership practice ‘influencing others’.
On the second major dimension ‘directing others’, critical and essential factors
chosen ranged from creating a culture for teaching to encouraging innovations in
teaching–learning processes. These included school head’s support for teachers
to set their goals, lead teaching–learning processes and create a climate of high
expectations. These were captured through 16 statements of actions.
The third dimension on empowering others begins with practical orientation for
vision-building and ends with improving chances for student learning. Empowering
others is carried out by means of teacher professional development, creating collab-
orative environment for teaching–learning processes and creating systems and struc-
tures for decision-making as necessary tools to traverse between orienting for vision-
building and improving chances for student learning. Altogether, 23 statements of
action were constructed to study this dimension.
 164

Table 3 Descriptors of the dimension ‘Influencing others’ in school leadership practices

Major factor Minor factors Description of the minor factors
selected for
constructing the
Rating scale
Vision-building Practicing personal This variable seeks to know whether a vision is conceived for the school; school head’s vision aligns with the
including shared values of school teachers’ vision for school development; the extent to which the school head reflects about his/her own
vision leadership (I-VB) performance and sharing with teachers in the school and, at the same time, encourage self and group
reflections among teachers about their performance (four statements)
Goal-setting Goal-setting is a hands-on exercise in which school head must involve personally. The perspective,
influencing others, is subtle and does not engage with hands-on exercise. Rather influence to set the goals
happens indirectly through empowering, working and being directed by the superiors. ‘Influencing’ for
goal-setting does not, necessarily, involve explicit statement of actions. Hence, no items were included in this
dimension (0 statements)
Improving school Trust-building Building trust is an important aspect in creating favourable school climate and cultivating an environment of
conditions for (I-schlimprov) mutual interaction to understand each other with teaching and non-teaching staff. It means as a leader one is
creating favourable sensitive to people, effectively managing them using minimal formal rules and regulations to ensure that
school climate everyone performs (two statements)
Commitment to Provide intellectual School head adopts different/unique methods so that teachers openly share their insights and reflection about
teaching–learning stimulation (I-TLP) their work and achievements with others. He/she personally designs suitable plans, holds workshops,
processes conducts various sessions to address the needs of teachers, ascertains that new initiatives have produced
noticeable changes in teacher quality, develops a vision statement for the school along with teachers, and
performance of students in the previous year is studied before setting the goals for the next year. In the
changing times, school head takes special efforts to see that all teachers use computers, ICT and new
technology in their teaching and other academic works. (four statements)
Achieve goals Promote positive School head ensures that morning assembly is well-attended and participated in actively by teachers as it sets
values among the tone for the day’s work. She/he insists that teachers encourage innovations among students so that
teachers (I-achvgols) children participate actively for learning (two statements)
N. Mythili
Table 4 Descriptors of the dimension ‘Direct others’ in school leadership practices
Major factor Minor factors Description of the minor factors
selected for
constructing rating
scale
Vision-building Creating a culture for It is equally essential to build capacity of teachers in school administration as they are being engaged to
including shared teaching (D-VB) support the school head in many administrative tasks. This brings synchronisation between the academic and
vision administrative functions of the school. School head ensures that there is a balance between time spent on
academic and administrative works by teachers along with effective coordination between the two. In this
way, teachers’ teaching time is not lost out to administration duties in the school. The same is applicable for
school heads as well (two statements)
Goal-setting Facilitating teachers In the light of the previous year’s performance of students, goals are set for the current year, and discussions
for goal-setting are held with teaching staff about the common objectives to be achieved every year in the school (two
(D-setgols) statements)
Improving school Setting a climate of A climate of high expectations is set when there is timely intervention to solve problems, initiate discussions
conditions for high expectations to understand teacher’s complaints, emphasise on quality of classroom processes and look for amicable
creating favourable (D-schlimprov) solutions to improve quality of schooling processes. He/she is ready to take classes when some teachers are
school climate on leave or no substitute teachers are available. But, as a head of the school, he/she would also consider the
disruptive behaviour of teachers seriously. School head supervises administrative staff to ensure efficiency in
school administration (5 statements)
Commitment to Leading It refers to providing opportunities and spaces for teachers related to academic discussion on various topics
Regional Diversity, School Leadership and Quality of Education …

teaching–learning teaching–learning and pedagogy in different subjects, to reflect on how innovatively one can use/apply the knowledge received
processes processes (D-TLP) from different training programmes and also professionally support each other as colleagues in teaching
practices, exercise openness in the staff meetings and conducting other school activities. Nonetheless, school
head also receives feedback from students and observes the relationship between teachers and students (five
statements)
(continued)
165
Table 4 (continued)
166

Major factor Minor factors Description of the minor factors

selected for
constructing rating
scale
Achieve goals Encourage Leading innovations is one of the important leadership practices of school head. He/she ensures that suitable
innovations for environment for students to experiment, generate new ideas and innovate, and insist teachers to identify
learning and its talented students and encourage them to innovate and share on various platforms. Learning-directed
assessment assessment provides more opportunity for directing the trajectory of learning as moving beyond marks and
(D-achvgols) pass percentage of students (two statements)
N. Mythili
Table 5 Descriptors of the dimension ‘Empower others’ in school leadership practices
Major factor Minor factors Description of the minor factors
selected for
constructing Rating
scale
Vision-building Practical orientation A school head reflects on his/her own performance and shares with all teachers. Both of them come together
including shared to vision building to develop common goals for the school every year during summer vacation (two statements)
vision (E-VB)
Goal-setting As empowerment comes through hand-holding, teachers can be directed to set the goals. School heads
empower teachers to set the school’s goals by engaging with them. Hence, the two dimensions, such as
empowering and working with others, overlap in setting the goals by teachers. In the present study, therefore,
goal-setting is not considered under empowering others and influencing others, but it is considered under
working with others and directing with others (0 statements)
Improving school Creating a A collaborative environment moves beyond the school to engage with community and parents to participate in
conditions for collaborative schooling and classroom teaching. Important matters related to students are discussed to find solutions that
creating favourable environment for has group’s consensus. Teachers are free to suggest alternative solutions and strengthen the ideas already
school climate teaching suggested by others. They brainstorm in the meetings about possible array of solutions, ideas, processes to
(E-schlimprov1) improve teaching and learning (three statements)
Structures and Structures and systems refer to providing opportunity for teachers to share and participate with school head
systems for freely on matters related to school that is critical for school transformation. There is a need for building a high
decision-making level of mutual respect, cooperation between school head and teaching staff, freedom for all to express their
Regional Diversity, School Leadership and Quality of Education …

(E-schlimprov2) opinion openly without fear or hesitation, disagree with other’s views and own their views related to
professional matters in a cordial manner. Teachers carry out the work in the same way with or without
principal or when there is a change of principal in the school. Community and parents actively participate in
schooling processes. All these require conscious efforts to put certain commonly agreed upon systems and
structures in the right places (seven statements)
(continued)
167
Table 5 (continued)
168

Major factor Minor factors Description of the minor factors

selected for
constructing Rating
scale
Commitment to Teacher professional School head tries to understand teacher’s professional needs on an annual basis to improve teaching–learning
teaching–learning development process and student learning. He/she examines the initiatives taken up earlier for suitable changes facilitating
processes (E-TLP) teacher quality, observes classroom teaching–learning processes, creates opportunities for teachers to work
together in teams, provides spaces for teachers to plan and organise school events by exchanging and sharing
ideas as well, and encourages teachers to exchange knowledge and practices. A climate is created for students
to freely and easily approach any teacher to discuss and express their doubts, ideas and share their new
learning. As a school leader, he/she strongly encourages innovative teaching practices by teachers (six
statements)
Achieve goals Improve chances for A facilitative environment is created where students feel free to talk to their teachers; parents to meet school
student learning head, whenever they want, to discuss about their child; opportunity for children to participate; showcase their
(E-achvgols) achievements and demonstrate success; and win competitions in the school. School head also talks to
adolescent students regularly to address their emotional, social, physical and intellectual needs. School leader
creates opportunities for students to learn and use ICT for learning various curricular subjects on their own/as
additional efforts beyond what is taught in the classroom (five statements)
N. Mythili
Table 6 Descriptors of the dimension ‘Working with others’ in school leadership practices
Major factor Minor factors selected Description of the minor factors
for constructing
Rating scale
Vision-building Participation in Before developing annual goals, school head tries to understand the aspirations, challenges and issues of
including shared goal-setting (W-VB) students, involves non-teaching staff to understand the hind-sight issues in developing goals and vision for
vision the school and also tries to know the home background of vulnerable children in the school (three
statements)
Goal-setting Effective school It is highly favourable for the school head if he/she clearly knows the rules, regulations, acts and their
administration applicability. It boosts confidence as a leader to carry out school administration as well as ensure good
(W-setgols1) relationship with department and SMCs. School head can nurture teachers in learning the basics of school
administration. It is also important that school head consults respective class teachers to cater to the needs
of adolescent students while carrying out school administration (five sentences)
Mutual interaction to School head tries to know and ensures that teachers are comfortable with his/her style of working and to get
understand each other continued support from teachers in most of the school matters. Mutual interaction to understand each other
(W-setgols2) implies teachers participate and express freely and openly in staff meetings on all matters, including their
disagreements related to school. Also, school head seriously considers the disruptive behaviour of students
in the classroom (six statements)
Improving school Building collaboration School head initiates to bring experts from outside to specially address the professional needs of teachers.
conditions for creating for teaching–learning She/he also seeks support from block and district-level officers in the matters of teacher professional
Regional Diversity, School Leadership and Quality of Education …

favourable school process development (two statements)

climate (W-schlimprov)
Commitment to None. It is important to influence, direct and empower teachers and leave them to themselves to work in
teaching–learning their classrooms and among other teachers (0 statements)
processes
Achieve goals Ensure student An important aspect of ensuring student engagement in learning is to begin from morning assembly. A
engagement in good planning and execution sets the tone for rest of the day in the school for learning. More emphasis on
learning (W-schgols) academic matters disregarding cocurricular activities and sports and games is not a good sign for children’s
learning and development. Morning assembly addresses these aspects (three statements)
169
170 N. Mythili

The fourth and the last dimension ‘working with others’ begins with participating
in goal-setting and ends with ensuring student engagement in learning. In order to
ensure the smooth traverse between these two ends, school head works with others
to bring about effective administration, building collaboration for teaching–learning
processes, and provide opportunities in the school for mutual interactions to under-
stand each other. In all, there are 19 statements of actions which capture the dimension
on working with others, covering various areas.

3.3 Method of Data Collection

In all, 78 school heads from Manipur and 80 school heads from Sikkim took up the
self-reflective exercise on their leadership practices in the year 2017. The reflective
exercise was administered in two batches of school heads in Manipur and three
batches in Sikkim within a gap of 10 days and one month, respectively, in both the
States.
Rating scales were distributed to participants giving necessary instructions. As
school heads are mostly directed to follow orders and circulars from block, district and
State-level administration, SLDP implementation space provided adequate opportu-
nity to guide them to engage in self-reflective exercise. Sufficient time of about
five days was also given to them to ensure that they self-reflected appropriately
before rating themselves. Profiles of school heads such as age, caste, educational
qualification and experience as teachers and school heads were also collected.

3.4 Method of Analysis and Interpretation of Results

The data was analysed using Pearson’s Product–Moment Correlation. Many other
factors were related having significance levels at 0.01 or 0.05 but their ‘r’ coefficients
were lesser than 0.5. Such factors were not considered in the interpretation of results.
In other words, not only significance levels but also higher correlation coefficients
were considered to trace the path and identify the critical practices for successful
school leadership.
The connections between various school leadership processes were established
diagrammatically using the correlation results for both the States, separately.
From the diagrammatic representation, the path traversed and critical leadership
practices were derived. The two States were compared, based on commonalities and
differences in the approaches adopted. Impact of regional diversity between the two
States, variations in the paths, critical leadership practices and the reasons, thereof,
have been discussed along with results and policy implications.
Regional Diversity, School Leadership and Quality of Education … 171

4 Analysis and Discussion of Results

4.1 Relationship Between School Leadership Practices

and Student Learning

Results of the correlation tests, conducted for both the States, show that some vari-
ables are significantly related to each other whereas others are not related. Most
importantly, students’ pass percentage is not significantly related to any other school
leadership practice concurring with the well-known fact that school leadership does
not directly impact student learning but through various other processes at school
and classroom levels (Robinson 2008).
Correlation coefficients between different factors arrange themselves into a kind
of a pattern to reveal the leadership process in the State. A description of the same
is attempted here with the help of mapping those relationships in a diagram to
uncover the pattern and nature of school leadership process (refer to Figs. 2 to
5 for details), using correlation coefficients (see Appendices 1 and 2). Unless other-
wise mentioned, in the rest of the discussion and interpretation of results, correlation
coefficient between two variables is significant at 0.001.
A small description about the method designed to draw the figure is described
before discussing the results for both the States. A leadership practice, to which
a few other practices are correlated, is referred to as ‘Node’ in this study. Each
Node represents a critical leadership practice influencing several other leadership
practices and processes in general. Sometimes, it may influence only one practice
but may be significant enough to influence an outcome or many other practices. For
example, trust building and providing intellectual stimulation is one such Node in
case of Manipur. Similarly, I-VB is considered as the Node instead of E-VB since
influencing others through personal leadership values is rather vital for any successful
school leadership and achieving goals.

4.2 School Leadership Practices in Manipur

4.2.1 The Context of School Education

Manipur borders Nagaland in the north, Assam in the west, Mizoram in the south and
Myanmar in the east. The State is rich with invaluable herbal and medicinal plants.
It has the biggest freshwater lake called Loktak which has floating vegetation and
the only floating national park in the world. Its geographical feature is characterised
by hills and valleys. The districts are also categorised into hill districts and valley
districts. People inhabit both hills and valleys. Earlier, there were nine districts.
Recently in 2017, the State has created seven more districts to these nine for the ease
of administration, especially in the hills. These 16 districts cover 22,327 km2 of area.
Its population is 2,721,756. It has a literacy rate of 68.87%.
172 N. Mythili

According to Census, 2011, ethnically Manipur has a heterogeneous population.

Different tribes and other sects are present in the State. These are Meiteis, Nagas
and Kukis tribes, and other Hindus. In all, there are 29 types of tribes inhabited in
the State of which Nagas and Kukis are the dominant tribes in the State. Most of
the tribal population is converted to Christianity. Tribals mostly live in the hills and
constitute 28% of the population. There are also converted Hindus and Sanmahi who
are Meiteis. They are inhabited mostly in the valleys constituting nearly 60% of the
population. Pangan is the local name given to Muslims who have settled long ago in
Manipur and have acculturated Manipuri’s customs, traditions and culture.
Manipuri women enjoy higher freedom and participate actively in combating
social evils such as drugs, substance abuse, alcoholism, protests to protect their
rights and dignity as well as protection of their menfolk from harassment by security
forces. They are, thus, an important unified political force in the State especially
demanding human rights that is due for all citizens of the State (Devi 1998).
Prakash (2007) discusses severe issues related to insurgency, identity politics
and governance which have been hit adversely, leading to deterioration of human
rights, democracy, and rule of law. The infighting between Nagas and Kukis, and
insurgency have severely crippled the State politics as well as economic and social
development of the State. Cultural heritage has been affected adversely significantly
due to deadly drug addiction and dreaded AIDS disease. World Health Organisation
(WHO) identified the State as an AIDS-prone State in Southeast Asia. The State
has been a victim of international drug trafficking via Myanmar and narcotic money
influences the politics and social life of people in the State. AFSPA, 1958 (Armed
Forces Special Powers Act, 1958), has also affected the life of people in the valley
and hills in a big way (Singh 2017). Insecurity in the lives of the general public,
arising from it, has caused damage to the peaceful fabric of life in the State. The
fight against it is continued even to this day by the people of Manipur, and the tribal
population has taken to underground activities.
In short, the social life in the State is a complex unholy mix of insurgency,
AFSPA, drugs and narcotics and AIDS. Lack of social and economic development
has severely affected the peace and security in the State. There was an increased
the sense of alienation creating a threat perception among the general public in the
State due to insurgency till recently. Manipur is also marked by high levels of political
instability despite Indian National Congress ruling the State since its merger into the
Indian Union in 1949. It is one of the strong reasons for some of the major failures
in the State as it could not assert its position and right effectively with the central
government in Delhi.

4.2.2 Education System in Manipur

Administration of School Education is handled by the Directorate of Education

(Schools) Govt. of Manipur from Primary to Higher Secondary stage (from Class I to
Regional Diversity, School Leadership and Quality of Education … 173

XII). In the hill districts, Autonomous Hill District Council also runs primary educa-
tion (from Class I to V). However, these councils are perceived as weak to ensure
good education. There are also schools under CBSE and Tribal Welfare Department.
There are 4865 elementary schools and 1042 secondary schools. According to
UDISE 2016-17 (NIEPA-MHRD 2018), school education in Manipur has 58.44
primary schools (Standards I–V), 17.9 elementary schools (Standards I–VIII), 2.11
higher secondary schools (Standards I–XII) and 14.34 secondary schools (Standards
I–X). The percentage distribution of enrolment of students in these schools is 16.40%,
14.75%, 16.15% and 40.62%, respectively. In all, there are 4978 schools in the State
out of which 2335 schools are run by Department of Education (DoE), 956 by Tribal
and Social Welfare Department (TWDS), 607 are government-aided (GA), 2274 are
run by private-unaided (Pvt U) and remaining by various other departments.
There are 10,994 regular teachers out of the total 19,063 in government schools
who are professionally qualified. Similarly, 761 out of 1725 teachers in Government-
aided schools and 2127 out of 6305 teachers in private-unaided schools are profes-
sionally qualified in Manipur. Percentage distribution of Head Masters/Head Mistress
in primary schools (I–V standards), elementary schools (I–VIII standards), higher
secondary schools (I–XII standards) and secondary schools (I–X standards) are
52.85%, 56.83%, 83.53% and 68.81%, respectively.
The gross enrolment ratio (GER) of students in primary schools (I–V standards)
is 120.57, GER in I–VIII standards is 120.16, and GER in IX–X standard is 86.52%.
Manipur follows its own State syllabus. According to the announcement made on the
official website of Manipur State,1 73.18% of total students passed the X standard
examination, conducted by the State’s high school board in the year 2018.
National Achievement Survey (NAS), conducted in 2017, shows that Manipur
performed above the national average in Classes 3 and 5 in all subjects. Even in
Class 8, it nearly equalled the national average in all subjects except in the regional
language. Even in class X, it scored higher than the national average in all subjects
except modern Indian languages (see Table 7).

4.2.3 Profile of School Heads Who Participated in Self-reflective

Exercise on Leadership Practice

Out of the school heads in Manipur participating in the study, 60.6% were men and
39.4% were women in Manipur. The average age of school heads in Manipur is
52.3 years. Sixty percent of them were secondary HMs, and 40% were principals
at senior secondary schools. Their average teaching experience is 23.1 years, while
the experience as school heads is 4.1 years. Seventy-five percent of school heads
are graduates having basic university degree with B.Ed. The remaining 25% school
heads have post-graduation degree with B.Ed.

1 http://manresults.nic.in/.
174 N. Mythili

Table 7 National Achievement Survey-Mean score for Manipur State: 2017–18

Class 3 Class 5 Class 8 Class 10 (Cycle
2)**
Subject Manipur All Manipur All Manipur All Manipur All
India India India India
Modern 71 68 59 58 58 57 33 49
Indian
Language
Mathematics 68 64 56 53 42 42 31 34
EVS 70 65 61 57 – – – –
Science – – – – 43 44 35 34
Social – – – – 42 44 40 39
Science
English – – – – – – 48 36
Source NCERT-UNICEF (2017a)
** http://www.ncert.nic.in/programmes/NAS/pdf/SRCX/14_Manipur.pdf. Accessed on 17th May
2020

4.2.4 Relationship Between Different School Leadership Practices

There are six Nodes in the school leadership practices in Manipur. Boxes with gray
shade in Fig. 2 are the Nodes. The first Node refers to influencing others for vision-
building (IVBMN) indicates leadership values practised by the school head. The
second Node is about working with others to set the goals (WSGOLSMN2), refer-
ring to mutual interaction to understand each other. The third Node is empowering

DAVGOLSMN WSGOLSMN1
E-VB
Encourage Effecve school
Praccal
innovations for administraon
orientaon student learning.
for vision
building DVBMN
Creating conditions for
effective teaching
ESLIMPMN1 WSGOLSMN2 ISLIMPMN ESLIMPMN2
IVBMN
Creang Mutual Trust Building Set up
Practicing interacon to with teachers DSLIMPMN
collaborave Structures and
leadership understand each and others systems for Climate of high
values environment
other decision making expectations for students

ITLPMN
WVBMN Providing ETLPMN
Parcipate in Intellectual
DTLPMN Teacher professional
goal seng smulaon
Leading development
along with
others Learning

Node 5

Node 1 Node 2 Node 3 Node 4 Node 6

Fig. 2 Relationship between different school leadership practices in Manipur

Regional Diversity, School Leadership and Quality of Education … 175

others for school improvement (ESLIMPMN1), referring to creation of a collab-

orative environment by school heads. Fourth Node is influencing school improve-
ment (I-schlimprov), indicating trust-building. Fifth Node deals with empowering
others for school improvement (ESLIMPMN2) which implies setting up systems and
structures for decision-making. Sixth Node is influencing teaching–learning process
(ITLPMN), referring to providing intellectual stimulation for teachers. The manner
in which other leadership practices are related to these Nodes is discussed hereafter
with the help of correlation coefficients ‘r’ obtained from the analysis. From these
relationships, thereafter, school leadership paths are derived.
Node 1: Relationship between leadership values, vision-building and creating
collaborative environment
Personal leadership values (IVBMN) of school heads in Manipur are closely related
to practical orientation to vision-building (E-VB), with ‘r’ = 0.660. Leadership
values (IVBMN) are related to creating collaborative environment (ESLIMPMN1),
with ‘r’ = 0.639. Practical orientation to vision-building (E-VB) is related to
creating a collaborative environment (ESLIMPMN1), with ‘r’ = 0.693. Correlation
between participating in goal-setting (WVBMN) and creating collaborative envi-
ronment (ESLIMPMN1) is 0.623. In this way, practising personal leadership values
of school heads, creating collaborative environment, practical orientation to vision-
building and participating in goal-setting are related to each other. WVBMN is indi-
rectly related to personal values of the school leader (IVBMN), mediated through
ESLIMPMN1 as ‘r’ between WVBMN and IVBMN is 0.594, which is less than the
cut-off point of ‘r’ = 0.6 (indicated through dotted lines). Thus, practising leadership
values constitutes Node 1 as it is connected to all other factors.
Practicing personal leadership values is a critical factor that influences rest of
the schooling processes and leadership practices (Hallinger 2011). In Manipur, it is
positively correlated with practical orientation to vision-building (E-VB) as well as
creating a collaborative environment (ESLIMPMN1). It means that values of school
leadership have a potential to create shared vision through collaboration and practical
orientation to vision-building. Even though vision-building is something to dream
about as a long-term perspective, it needs to be nurtured in the school among all
members, requiring an element of practical orientation too.
Node 2: Relationship between creating collaborative environment and mutual
interaction to understand each other
Creating a collaborative environment (ESLIMPMN1) is Node 2, which is an impor-
tant node to which Node 1 and Node 3 are connected. In other words, creating a collab-
orative environment is associated with values of school head, practical orientation to
vision-building and participating in goal-setting, along with others, on one side; and
mutual interaction to understand each other (WSGOLSMN2), on the other. Results of
correlation analysis show that creating a collaborative environment (ESLIMPMN1)
is directly related to mutual interaction to understand each other (WSGOLSMN2),
with ‘r’ = 0.618. It implies that school leaders not only empower teachers, staff,
parents and students to create a collaborative environment, but also engage directly
176 N. Mythili

by working with them, i.e., providing opportunities for mutual interaction to under-
stand each other. It aptly indicates that creating a collaborative environment brings
people together, based on a common purpose, which is an opportunity for mutual
interaction without losing the leadership focus, vision for the school and goals to be
achieved by individuals.
Node 3: Relationship between Mutual interaction to understand each other, trust-
building and other practices
Mutual interaction to understand each other (WSGOLSMN2) refers to school leader-
ship dimension related to working with others for goal-setting. It is an important node
(Node 3) that is connected with a maximum number of school leadership practices in
Manipur. These leadership practices are: encourage innovations for student learning
(DAVGOLSMN), trust-building (I-schlimprov), leading learning (DTLPMN) and
providing intellectual stimulation (ITLPMN). Among these practices connected,
trust-building is Node 4. Thus, Node 3, referring to mutual interaction to understand,
is deeply significant within the school and is also difficult to achieve. It noteworthy
to observe that Manipur is able to achieve this step.
A collaborative environment, driven by personal vision leading to mutual interac-
tion for understanding each other, is an apt space that is readily available for encour-
aging innovations. Correlation is between mutual interaction to understand each
other (WSGOLSMN2) and encouraging innovations for learning among students
(DAVGOLSMN), and r is 0.606. It is about building a culture of innovations in
the school, characterised by informality in dealing with people, to move beyond the
normative framework, to think creatively, to question the traditional and existing
practices freely, to experiment, accept failures positively as lending scope for deeper
thinking and creativity, and celebrate success with all, and so on.
Mutual interaction to understand each other (WSGOLSMN2) is directly correlated
with three other leadership practices, referring to building trust with teachers and
others (I-schlimprov), with ‘r’ = 0.660; leading learning (DTLPMN), with ‘r’ =
0.753; and providing intellectual stimulation (ITLPMN), with ‘r’ = 0.754.
Node 4: Relationship between trust-building, structures and systems for decision-
making, and other practices
A series of leadership practices, beginning with personal leadership values, collab-
orative environment and mutual interaction to understand each other, which are the
first three nodes, is supported by feeder factors, such as practical orientation to vision-
building, participating in goal-setting with teachers and others, creating a culture of
innovation. These set of practices, when consistently practiced for a length of time,
lead to building trust among teacher, parents, community and students.
Building trust with teachers and others (I-schlimprov) is directly correlated with
mutual interaction to understand each other on one side with ‘r’ = 0.660, the Node 3
(WSGOLSMN2). It is directly related to effective school administration (W-setgols),
with ‘r’ = 0.612, and structures and systems for decision-making (ESLIMPMN2),
with ‘r’ = 0.656 on the other side. It is, indeed, a robust relationship between these
Regional Diversity, School Leadership and Quality of Education … 177

two subtle factors that are difficult to realise in the school. It is important to notice that
school heads in Manipur practice these two components of leadership effectively.
Building trust is also indirectly related to encouraging innovations among students
mediated through mutual interaction for understanding others (Node 3). Similarly,
it is also indirectly related to leading learning and providing intellectual stimulation
mediated through Node 3.
Node 5: Providing intellectual stimulation and outcomes
Providing intellectual stimulation (ITLPMN) is an important Node as it paves the way
for an important outcome of preceding leadership practices called teacher profes-
sional development (ETLPMN). It is a teacher-focussed outcome. Providing intel-
lectual stimulation (ITLPMN) is related to mutual interaction with each other, the
Node 3, as ‘r’ = 0.754. It is also related directly to leading learning (DTLPMN), with
‘r’ = 0.712. It is a crucial Node that provides the required professional competence
for the school head in teaching–learning processes. Correlation coefficients are also
high for this Node 5 when compared to any other node, which indicate the emphasis
that school heads give to teaching–learning processes in Manipur.
Node 6: Relationship between structures and systems for decision-making and
outcomes
Building trust among teachers and others (I-schlimprov) is a gradual process that
lays the foundation for a significant shift to create systems and structures for
decision-making in the school (ESLIMPMN2), which is Node 6. It is positively
correlated with two leadership processes, which are also outcomes for Manipur
State. These are: creating a culture for learning in schools (DVBMN) and setting
a climate of high expectation for students (S-schlimprov). Correlation coefficient
between ESLIMPMN2 and DVBMN is 0.648; and between ESLIMPMN2 and
DSLIMPMN is 0.628. These two outcomes of preceding school leadership practices
are student-focussed.

4.2.5 Leadership Path Traversed in Manipur

Figure 3 indicating the relationships between different leadership practices also

provides scope to trace the leadership path/s traversed by school heads. These paths
are discussed herewith.
Path1—School leadership for teaching and learning
The first path starts from practising personal leadership values, moves on to creating a
collaborative environment, encouraging mutual interaction to understand each other,
trust-building with teachers and others, setting up systems and structures for decision-
making to result in creating a) conditions for effective teaching and b) climate of
high expectations for students (see Fig. 3, path 1). This leadership path is meant for
both teachers and students for learning. Hence, it is called school leadership path for
creating conditions for teaching and learning.
178 N. Mythili

Path 1: School leadership path of creang condions for teaching and learning
DVBMN
ESLIMPMN2 Creang condions
ESLIMPMN1 WSGOLSMN2 ISLIMPMN
IVBMN for effecve
Personal teaching
Creang Mutual Trust Building
Structures
values of collaborave interacon to with teachers
and systems DSLIMPMN
school head environment understand each and others
for decision Climate of high
other making expectaons for
students

Path 2: School Leadership path for teacher Professional Development

ESLIMPMN1 WSGOLSMN2
IVBMN ITLPMN ETLPMN
Personal Mutual Teacher
Creang Providing
values of interacon to professional
collaborave Intellectual
school head understand development
environment smulaon
each other

Path 3: School leadership path of leadership for learning

ESLIMPMN1 WSGOLSMN2 ITLPMN ETLPMN
DVBMN Providing
Creang Mutual interacon Intellectual Teacher
Leading
collaborave to understand smulaon professional
Learning
environment each other development

Fig. 3 School leadership paths in Manipur

Path 2—School leadership path for teacher professional development

The second path once again starts from practicing personal values of leadership
(IVBMN), creating a collaborative environment (ESLIMPMN1), mutual interaction
to understand each other (WSGOLSMN2) and, then, deviates to take the route of
providing intellectual stimulation for teachers (ITLPMN) to result in teacher profes-
sional development (ETLPMN) (see Fig. 3, Path 2). Hence, the second path is called
school leadership path for teacher professional development.
Path 3—Path of leadership for learning
The third path is formed from creating a collaborative environment (ESLIMPMN1),
mutual interaction with each other (WSGOLSMN2) and, then, moves on to leading
learning (DTLPMN) and providing intellectual stimulation (ITLPMN), to result in
teacher professional development (ETLPMN). The correlation coefficient between
providing intellectual stimulation (ITLPMN) and teacher professional development
(ETLPMN) is the highest among all relationships, with ‘r’ = 0.820 (see Fig. 3, path
3). Since this path emphasises on a combination of leading learning, intellectual stim-
ulation and professional development of teachers, it is called the path of leadership
for learning.
There is a twofold approach to teacher professional development by school heads
in Manipur. These are firstly, providing intellectual stimulation directly for teacher
professional development and, secondly, providing intellectual stimulation as well as
leading the teaching–learning process for teacher professional development. Thus,
teacher professional development (ETLPMN) is the most important outcome of
Regional Diversity, School Leadership and Quality of Education … 179

school leadership practice in Manipur. This is at the heart of school leadership

practices as a host of research literature also emphasises on role of school head
in teachers’ professional development in different ways, namely instructional lead-
ership (e.g. Hallinger 2011; Hallinger and Heck 1996), lead learner (Fullan 2008),
learning organisation (Senge et al. 2001) and so on.
The three paths indicate that mutual environment to understand each other is
meaningful when intellectual stimulation is given adequately to lead learning for
accomplishing teacher professional development as well as creating conditions for
effective teaching. The high correlation coefficient of 0.820, significant at 0.01
level, clearly indicates that providing intellectual stimulation for professional devel-
opment of teachers is critical leadership practice in the school, as practised by
school heads in Manipur. Similarly, there are two other outcomes of school lead-
ership practices which are student-focussed and teacher-focussed, namely, creating
school culture for teaching (DVBMN) and setting high expectations for student
learning (DSLIMPMN). These two sets of outcomes arise as a consequence of inter-
relationships between different Nodes to which various other factors are connected.
It is interesting to observe that these Nodes are mainly aimed at readying a favourable
socio-emotional climate for effective teaching and learning in the schools of Manipur
State.

4.3 School Leadership Practice in Sikkim

4.3.1 The Context of Schooling

Sikkim is situated in the inner ranges of Himalayas. It has a population of 610,577.

It has a literacy rate of 82.2%, well above the national average of 74.4% (Census
of India 2011). The State underwent a transition from erstwhile Lamaist theocratic
polity, ruled by Bhutias for 333 years, to the liberal democratic society of today
(Sinha 2017). Its social structure was based on ascribed social status or inherited
through tribal affiliations (Sinha 1975). However, the socio-political movement has
abolished the feudal privileges, landlordism and private courts. Competitive party
system and bureaucracy has emerged, reflecting the emergence of a new power struc-
ture in Sikkim’s society. Accordingly, new political institutions, social foundations
have emerged, having a bearing on Sikkim’s transition from theocracy to democracy
through a process of integration of tribalism, the Lamaist traditionalism and liberal
democracy. The anti-feudal and anti-colonial movements, unleashed in the Indian
plains, were influenced by Indian National Congress (INC). The administration was
dominated by Buddhist Lamas and aristocratic Kazis. The traditional elite are iden-
tified with ethnic, religious and feudal forces, whereas the modern emergent elite
derives their legitimacy from positions of bureaucracy, political parties, professions
or voluntary organisations. In addition, the merger of Sikkim with the Indian Union
180 N. Mythili

in 1972 is an important event that has further led to restructuring the entire socio-
political complexities in Sikkim. Majority of its population is Nepalese caste and
tribal social complexity (Sinha 2017).
Sikkim’s education system revolved around the tradition of Literati of Tibetan
pattern under the guidance of monks in which students were taught paper-making,
printing, and other related arts to prepare the future monks. For the common man,
education facilities were scarce. A private secondary school, started in early twentieth
century, marked the beginning of the modern education system (Sinha 1975).
Bhutias and Lepchas are the major tribal groups in the State. Other backward
classes in Sikkim are Magar, Gurung, Rai and Limbu. Chattris, Sharmas are the
upper caste Nepali community found predominantly in Sikkim. Sikkim is also in
the same context of ethnic revivalism as Nepal beset with conflicting relationships
between castes and tribes within the wider distinction between Mongol population
and Indo-Aryan population (B. Steinmann, as quoted by Sinha 2017). Almost half of
Sikkim’s territory is snow-bound in North and north-west Sikkim. North Sikkim is a
reserved district for Lepchas community, and settlement by outsiders is not allowed
by law.
There is a marked social distance between the elite Aristocrats such as Khazis,
ministers in the Sikkim erstwhile monarchy rule, who, later, took up various positions
in the bureaucracy, landlords including estates owned by five major monasteries
(p. 48). Since 1994, previous chief minister, Mr. Pawan Kumar Chamling, has scaled
new political heights in the State by ruling Sikkim as chief minister for 25 years.
This provided near perfect political stability in the State and facilitating its economic,
educational and social progress. It made Sikkim as one of the top-ranking States in
the country, today, with high levels of prosperity and progress, and also being known
as a peaceful State. It has also been declared as the first organic State in India,
has near 100% electrification, toilet facilities for all, adequate water and sanitation,
while being powered by many innovations, with 48% of women in the State being
employed, the highest in India (Human Development Report-Sikkim 2014). Though
the State is circumscribed by three international borders with China, Nepal and
Bhutan, its relationship with them has been considered fairly well maintained.

4.3.2 Education System in Sikkim

According to UDISE 2016-17 (NIEPA-MHRD 2018), school education in Sikkim

comprises 55.96% primary schools (I–V standards), 26.58% elementary schools
(I–VIII standards), 6.07% higher secondary schools (I–XII standards) and 10.48%
secondary schools (I–X standards). The percentage distribution of enrolment of
students is 13.33%, 22.65%, and 23.53% for primary, elementary and secondary
schools, respectively (percentage not available for higher secondary schools). In
all, there are 1274 schools in the State out of which 766 schools are run by
Department of Education (DoE), 79 by Tribal and Social Welfare Department
(TWDS), four are government-aided (GA), 439 are run by private-unaided (Pvt
U) and remaining by various other departments. Percentage distribution of Head
Regional Diversity, School Leadership and Quality of Education … 181

Table 8 National Assessment Survey mean scores for Sikkim State, 2017
Subjects Class 3 Class 5 Class 8 Class
10 (Cycle 2)**
Sikkim All-India Sikkim All-India Sikkim All-India Sikkim All-India
Modern 60 68 50 58 51 57 38 49
Indian
language
Mathematics 55 64 42 53 30 42 28 34
EVS 55 65 45 57 – – – –
Science – – – – 38 44 35 34
Social – – – – 38 44 40 39
Science
English – – – – – – 48 36
Source NCERT-UNICEF (2017b),
** http://www.ncert.nic.in/programmes/NAS/pdf/SRCX/11_Sikkim.pdf. Accessed on 17th May
2020

Masters/Head Mistress in primary schools (I–V standards), elementary schools (I–

VIII standards), higher secondary schools (I–XII standards) and secondary schools
(I–X standards), respectively, are 71.90, 72.32, 60.70 and 69.29%.
There are 4914 regular teachers out of the total 7496 in government schools who
are professionally qualified. Similarly, 71 out of 153 in Government-aided schools,
823 out of 2917 teachers in private-unaided schools are professionally qualified in
the State. There are no single-teacher schools in Sikkim, unlike in other States.
All schools have designated HMs. Hence, overall condition for practicing effective
school leadership is favourable in the State.
The gross enrolment ratio (GER) of students in primary schools (I–V standards)
is 91.98, GER in I–VIII standards is 106.91, GER in IX-X standard is 111.96%.
Sikkim follows CBSE’s central syllabus. Pass percentage of students at 10th standard
board examination was 80.88 in 2014–15. However, data was not available for the
year 2015–16. However, the State had low scores in National Assessment Survey at
elementary as well as secondary levels, compared to the national mean scores (see
Table 8).

4.3.3 Profile of School Heads Who Participated in Self-rating on Their

Leadership Practices

In Sikkim, 56.4% of males and 43.6% women participated in self-reflective exercise

of school needs. Out of the total respondents, 48.2% of school heads were secondary
school heads and 51.8% were principals in senior secondary schools. The average age
of school heads, who participated in the exercise, was 45.58 years. Among them, 55.4
percent of school heads were graduates with B.Ed. qualification, while the remaining
school heads were post-graduates with education degree/s. The average teaching
182 N. Mythili

experience for school heads was 20.26 years, and 5.5 years as heads of school. In
general, there were younger principals, with higher average years of experience as
school heads in Sikkim, as compared to Manipur.

4.3.4 Relationship Between Different School Leadership Practices

in Sikkim

There are three Nodes for school leadership practice in Sikkim, namely, teacher
professional development (ETLPSK), mutual interaction to understand each other
(WSGOLSSK2) and setting up systems and structures for decision-making
(ESLIMPSK2). The diagrammatic representation of the relationships is presented
in Fig. 4. Nodes and their relationships with other leadership practices are explained
with the help of Fig. 4.
Node 1: Relationship between teacher professional development and other lead-
ership practices
Teacher professional development (ETLPSK) is connected to leading learning
(DTLPSK), providing intellectual stimulation (ITLPSK) and building academic
collaboration for TLP (W-schlimprov). The coefficients of correlation ‘r’ between
these three factors and Teacher professional development (ETLPSK) are 0.746,
0.668, and 0.635 respectively. It is also connected with practising leadership values
in a moderate manner with ‘r’ = 0.497. Further, teacher professional development
(ETLPSK) is associated with Node 3 which refers to mutual interaction to understand
each other (WSGOLSSK2) having coefficient of correlation ‘r’ = 0.626. Node 2,

EVBSK
IVBSK
Praccal
Praccing
orientaon for
leadership values
vision building

WSGOLSSK2

Mutual interacon to
understand each other
DTLPSK
Leading learning

ITLPSK ETLPSK ESLIMPSK2

EAVGOLSSK
Seng up systems Improving chances
Providing Intellectual Teacher professional for student learning
smulaon development and structures for
decision making

WSLIMPSK
Building academic
collaboraon for TLP

Node 1 Node 2 Node 3

Fig. 4 Relationship between different school leadership practices in Sikkim

Regional Diversity, School Leadership and Quality of Education … 183

referring to setting up systems and processes for decision-making (ESLIMPSK2), is

again correlated with teacher professional development, ETLPSK with ‘r’ = 0.651.
In short, teacher professional development is a critical Node which is connected to
all other leadership practices in Sikkim.
Node 2: Relationship between setting up of systems and structures for decision-
making and other variables
Setting up of systems and structures for decision-making (ESLIMPSK2), i.e. Node
2, is related to Node 3, which refers to mutual interaction to understand each other
(WSGOLSSK2) whose ‘r’ = 0.645 on one side and teacher professional develop-
ment, i.e. Node 1 on the other side. As such, all three Nodes are directly connected
with each other in Sikkim. In other words, the three critical leadership practices
pertaining to teacher professional development, systems and structures for decision-
making and mutual interaction to understand each other are directly related to each
other. This alignment between critical leadership practices is the most important
strength of school leadership practice in Sikkim. Hence, we can see that there is
only one outcome which is student-focussed, referring to improving the chances of
student learning.
Relationship between nodes and outcome of leadership practices
The correlation in Node 2 between setting up of systems and structures for decision-
making (ESLIMPSK2), and the outcome relating to improving the chances of
students learning (EAVGOLSSK) is 0.661. Correlation between teacher professional
development (ETLPSK), Node 1, is also directly correlated with improving chances
for student learning (EAVGOLSSK), with ‘r’ value 0.610. It shows that critical
leadership practices in Sikkim can directly improve chances of student learning
through influencing and empowering teachers as well as setting up of systems and
structures for decision making.
Relationships between other leadership practices
On the overarching perspective, practical orientation for vision-building (EVBSK)
and practicing leadership values (IVBSK) are related significantly to each other
having ‘r’ = 0.620 (see Fig. 2). Correlation between practicing leadership values
(IVBSK) and teacher professional development (ETLPSK) is 0.497 significant at
0.000 levels (dotted lines).
Influence vision-building, referring to school leadership values (IVBSK), and
empower vision building, referring to practical orientation to vision-building
(EVBSK), though connected with each other, are not connected strongly with the rest
of the leadership practices. Nonetheless, it can be considered that IVBSK definitely
builds into it mediated through ETLPSK, i.e. teacher professional development, with
‘r’ coefficient of correlation being 0.489 that is significant at 0.001 level.
In this way, School leadership values indirectly influence rest of the school’s lead-
ership processes through teacher professional development (ETLPSK). ETLPSK is
the primary node to which all other leadership practices are connected, with the excep-
tion of practical orientation to vision-building (EVBSK), in Sikkim. Leading learning
184 N. Mythili

(DTLPSK), providing intellectual stimulation (ITLPSK), and building academic

collaboration for TLP (W-schlimprov) constitute one set of practices related to
teacher professional development (ETLPSK), which is the primary node. The second
set of practices, correlated with teacher professional development (ETLPSK), is
setting up of systems and structures for decision-making (ESLIMPSK2) and mutual
interaction to understand each other (WSGOLSSK2).

4.3.5 School Leadership Paths Traversed in Sikkim

Three main school leadership paths emerge from the relationships between different
leadership practices which are explained with the help of Fig. 5.
Path 1: Balancing academic and administrative leadership practices
The outcome of leadership paths in Sikkim is improving the chances of student
learning. There are three ways in which other leadership practices lead to this end-in-
view. The first path begins by providing intellectual stimulation (ITLPSK) for teacher
professional development (ETLPSK) and also engages in setting up of systems and
structures for decision-making (ESLIMPSK2) for improving chances for student
learning (EAVGOLSSK) (see Fig. 5, path 1). It implies that setting up of systems and
structures for decision-making also facilitates different teaching–learning processes
to improve chances for student learning. This is unique to Sikkim State.

Path 1: Balancing academic and administrave leadership pracces

EAVGOLSSK
ITLPSK ETLPSK ESLIMPSK2 Improving
Providing Teacher Seng up chances for
Intellectual student learning
professional systems and
smulaon development structures for
decision making

Path 2: Balancing people and academic centeredness in leadership pracces

WSGOLSSK2 ESLIMPSK2 EAVGOLSSK

DTLPSK ETLPSK
Mutual Seng up Improving
Leading Teacher
interacon to systems and chances for
Learning professional
understand structures for student
development
each other decision making learning

Path 3: Path of Academic Leadership

ITLPSK EAVGOLSSK
ETLPSK
Providing Improving
Teacher
Intellectual chances for
professional
smulaon student learning
development

Fig. 5 School leadership paths in Sikkim

Regional Diversity, School Leadership and Quality of Education … 185

Path 2: Balancing people and academic centered leadership practices

The second path begins with leading learning (DTLPSK) instead of intellectual
stimulation (ITLPSK), teacher professional development (ETLPSK), then moves
through mutual interaction to understand each other (WSGOLSSK2) and reaches
setting up of systems and structures for decision-making (ESLIMPSK2) to improve
chances for student learning (EAVGOLSSK) as outcome (see Fig. 5, path 2). In the
second path, all the three Nodes are connected to each other to reach the end-in-view
of the leadership processes. Therefore, this path may be considered as a robust path
as almost all leadership practices converge to this path for improving chances of
student learning.
Path 3: Path of Academic leadership
The third path begins from intellectual stimulation (ITLPSK) and traverses through
teacher professional development (ETLPSK) to improve chances for student learning
(EAVGOLSSK). This path is the shortest and most direct. It means that providing
intellectual stimulation leads to teacher professional development for improving
chances of student learning (see Fig. 5, path 3).
To sum up, school leadership practices ensure that proper systems and struc-
tures are set up for decision-making along with mutual interactions to understand
each other so that there is teacher professional development propelled by intellec-
tual stimulation and leading learning. For this, building academic collaboration and
practicing leadership values provide the required support. All these would improve
the chances of student learning in Sikkim.

4.4 Comparison Between School Leadership Processes

in Manipur and Sikkim

In Manipur, critical leadership practices, as revealed from the Nodes, are personal
values of school head, creating collaborative environment, mutual interaction to
understand each other, trust-building with teachers and others, structures and systems
for decision-making, and providing intellectual stimulation. In Sikkim, the critical
leadership practices are only three, viz. teacher professional development, setting up
of systems and structures for decision-making, and mutual interaction to understand
each other. So, while six school leadership practices are critical to Manipur, only
three are critical to Sikkim.
Among these critical leadership practices, the ones common to both Manipur and
Sikkim are: mutual interaction to understand each other, structures and systems for
decision-making and providing intellectual stimulation. Critical leadership practices
are distinct for both States. Leadership practices distinct to Manipur are: personal
values of school head; creating a collaborating environment; and trust building
with teachers and others while the distinct leadership practice in Sikkim is teacher
professional development.
186 N. Mythili

Outcomes indicate the convergence of all leadership practices and processes.

While teacher professional development is treated as outcome of several school
leadership practices working in tandem with each other in Manipur, the same is
considered as a critical input for improving chances for student learning in Sikkim.
As a result, the outcomes of leadership practices are different for both States. In
Sikkim, leadership practices converge to enhance only one outcome, referring to
improving chances for student learning. In contrast, Manipur seeks to achieve three
outcomes, two of which are related to teacher and one for student, viz. creating
conditions for effective teaching, teacher professional development and setting a
climate of high expectations for students.
In both Manipur and Sikkim, school heads traverse three school leadership paths
each. These paths have been named on the basis of leadership practices that are
associated with each other. In Manipur, these paths are named as paths for teaching
and learning, teacher professional development and leadership for learning. The first
path, referring to teaching and learning, intends to reach two outcomes, namely
creating conditions for teaching and setting up a climate of high expectations for
students. The other two paths aim to reach the outcome of teacher professional
development. In Sikkim, the three paths traversed are called: balancing academic
and administrative leadership practices, balancing people and academic centered
leadership practices and path of academic leadership. All these paths focus on
improving chances for student learning.
There is a significant qualitative difference in the leading school processes between
the States of Manipur and Sikkim. In Manipur, school heads engage in setting a stage
for teaching, learning and developing teachers for the profession. Leadership prac-
tices in Manipur, therefore, focus on ensuring conditions for teaching and learning
to take place and developing teachers’ capacities as the outcomes. In contrast, in
Sikkim, school heads seek to address the challenges of balancing between academic
functions, on the one hand, and administrative roles and people centeredness, on the
other.
Both States begin with personal values of leadership for school heads. They
emphasise on practical orientation for vision-building. These two, together, constitute
the first layer of school leadership for both the States. The point of departure comes
from the second node. The second node for Manipur is creating a collaborative envi-
ronment for teaching, whereas for Sikkim, it is teacher professional development.
Sikkim directly and immediately aims to tap teacher professional development to
improve quality. Teacher professional development constitutes a critical node in
Sikkim for which all other factors are connected. The third node for both the States
is the same, i.e. mutual interaction to understand each other (W-setgols2). Manipur
leads from here to trust building and then, to provide intellectual stimulation for
teachers, before reaching the end-in-view on teacher professional development (E-
TLP). The phenomenon is reverse in Sikkim in which setting up of systems and
structures precedes teacher professional development.
The reasons for variation in leadership processes and paths can be attributed to
social, political, educational and cultural factors in the two States. Sikkim is a small
State with one-fourth of the population of Manipur. The number of schools is also
Regional Diversity, School Leadership and Quality of Education … 187

much lesser in Sikkim than in Manipur. Historically, Sikkim has enjoyed cultural
and social foundations of education in the Lamaist traditions, especially in literati
such as making papers, studying Buddhist scriptures, having established monasteries
as educational hubs, etc. Manipur also has rich social and cultural foundations of
education since very long, especially among the Nagas, Meitheis and Kukis. Kings
encouraged education, especially to propagate the wisdom of religious texts. Thus,
intellectual capital formation in both the societies is highly evident. However, in
recent times, since about 100 years, during the pre- and post-Independence era, socio-
political developments differed significantly in both the States after they merged with
the Indian Union.
Sikkim is comparatively peaceful and schools function for most of the year without
many untoward incidents. As observed by HRDD Sikkim (RMSA, 2015–16), all
facilities, including teachers, are provided to all schools. There are no single-teacher
schools. Now schools are poised for a take-off to higher levels of quality (Mythili
2019d). In contrast, Manipur has to work towards ensuring essential facilities for
all schools, including adequate teachers and a safe socio-political environment (as
it suffers from civil strife and underground activities) and reach the threshold point
for taking off to higher levels of school quality. On any given day, a general strike
may be called, without any particular reason by underground activists and schools
closed immediately. The last strike in 2016 lasted for four months. It is imperative
to create conditions for collaboration and trust-building so that a culture of teaching
is built/rebuilt for fostering high expectation for student learning. Consequently,
teacher professional development is the end focus, progressively formed by building
a climate of collaboration, mutual understanding, trust-building, with structures and
systems for decision-making, before embarking on teacher development, creating
a culture of learning and setting higher expectations for students. Incidentally, the
profiles of respondents show that there are more school heads with post-graduation
and B.Ed. degrees in Sikkim than in Manipur. Two principals in Sikkim and one in
Manipur have Ph.D. degree.
Notwithstanding higher levels of preparedness of Sikkim for a take-off for
enhancing student learning, NAS results indicate that its students perform below
the national average at elementary stage whereas slightly better in 10th class exami-
nation. In contrast, students have performed above the national average at the elemen-
tary level in Manipur. Manipur did not participate in NAS for the secondary stage in
2015, whereas Sikkim did. This was, incidentally, the period when civil strife was
severe in the State and schools struggled to function. However, class 10 results of
Manipur in 2017 when it participated show similar trend like that of Sikkim with
lower levels in modern Indian languages and mathematics.
The student learning levels signify the importance of robustness of the preparatory
stage besides teacher professional development, intellectual stimulation and leading
learning. These preparatory stages, practiced in Manipur, are: ensuring mutual inter-
action to understand each other, emphasis on leadership values influencing schooling
processes, structures and systems for decision-making processes, creating a collab-
orative environment, and trust-building. The presence of the preparatory stage also
explains the reasons for differing paths between Sikkim and Manipur and the manner
188 N. Mythili

in which regional challenges and contexts were navigated by school heads in both
the States. Sikkim’s efficiency on the supply side at the system level is high, with
no vacancies of school heads left unfilled, absence of single-teacher schools, appro-
priate teacher–pupil ratio (Mythili 2019d). It is also manifest from the single focus in
the leadership paths. However, it needs to be complemented with suitable schooling
processes as well. The relationship between different leadership practices and paths
indicate that high emphasis was laid on academic strengthening without balancing
it with adequate preparation for involving people with school’s processes. It, there-
fore, signifies that leadership practices have to be culturally relevant and contextually
flexible, beyond the standard practices.

5 Conclusions and Policy Implications

Attention to school leadership development is a recent phenomenon in Indian context.

Fewer studies are found in this area. The present study attempts to begin the discourse
in Indian context on leadership process and perspectives of school heads especially
to improve student learning. For this purpose, conceptual framework and tools for
collecting leadership practices and analyzing empirical data were carried out to start
the discourse in Indian context. Five important conclusions can be drawn from the
study. First, school heads adopt several paths which come together to interact in
diverse ways, involving a few critical leadership practices, in achieving the set goals
in a layered approach. Second, school leadership is responsible for the creation
of favourable climate to improve overall school quality apart from student learning.
Third, school leadership influences student learning by creating necessary conditions
for teaching and learning. Fourth, for leadership practices to yield results, they must
be contextually flexible and culturally relevant to address the needs of the students,
teachers and school. Fifth, school heads continue to focus their attention on teachers’
development and improve student learning even though SSA and RMSA have taken
over their role of instructional leadership in the form of teacher training. It clearly
shows that teacher professional development lies within the ambit of the school and
that school heads actually lead the learning. School heads have adopted various paths
to improve teacher quality and student learning. It means that the even though the
school head was virtually forgotten by SSA and RMSA programmes for two decades,
school heads did not lose the school, teachers or students. They continued to focus
on improving essential conditions, traversing diverse and multiple paths, to improve
the teaching–learning process for enhancing chances for student learning as before.
The present study has the potential to change the narrative that exaggerates low
student learning and, therefore, advocates conducting more teacher training by agen-
cies external to the school. Policy implication is that if school quality and student
learning has to be improved, teacher professional development must lie within the
school and led by school heads as leaders. Other structures in the education system,
from cluster resource centres to national institutions, may provide need-based and
school-specific onsite support, whenever required. These structures ought to connect
Regional Diversity, School Leadership and Quality of Education … 189

with the context of the school to understand regional diversity before supporting
teachers and school heads. It is a more plausible alternate approach to the centralised
and cascade model that has failed to improve teacher quality. For this, schools have
to be considered as the basic unit of teacher professional development.

Appendix 1
Relationship between different leadership practices in Manipur using Pearson’s Correlations
190

IVBMN ISLIMPMN ITLPMN IAGOLSMN DVBMN DSGOLSMN DSLIMPMN DTLPMN DAGOLSMN EVBMN
IVBMN 1 0.474** 0.535** 0.520** 0.415** 0.504** 0.443** 0.531** 0.427** 0.660**
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
ISLIMPMN 0.474** 1 0.576** 0.360** 0.511** 0.246* 0.539** 0.493** 0.312** 0.360**
0 0 0.002 0 0.037 0 0 0.008 0.002
ITLPMN 0.535** 0.576** 1 0.509** 0.269* 0.391** 0.486** 0.712** 0.619** 0.289*
0 0 0 0.022 0.001 0 0 0 0.014
IAGOLSMN 0.520** 0.360** 0.509** 1 0.282* 0.09 0.414** 0.389** 0.570** 0.332**
0 0.002 0 0.016 0.451 0 0.001 0 0.004
DVBMN 0.415** 0.511** 0.269* 0.282* 1 0.266* 0.590** 0.431** 0.078 0.306**
0 0 0.022 0.016 0.024 0 0 0.514 0.009
DSGOLSMN 0.504** 0.246* 0.391** 0.09 0.266* 1 0.191 0.551** 0.203 .497**
0 0.037 0.001 0.451 0.024 0.109 0 0.087 0
DSLIMPMN 0.443** 0.539** 0.486** 0.414** 0.590** 0.191 1 0.436** 0.300* 0.218
0 0 0 0 0 0.109 0 0.011 0.066
DTLPMN 0.531** 0.493** 0.712** 0.389** 0.431** 0.551** 0.436** 1 0.486** 0.300*
0 0 0 0.001 0 0 0 0 0.01
DAGOLSMN 0.427** 0.312** 0.619** 0.570** 0.078 0.203 0.300* 0.486** 1 0.14
0 0.008 0 0 0.514 0.087 0.011 0 0.242
EVBMN 0.660** 0.360** 0.289* 0.332** 0.306** 0.497** 0.218 0.300* 0.14 1
0 0.002 0.014 0.004 0.009 0 0.066 0.01 0.242
ESLIMPMN1 0.639** 0.561** 0.609** 0.453** 0.330** 0.572** 0.408** 0.591** 0.459** 0.693**
0 0 0 0 0.005 0 0 0 0 0
ESCLIMPMN2 0.435** 0.656** 0.465** 0.411** 0.648** 0.188 0.628** 0.522** 0.333** 0.309**
0 0 0 0 0 0.114 0 0 0.004 0.008
N. Mythili

(continued)
(continued)
Relationship between different leadership practices in Manipur using Pearson’s Correlations
IVBMN ISLIMPMN ITLPMN IAGOLSMN DVBMN DSGOLSMN DSLIMPMN DTLPMN DAGOLSMN EVBMN
ETLPMN 0.548** 0.493** 0.820** 0.446** 0.321** 0.470** 0.488** 0.799** 0.525** 0.313**
0 0 0 0 0.006 0 0 0 0 0.008
EAGOLSMN 0.309** 0.413** 0.555** 0.595** 0.275* 0.148 0.406** 0.507** 0.585** 0.05
0.008 0 0 0 0.02 0.215 0 0 0 0.677
WVBMN 0.594** 0.404** 0.586** 0.411** 0.383** 0.498** 0.371** 0.604** 0.387** 0.503**
0 0 0 0 0.001 0 0.001 0 0.001 0
WSGOLSMN1 0.331** 0.612** 0.484** 0.418** 0.561** 0.253* 0.558** 0.492** 0.347** 0.354**
0.004 0 0 0 0 0.032 0 0 0.003 0.002
WSGOLSMN2 0.557** 0.660** 0.754** 0.473** 0.365** 0.429** 0.533** 0.753** 0.606** 0.294*
0 0 0 0 0.002 0 0 0 0 0.012
WSCLIMPMN 0.104 0.249* 0.494** 0.204 0.136 0.13 0.303** 0.255* 0.328** 0.019
0.385 0.035 0 0.085 0.255 0.278 0.01 0.031 0.005 0.875
WACOLSMN 0.228 0.449** 0.281* 0.527** 0.265* 0.119 0.359** 0.291* 0.394** 0.282*
0.054 0 0.017 0 0.025 0.318 0.002 0.013 0.001 0.016
SSPASSMN −0.14 −0.285* −0.111 −0.069 −0.157 0.028 −0.117 −0.086 −0.095 −0.161
Regional Diversity, School Leadership and Quality of Education …

0.254 0.015 0.351 0.565 0.188 0.814 0.329 0.474 0.427 0.177
Relationship between different leadership practices in Manipur using Pearson’s Correlations
ESLIMPMN1 ESCLIMPMN2 ETLPMN EAGOLSMN WVBMN WSGOLSMN1 WSGOLSMN2 WSCLIMPMN WAGOLSMN SSPASSMN
IVBMN 0.639 0.435** 0.548** 0.309** 0.594** 0.331** 0.557** 0.104** 0.228** −0.136
0 0 0 0.008 0 0.004 0 0.385 0.054 0.254
ISLIMPMN 0.561** 0.656 0.493** 0.413** 0.404** 0.612* 0.660** 0.249** 0.449** −0.285**
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.035 0 0.015
ITLPMN 0.609** 0.465** 0.82 0.555** 0.586* 0.484** 0.754** 0.494** 0.281** −0.111**
191

(continued)
(continued)
192

Relationship between different leadership practices in Manipur using Pearson’s Correlations

ESLIMPMN1 ESCLIMPMN2 ETLPMN EAGOLSMN WVBMN WSGOLSMN1 WSGOLSMN2 WSCLIMPMN WAGOLSMN SSPASSMN
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.017 0.351
IAGOLSMN 0.453** 0.411** 0.446** 0.595 0.411* 0.418 0.473** 0.204** 0.527** −0.069**
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.085 0 0.565
DVBMN 0.330** 0.648** 0.321* 0.275* 0.383 0.561* 0.365** 0.136** 0.265 −0.157**
0.005 0 0.006 0.02 0.001 0 0.002 0.255 0.025 0.188
DSGOLSMN 0.572** 0.188* 0.470** 0.148 0.498* 0.253 0.429 0.130** 0.119 0.028**
0 0.114 0 0.215 0 0.032 0 0.278 0.318 0.814
DSLIMPMN 0.408** 0.628** 0.488** 0.406** 0.371** 0.558 0.533 0.303** 0.359* −0.117**
0 0 0 0 0.001 0 0 0.01 0.002 0.329
DTLPMN 0.591** 0.522** 0.799** 0.507** 0.604** 0.492** 0.753** 0.255 0.291** −0.086**
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.031 0.013 0.474
DAGOLSMN 0.459** 0.333** 0.525** 0.585** 0.387 0.347 0.606* 0.328** 0.394 −0.095**
0 0.004 0 0 0.001 0.003 0 0.005 0.001 0.427
EVBMN 0.693** 0.309** 0.313* 0.050** 0.503** 0.354** 0.294 0.019* 0.282 −0.161**
0 0.008 0.008 0.677 0 0.002 0.012 0.875 0.016 0.177
ESLIMPMN1 1** 0.586** 0.606** 0.336** 0.623** 0.462** 0.618** 0.303** 0.386** −0.151**
0 0 0.004 0 0 0 0.01 0.001 0.205
ESCLIMPMN2 0.586** 1** 0.475** 0.455** 0.384** 0.544 .582** 0.187** 0.295** −0.290**
0 0 0 0.001 0 0 0.115 0.012 0.014
ETLPMN 0.606** 0.475** 1** 0.523** 0.587** 0.501** 0.728** 0.322** 0.341** −0.084**
0 0 0 0 0 0 0.006 0.003 0.485
EAGOLSMN 0.336** 0.455** 0.523** 1** 0.300* 0.499 0.572** 0.311** 0.496** −0.134**
0.004 0 0 0.01 0 0 0.008 0 0.261
(continued)
N. Mythili
(continued)
Relationship between different leadership practices in Manipur using Pearson’s Correlations
ESLIMPMN1 ESCLIMPMN2 ETLPMN EAGOLSMN WVBMN WSGOLSMN1 WSGOLSMN2 WSCLIMPMN WAGOLSMN SSPASSMN
WVBMN 0.623** 0.384** 0.587** 0.300** 1** 0.497** 0.616** 0.336** 0.270** −0.007**
0 0.001 0 0.01 0 0 0.004 0.022 0.952
WSGOLSMN1 0.462** 0.544** 0.501** 0.499** 0.497** 1* 0.584** 0.296** 0.529** −0.109**
0 0 0 0 0 0 0.012 0 0.363
WSGOLSMN2 0.618** 0.582** 0.728** 0.572** 0.616** 0.584** 1** 0.374** 0.423** −0.170**
0 0 0 0 0 0 0.001 0 0.153
WSCLIMPMN 0.303 0.187* 0.322** 0.311 0.336 0.296 0.374** 1* 0.234** 0.168
0.01 0.115 0.006 0.008 0.004 0.012 0.001 0.048 0.158
WAGOLSMN 0.386 0.295** 0.341* 0.496** 0.270* 0.529 0.423** 0.234* 1** −0.156
0.001 0.012 0.003 0 0.022 0 0 0.048 0.192
SSPASSMN −0.151 −0.290* −0.084 −0.134 −0.007 −0.109 −0.17 0.168 −0.156 1
0.205 0.014 0.485 0.261 0.952 0.363 0.153 0.158 0.192
**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)
*Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed)
Regional Diversity, School Leadership and Quality of Education …
193
194 N. Mythili

Appendix 2
Relationship between different leadership practices in Sikkim using Pearson’s Correlations
IVBSK ISLIMPSK ITLPSK IAGOLSSK DVBSK DSGOLSSK DSLIMPSK DTLPSK DAGOLSSK EVBSK
IVBSK 1 0.223* 0.512** 0.404** 0.511** 0.562** 0.497** 0.547** 0.328** 0.620**
0.047 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.003 0.000
ISLIMPSK 0.223* 1 0.174 0.295** 0.284* 0.320** 0.300** 0.285* 0.278* 0.194
0.047 0.122 0.008 0.011 0.004 0.007 0.011 0.012 0.085
ITLPSK 0.512** 0.174 1 0.328** 0.406** 0.475** 0.412** 0.622** 0.447** 0.509**
0.000 0.122 0.003 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
IAGOLSSK 0.404** 0.295** 0.328** 1 0.211 0.340** 0.379** 0.503** 0.560** 0.269*
0.000 0.008 0.003 0.061 0.002 0.001 0.000 0.000 0.016
DVBSK 0.511** 0.284* 0.406** 0.211 1 0.429** 0.491** 0.395** 0.311** 0.446**
0.000 0.011 0.000 0.061 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.005 0.000
DSGOLSSK 0.562** 0.320** 0.475** 0.340** 0.429** 1 0.420** 0.493** 0.312** 0.390**
0.000 0.004 0.000 0.002 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.005 0.000
DSLIMPSK 0.497** 0.300** 0.412** 0.379** 0.491** 0.420** 1 0.512** 0.459** 0.309**
0.000 0.007 0.000 0.001 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.005
DTLPSK 0.547** 0.285* 0.622** 0.503** 0.395** 0.493** 0.512** 1 0.466** 0.471**
Regional Diversity, School Leadership and Quality of Education …

0.000 0.011 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000

DAGOLSSK 0.328** 0.278* 0.447** 0.560** 0.311** 0.312** 0.459** 0.466** 1 0.186
0.003 0.012 0.000 0.000 0.005 0.005 0.000 0.000 0.099
EVBSK 0.620** 0.194 0.509** 0.269* 0.446** 0.390** 0.309** 0.471** 0.186 1
0.000 0.085 0.000 0.016 0.000 0.000 0.005 0.000 0.099
ESLIMPSK1 0.353** 0.144 0.299** 0.261* 0.162 0.231* 0.389** 0.377** 0.346** 0.298**
0.001 0.202 0.007 0.019 0.152 0.039 0.000 0.001 0.002 0.007
ESIMPSK2 0.489** 0.269* 0.531** 0.353** 0.581** 0.300** 0.546** 0.602** 0.513** 0.478**
195

(continued)
(continued)
196

Relationship between different leadership practices in Sikkim using Pearson’s Correlations

IVBSK ISLIMPSK ITLPSK IAGOLSSK DVBSK DSGOLSSK DSLIMPSK DTLPSK DAGOLSSK EVBSK
0.000 0.016 0.000 0.001 0.000 0.007 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
ETLPSK 0.497** 0.289** 0.668** 0.406** 0.511** 0.491** 0.527** 0.746** 0.565** 0.395**
0.000 0.009 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
EAVGOLSSK 0.342** 0.415** 0.422** 0.409** 0.427** 0.158 0.406** 0.436** 0.426** 0.297**
0.002 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.162 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.007
WVBSK 0.516** 0.180 0.499** 0.460** 0.197 0.478** 0.336** 0.477** 0.474** 0.324**
0.000 0.110 0.000 0.000 0.079 0.000 0.002 0.000 0.000 0.003
WSGOLSSK1 0.436** 0.200 0.442** 0.353** 0.362** 0.247* 0.423** 0.387** 0.492** 0.423**
0.000 0.075 0.000 0.001 0.001 0.027 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
WSGOLSSK2 0.434** 0.540** 0.418** 0.467** 0.400** 0.416** 0.510** 0.605** 0.556** 0.446**
0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
WSLIMSK 0.377** 0.301** 0.516** 0.336** 0.343** 0.371** 0.397** 0.536** 0.411** 0.378**
0.001 0.007 0.000 0.002 0.002 0.001 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.001
WAGOLSSK 0.260* 0.353** 0.292** 0.341** 0.341** 0.321** 0.307** 0.268* 0.262* 0.230*
0.020 0.001 0.009 0.002 0.002 0.004 0.006 0.016 0.019 0.041
SSPASSSK 0.029 −0.003 0.058 0.096 0.061 0.047 0.066 0.225* 0.013 0.090
0.799 0.979 0.611 0.397 0.591 0.680 0.561 0.044 0.909 0.427
Relationship between different leadership practices in Sikkim using Pearson’s Correlations
ESLIMPSK1 ESLIMPSK2 ETLPSK EAVGOLSSK WVBSK WSGOLSSK1 WSGOLSSK2
IVBSK 0.353** 0.489** 0.497** 0.342** 0.516** 0.436** 0.434**
0.001 0.000 0.000 0.002 0.000 0.000 0.000
ISLIMPSK 0.144 0.269* 0.289** 0.415** 0.180 0.200 0.540**
N. Mythili

(continued)
(continued)
Relationship between different leadership practices in Sikkim using Pearson’s Correlations
ESLIMPSK1 ESLIMPSK2 ETLPSK EAVGOLSSK WVBSK WSGOLSSK1 WSGOLSSK2
0.202 0.016 0.009 0.000 0.110 0.075 0.000
ITLPSK 0.299** 0.531** 0.668** 0.422** 0.499** 0.442** 0.418**
0.007 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
IAGOLSSK 0.261* 0.353** 0.406** 0.409** 0.460** 0.353** 0.467**
0.019 0.001 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.001 0.000
DVBSK 0.162 0.581** 0.511** 0.427** 0.197 0.362** 0.400**
0.152 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.079 0.001 0.000
DSGOLSSK 0.231* 0.300** 0.491** 0.158 0.478** 0.247* 0.416**
0.039 0.007 0.000 0.162 0.000 0.027 0.000
DSLIMPSK 0.389** 0.546** 0.527** 0.406** 0.336** 0.423** 0.510**
0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.002 0.000 0.000
DTLPSK 0.377** 0.602** 0.746** 0.436** 0.477** 0.387** 0.605**
0.001 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
DAGOLSSK 0.346** 0.513** 0.565** 0.426** 0.474** 0.492** 0.556**
Regional Diversity, School Leadership and Quality of Education …

0.002 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000

EVBSK 0.298** 0.478** 0.395** 0.297** 0.324** 0.423** 0.446**
0.007 0.000 0.000 0.007 0.003 0.000 0.000
ESLIMPSK1 1 0.682** 0.510** 0.429** 0.267* 0.245* 0.473**
0.000 0.000 0.000 0.017 0.028 0.000
ESIMPSK2 0.682** 1 0.651** 0.661** 0.288** 0.443** 0.645**
0.000 0.000 0.000 0.010 0.000 0.000
ETLPSK 0.510** 0.651** 1 0.610** 0.457** 0.460** 0.626**
(continued)
197
(continued)
198

Relationship between different leadership practices in Sikkim using Pearson’s Correlations

ESLIMPSK1 ESLIMPSK2 ETLPSK EAVGOLSSK WVBSK WSGOLSSK1 WSGOLSSK2
0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
EAVGOLSSK 0.429** 0.661** 0.610** 1 0.170 0.478** 0.488**
0.000 0.000 0.000 0.131 0.000 0.000
WVBSK 0.267* 0.288** 0.457** 0.170 1 0.222* 0.488**
0.017 0.010 0.000 0.131 0.048 0.000
WSGOLSSK1 0.245* 0.443** 0.460** 0.478** 0.222* 1 0.372**
0.028 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.048 0.001
WSGOLSSK2 0.473** 0.645** 0.626** 0.488** 0.488** 0.372** 1
0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.001
WSLIMSK 0.512** 0.543** 0.635** 0.431** 0.208 0.506** 0.531**
0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.064 0.000 0.000
WAGOLSSK 0.144 0.272* 0.339** 0.427** 0.256* 0.411** 0.355**
0.203 0.015 0.002 0.000 0.022 0.000 0.001
SSPASSSK −0.023 0.139 −0.016 −0.041 0.006 −0.035 0.089
0.841 0.218 0.889 0.716 0.956 0.760 0.432
Relationship between different leadership practices in Sikkim using Pearson’s Correlations
WSLIMSK WAGOLSSK SSPASSSK
IVBSK 0.377** 0.260* 0.029
0.001 0.020 0.799
ISLIMPSK 0.301** 0.353** −0.003
0.007 0.001 0.979
ITLPSK 0.516** 0.292** 0.058
N. Mythili

(continued)
(continued)
Relationship between different leadership practices in Sikkim using Pearson’s Correlations
WSLIMSK WAGOLSSK SSPASSSK
0.000 0.009 0.611
IAGOLSSK 0.336** 0.341** 0.096
0.002 0.002 0.397
DVBSK 0.343** 0.341** 0.061
0.002 0.002 0.591
DSGOLSSK 0.371** 0.321** 0.047
0.001 0.004 0.680
DSLIMPSK 0.397** 0.307** 0.066
0.000 0.006 0.561
DTLPSK 0.536** 0.268* 0.225*
0.000 0.016 0.044
DAGOLSSK 0.411** 0.262* 0.013
0.000 0.019 0.909
EVBSK 0.378** 0.230* 0.090
Regional Diversity, School Leadership and Quality of Education …

0.001 0.041 0.427

80 80 80
ESLIMPSK1 0.512** 0.144 −0.023
0.000 0.203 0.841
ESIMPSK2 0.543** 0.272* 0.139
0.000 0.015 0.218
ETLPSK 0.635** 0.339** −0.016
0.000 0.002 0.889
(continued)
199
(continued)
200

Relationship between different leadership practices in Sikkim using Pearson’s Correlations

WSLIMSK WAGOLSSK SSPASSSK
80 80 80
EAVGOLSSK 0.431** 0.427** −0.041
0.000 0.000 0.716
WVBSK 0.208 0.256* 0.006
0.064 0.022 0.956
WSGOLSSK1 0.506** 0.411** −0.035
0.000 0.000 0.760
WSGOLSSK2 0.531** 0.355** 0.089
0.000 0.001 0.432
WSLIMSK 1 0.261* −0.069
0.019 0.544
WAGOLSSK 0.261* 1 0.124
0.019 0.273
SSPASSSK −0.069 0.124 1
0.544 0.273
*Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed)
**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)
N. Mythili
Regional Diversity, School Leadership and Quality of Education … 201

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Universal Secondary Education
in India—Access, Equity and Social
Justice

C. Sheela Reddy

…The vision for secondary education is to make good quality education available, accessible
and affordable to all young persons in the age group of 14–18 years…

1 Introduction

The rapid growth of new technologies has led to the development of new skills and
competitiveness at the global level. People with higher educational qualifications and
nations with a large proportion of educated people, naturally, take advantage of the
increasing opportunities from the global economy. Secondary education, a decisive
stage in the educational hierarchy, prepares the students for higher education and
also for the world of work. Classes IX and X constitute the secondary stage, whereas
Classes XI and XII are designated as the higher secondary stage. The normal age
group of the children in secondary classes is 14–16 years, whereas it is 16–18 for
higher secondary classes (Duraimurugan 2016). States have the responsibility for
most of the secondary schools operating in India, with only a small percentage,
approximately 5000 Kendriya Vidyalayas (KVs) and 1200 Navodaya Vidyalayas
(NVs), falling directly under the central government. The schools are guided and
shaped by norms and standards periodically promulgated at different administrative
levels.
‘Universalisation of elementary education alone will not suffice in the knowledge
economy, and a person with mere eight years of schooling is as disadvantaged as
an illiterate person’ (Planning Commission 2006). Several committees and policy
pronouncements highlighted the critical role of secondary education in advancing

C. Sheela Reddy (B)

Chair Professor, Dr. Ambedkar Chair in Social Justice, Indian Institute of Public Administration,
Indraprastha Estate, Mahatma Gandhi Road, New Delhi 110002, India
e-mail: [email protected]

© Council for Social Development 2020 205

J. B. G Tilak (ed.), Universal Secondary Education in India,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5366-0_9
206 C. Sheela Reddy

social change and economic development. The resolution, adopted by the Govern-
ment of India on National Education Policy way back in 1968, affirms that ‘educa-
tional opportunity at the secondary and higher level is a major instrument of social
change and transformation’ (GoI 1968). The rigour of the secondary and higher
secondary stage enables students to compete successfully in education and jobs, glob-
ally. This calls for adequate investment in secondary education to ensure considerable
social and economic returns critical for national development. Secondary education
needs to be expanded both as a response to increased social demand and as a feeder
cadre for higher education. It caters to the most important segment of the population,
adolescents and youth, the source of the future human and social capital of a nation.
Universal elementary education (UEE) is being achieved significantly through
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA).The growing number of children in the elementary
school system reinforces the need for further education. Secondary education is a
link between the elementary and higher education. The future of a child depends
a lot on the type of education she/he receives at the secondary level. Secondary
education strengthens the roots of a child’s education and helps in shaping a bright
future. It strengthens children to face emerging challenges in society. Without
secondary or senior secondary education, benefits of reservation to SCs/STs will
remain elusive. However, the commitment to UEE, the need to supply highly educated
manpower to ensure faster growth and industrialisation and increasing demand from
the vocal middle classes for more places in higher education to corner the expanding
opportunities have relegated secondary education to the margins of public
policy (Reddy 2007).

2 Secondary Education in India

The Government of India’s intervention in secondary education is, basically, at

two levels. Firstly, it is through apex national-level bodies like National Council of
Educational Research and Training (NCERT), Central Board of Secondary Education
(CBSE), National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS), Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti
(NVS), Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) and Central Tibetan School Adminis-
tration (CTSA). Secondly, the intervention is through centrally sponsored schemes,
such as Scheme of Boarding and Hostel Facilities for Girl students of secondary and
higher secondary schools, Integrated Education for Disabled Children, Information
and Communication Technology in schools and Quality Improvement in schools.
The Scheme of Boarding and Hostel Facilities for Girl students of secondary and
higher secondary schools provides financial assistance to voluntary organisations for
running hostels. Preference is given to organisations having hostels in educationally
backward districts, particularly those that are predominantly inhabited by SCs/STs
and educationally backward minorities. The Scheme of Integrated Education for
Disabled Children aims to integrate children and youth, with moderate disabilities,
into the normal school system. The scheme provides 100% financial assistance to
State/UT governments and NGOs under various components for the education of
Universal Secondary Education in India—Access, Equity … 207

children suffering from mild to moderate disabilities in normal schools. The compo-
nents include allowances for books, stationery, uniform, transport, readers for blind
children, equipment, etc., and salary of teachers recruited for teaching the disabled
children.
The Scheme of Information and Communication Technology (ICT@ schools)
was launched by merging the erstwhile schemes of Educational Technology and
Computer Literacy and Studies in schools. It provides an opportunity to the learners
in the schools of India to bridge the digital divide. Quality Improvement in schools is
a centrally sponsored scheme and is an amalgamation of the schemes of improvement
in science education, Mathematics Olympiads, environmental orientation, promotion
of yoga and population education and has a new component of educational libraries.
Under this scheme, State governments and registered societies are given grants for
specified activities.
The centrally sponsored scheme of vocationalisation of secondary education was
launched in 1988 to diversify educational opportunities for individual employability,
reduce the mismatch between demand and supply of skilled manpower and help
those who want to pursue higher education. It was revised in 1992–93 to provide
financial assistance to the States, to set up an administrative structure, conduct area-
specific vocational surveys, prepare curricula, textbooks, workbooks, curriculum
guides, training manuals, teachers training programmes, etc (Chaudhari 2016).
Indeed, secondary education is emerging as one of the important policy impera-
tives across nations. The access to secondary education greatly determines the subse-
quent life chances (Jeffery and Jeffery 2005). However, the spread of secondary
education is not very encouraging. Table 1 shows the growth of enrolment in
secondary education by social groups between 1980–81 and 2005–06. The paper
presents the data from 1980 onwards to give a fair understanding of the growth of
secondary education.
The enrolment of marginal groups in secondary education has grown at a faster
rate than the general population. For example, the enrolment of SC/ST girls has grown
by more than nine percent per annum as compared to six percent in the case of girls
from the general population. Similarly, the enrolment of SC/STs has increased at a
higher rate of over six percent per annum compared to a little over five percent in the
case of general population. The growth of enrolment is surprising as it tripled during
the period—from 11 million to 38.45 million. Similarly, the enrolment of SC/STs
also increased by 4.5 and 6.3 times—from 1.2 and 0.3 million to 5.6 and 2.2 million,
respectively, during the same period (Prakash 2008).
208 C. Sheela Reddy

Table 1 Growth of enrolment at the secondary level (in millions)

Years Girls Total Scheduled Scheduled Scheduled Scheduled
Caste girls Caste total Tribe girls Tribe total
1980–81 3.4 11.0 0.25 1.152 0.08 0.33
% 31.9 21.4 25.2
1990–91 6.3 19.1 0.64 2.238 0.24 0.81
% 33.0 27.2 29.6
1995–96 8.3 22.9 0.89 2.741 0.36 1.12
% 36.2 32.4 32.0
2000–01 10.7 27.6 1.39 3.812 0.54 1.49
% 38.8 36.6 35.9
2003–04 14.4 35.0 1.52 4.760 0.73 1.95
% 41.1 32.0 37.4
2004–05 15.4 37.1 2.0 5.218 0.80 2.09
% 41.5 38.1 38.1
2005–06 16.1 38.4 2.18 5.601 0.86 2.21
% 41.9 38.96 38.97
Growth rate 6.4 5.1 9.1 6.5 9.8 7.9
1980–81 to
2005–06
Source Selected Educational Statistics (various years), Ministry of HRD, New Delhi

Further, India’s progress in expanding access to secondary education has been

substantial, with the gross enrolment ratio (GER) for both boys and girls having
improved considerably. The gap in GER between boys and girls has declined consid-
erably. However, despite increasing participation of girls in secondary education,
their overall participation remains lower than that of boys in most States. The GER
for boys has increased from 37% in 1995–96 to 72% in 2013–14. In the same period,
the GER of girls increased from 24% to around 70% (Fig. 1). Girls’ actual enrol-
ment still lags behind boys partly because there are significantly fewer girls in the
population. This is an issue not reflected in the GER, which is calculated based on
the existing number of school-aged girls in the population. The GER for girls would
have been more if female infanticide and sex-selective abortion were not serious
continuing issues in India (MHRD 2015).
Universal Secondary Education in India—Access, Equity … 209

Fig. 1 Growth in gross enrolment ratio by gender. Source Selected Education Statistics Various
Years

3 Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE)

Committee Recommendations

The Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE), the highest deliberative and
advisory body relating to policy-making in education in India, provides a platform
where the centre and the States/UTs share their common concerns, review their
experiences and envision future policies and programmes. A sub-committee of CABE
prepared a blueprint for the universalisation of secondary education and submitted
its report in June 2005. Some of the major recommendations of the report include:
• The guiding principles of universal secondary education should be universal
access, equality and social justice, relevance and development and structural and
curricular considerations.
• There have to be norms for schooling. Such norms should be developed for each
State with common national parameters as well as State-specific parameters.
• Each State should develop a perspective plan for universal secondary educa-
tion. In order to prepare a perspective plan, a comprehensive Secondary Educa-
tion Management Information System (SEMIS) should be developed as early as
possible. The SEMIS is for capturing data on girls, SC/ST, OBC, minorities and
disabled children.
• Decentralised micro-level planning should be the main approach to planning and
implementation of universal secondary education. Block should be the unit for
such micro-level planning.
• For universal quality secondary education, the States must avoid softer options
of para teachers. The teachers must be fully qualified who should be given full
salary.
• Financial requirements for covering the cost of universal elementary and
secondary education, which, approximately, accounted for 5.1% of the GDP were
considered insufficient and recommended allocation of six percent of the GDP for
210 C. Sheela Reddy

education. A progressive increase in this proportion is necessary to move towards

universalisation of secondary education (NCERT n.d.).
The Education Commission (1964–66) and the CABE report in 2005 on Univer-
salisation of Secondary Education emphasised that quantitative expansion of
secondary schools should promote social justice, equity and reduce social exclusion.
Accordingly, the targets for USE, as spelt out by the CABE committee, included:
universal participation by 2015, universal retention by 2020, mastery learning by
more than 60% learners by 2020 and universal higher secondary education (Grades
XI–XII) by 2020.
To achieve the goal of providing quality education to all adolescents, i.e. both
girls and boys, up to the age of 16 years by 2015 and senior secondary education up
to the age of 18 by 2020, a conceptual design, based on four guiding principles, was
recommended.
• Universal Access: Access to education has to be considered in terms of physical,
social, cultural and economic terms in a comprehensive manner. There is a need
for a redefinition of some of the basic features of the Indian schools. Disability is
a social construct, and it is not enough to solve the problem at the physical level
alone, but it demands a change in the mindset of the child’s classmates, teachers
and the planners of curriculum or textbook authors. In the same way, in the case
of a Dalit child, access to education is still a humiliating school experience, which
hurts his/her self-confidence.
• Equality and Social Justice: Schools should inculcate a sense of equality or social
justice among their students or even develop an appreciation of the composite
culture and plural character of India. The school system will have to strive for at
least six dimensions of equality and social justice to include: gender, economic,
social, i.e. SCs/STs, cultural (including the issues of religious and linguistic diver-
sity), disability (both physical and mental) and rural–urban. All these dimensions
need to be reflected with sensitivity in the curriculum to build the self-esteem of
each child.
• Relevance and Development: The education should help in unfolding the full
potential of the child. It must link the development of child with the society and
its political, productive and socio-cultural dimensions. The parents, while sending
their children to schools, have an expectation that their children face the world
with confidence. Learning should ensure a child’s access to global knowledge and
challenges.
• Structural and Curricular Aspects: The National Focus Group on ‘Work and
Education’, constituted by NCERT, for reviewing and revising the curriculum
framework submitted its report in April 2005. It recommended that, to integrate
‘world of work’ meaningfully with the ‘world of knowledge’, curricular reforms
need to be linked with structural reforms for the entire school education, including
secondary education. This can also make vocational education a significant and
effective programme (NCERT n.d., pp. 2–5).
Universal Secondary Education in India—Access, Equity … 211

4 Purview of Secondary Education

There is a need to make the participation of the marginalised sections of society inclu-
sive and provide them access to secondary education. This necessitates recognising
the rising levels of democratic consciousness and social aspirations of the young
people in the age group of 14–18 years. The focus, more specifically, should be on
the deprived sections of society, including girls and the disabled, having a greater
share in the nation’s political, social and techno-economic life.

4.1 Education for Adolescents

The ages from 14–16 to 16–18 are the years of adolescence, late adolescence and
the years of transition. These are also said to be the most crucial years of life as there
are fast and steady changes in the body structure transforming to adult form that is
accompanied by emotional change and maturity. Secondary education, essentially,
has to be the education of the adolescence. Experiences in schooling should be
responsive to the needs of transition and stabilisation. This is the time when the
children are likely to transit from education to the world of work. Secondary education
must foster skills of transition.

4.2 Education for Multiple Intelligences

It is necessary for universal secondary education to offer adequate opportunities for

bringing out the full potential of each and every student. Secondary education has
to nurture the differential intelligences and multiple talents, which may be sports,
music, academics or any other field that children bring with them to the school. It
has been observed many times that a child who is very good in sports is ridiculed
for scoring low marks in mathematics or science. Children with intelligence other
than mathematical-logical intelligence are considered as less intelligent. Such an
impression makes children totally lose their confidence and self-esteem.

4.3 Universal, Free and Compulsory Education

With the 86th amendment of the Constitution, elementary education for children of
the age group of 6–14 years has been made universal, free and compulsory. The
CABE committee had a view that secondary education should be universal, i.e. there
should be universal access and opportunity for all children to receive secondary
education. It kept 2020 as the target for universal enrolment with full retention and
212 C. Sheela Reddy

mastery learning in all kinds of learning tasks by more than 60% learners. Also, it
hoped that by 2020, there will be provision for universal senior secondary education
and universal retention (NCERT n.d., p. 21).
The CABE committee held that there is no point in expanding secondary education
in its current form and structure. For achieving the mission of quality schooling for
all, the concept of secondary education has to be conceptualised as education of the
adolescents in transition, for nurturing multiple intelligence and capabilities. The
concepts and structures of the curriculum, pedagogy, assessment and evaluation of
the student, etc., have to be redesigned. The committee recommended a culture shift
in secondary education.

5 Equity in Access and Learning Through Rashtriya

Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA)

Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA), launched in 2009, an initiative of

the Government of India in partnership with State governments, sought to universalise
enrolment in Grades IX and X across India. It supports the upgradation of the existing
schools, the building of new schools to reach unreached areas, investments in quality
improvement and contributions to recurrent costs. Its goal was to universalise entry
into secondary school by the end of 2017 and achieve universal completion of Grade
X by 2020. The revised target is 75% by 2017. It was realised that the achievement of
this goal would reduce the gap between India and other BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India,
China and South Africa) countries, where universal access to secondary school has
already been a reality for around two decades. It strongly felt that investment in human
capital would increase international competitiveness (Lewin n.d.). Specifically, the
RMSA aimed at maintaining standards in secondary education by making schools
conform to the prescribed norms related to physical facilities, staff and academic
matters, universalising physical access to all young people (taking a distance norm
of five km at secondary and seven kms at higher secondary stages). It also expected
to improve participation and retention in secondary education, overcome barriers
to secondary schooling due to gender, socio-economic status, disability and other
disadvantaged circumstances and enhance intellectual, social and cultural learning
to ensure quality of learning outcomes.
RMSA, the most important programme of the Ministry of Human Resource Devel-
opment, has been designed as a country-wide reforms programme. It aimed to achieve
a GER of 100% by 2017 and universal retention by 2020. The ratio of funding pattern
of RMSA between the centre and the State governments is 75:25. In the north-eastern
states, the centre meets 90% of the funding requirements. RMSA seeks to improve
access and quality of education for the girl child in secondary and higher secondary
classes. It also ensures that girl students are not denied the opportunity to continue
their education due to distance from school, financial constraints and societal factors.
The scheme of Inclusive Education for Disabled at Secondary Stage (IEDSS), which
Universal Secondary Education in India—Access, Equity … 213

was launched in 2009-10, is also part of RMSA. The scheme provides assistance to
enable all students with disabilities who have completed eight years of elementary
schooling to pursue a further four years of secondary schooling from Class IX to XII.
RMSA, with its specific focus on removing disabilities, has opened up opportunities
for children who are not able to enrol themselves in the formal education system
through the modality of national and State open schools and by utilising contact
centres and multi-media packages.
The report of the Committee for Evolution of the New Education Policy 2016
states that with the rapid expansion of the school system, access to school education
has become near universal. The gaps in average enrolments between the general
population and specific disadvantaged groups like the girl child, Scheduled Castes
and Scheduled Tribes, minorities and children with special needs have decreased
quantitatively. However, issues of social access and equity remain complex and need
to be resolved. The social and income disparities continue to be reflected in gaps in
learning levels, which remain large and seem to be growing. Children from histori-
cally disadvantaged and economically weaker sections of society exhibit significantly
lower learning outcomes and tend to fall behind and are likely to drop out of school.
Effective interventions to bridge the gender and social gaps have to be worked out
for inclusion and participation of girls and other special category children. Despite
the rise in demand for secondary education and increase in the number of schools,
its spread throughout the country remains uneven. Regional disparities continue,
as do differences in access, depending on the socio-economic background of the
students (GoI 2016).

6 Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), 2017

The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), ‘Beyond Basics’ 2017, highlights
the sad state of education, when it comes to India’s 14–18 year olds and raises
pertinent questions which policy practitioners need to address. The previous ASER
reports observed that even with high enrolment ratios of over 96% in the primary
education sector, improvement in reading outcomes and arithmetic ability continues
to be low. Moreover, a large proportion of students in both government and private
schools continue to be below the ‘Grade level’ (i.e. a student who is able to deal with
what is expected of him/her in that grade).
The ASER is targeted to look at the age group, between 14 and 18 years,
comprising primarily those outside the Right to Education ambit and on the
verge of entering adulthood. The government’s flagship RMSA, launched in 2009
and re-booted in 2013 as RMSA-Integrated, has not been much of a success in
India’s secondary education scene, though enrolment rates have been high and
increasing as in the primary education sector. The Right to Education (RTE)
Act provides mandatory and free schooling up to the age of 14, or roughly corre-
sponding to Class VIII. ASER surveys show that enrolment in Class VIII has
214 C. Sheela Reddy

Fig. 2 Ability of Class VIII students consistently falling over the years, coinciding with the increase
in enrolment rates. Source Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), 2017

been steadily increasing from less than 50% in 2005–06 to close to 90% in 2014–
15. However, the quality of education still remains a concern. In Fig. 2, ASER’s
statistics have shown how the ability of class VIII students has been consistently
falling over the years, coinciding with the increase in enrolment rates (Ghosh and
Bandyopadhyay 2017).
The latest Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) findings show that, while
86% of adolescents are enrolled in the formal education system, only 53% of all
14-year-olds can read a simple text in English and just 44% can perform a simple
division. As a result, the enrolment numbers drop and many do not even complete
Class X. The Government’s National Achievement Survey (NAS) of 2014 found that
only 16% of Class X students, across all types of schools, could correctly answer
more than half the mathematics questions put to them. Children are, thus, being sent to
schools but not really educated. Lessons are being taught but not learnt. Digital India
sends most of its children to high schools without access to computer laboratories or
even libraries. Learning becomes a second-order problem when basic facilities are
lacking. The elementary education experience clearly demonstrates that inputs and
infrastructure are essential but not, in themselves, sufficient to improve quality. The
transition from schooling to learning is far more complicated (Kapur 2018).
It is significant to observe the way enrolment rates decline after standard VIII, or
once students are no longer under the purview of the RTE Act. If we have a look
at the 2011–12 Grade VIII cohorts, the findings show that there is about a one-third
decline until Grade XII, indicative of a trend of increasing drop-out rates after Grade
VIII. The same trend is reflected when enrolment rates are analysed by age, showing
a steady increase of youth not enrolled from age 14–18 years, as shown in Fig. 3
(Kapur 2018).
Universal Secondary Education in India—Access, Equity … 215

Fig. 3 Enrolment rates after Standard 8. Source Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), 2017

A surprising fact is that about 17% of students dropped out because they failed in
their studies. The current government policy does not allow schools to fail students
until Standard VIII. The ASER report points out that while the intention of the policy
is commendable, there need to be measures in place to identify and focus on students
who have lagged behind in the earlier grades. It is due to the policy of not failing
students that the students left behind are not identified until they end up failing exams
after Grade VIII. Despite the fall in enrolment rates, over 86% of youth in the 14–
18 years age range continue to be within the formal education system. Only about
five percent take some type of vocational training, which is of mostly less than three
months’ duration. A substantial proportion of youth in this age group is employed,
irrespective of whether they are engaged in formal education or not. Overall, 42% of
the youth is employed, including 39% of students engaged in formal education and
60% of students who have dropped out (Kapur 2018).
The ASER report noticed a visible gender divide in learning deficit. The statistics
show that while 47.1% boys in the 14–18 age group could do simple division (dividing
a 3-digit number by a single digit), only 39.5% girls could do the same (Vishnu 2018).
The findings of RMSA report 2015 also project differences in gender disparities
among States. The participation of girls in secondary education has increased since
the 1990s but still varies widely from State to State. Large disparities remain in some
States. Thus, Bihar (58% boys), Gujarat (59% boys), MP (62% boys), Rajasthan
(61% boys) and UP (58% boys) have many more boys than girls enrolled in Grades
IX and X. In contrast, Tamil Nadu (51% boys), Kerala (51% boys), Karnataka (51%
boys), Meghalaya (49% boys) and Mizoram (50% boys) are close to gender parity.
The patterns are complex and vary with location and social group. Gender equity
remains an issue in relation to enrolment, especially for the poorest. In some States,
it is also an issue in terms of the numbers of girls in the child population as a result
of selective abortion and infanticide (MHRD 2015).
216 C. Sheela Reddy

7 Universal Secondary Education: Challenges and Way

Forward

India is emerging as the fastest growing economy in the world for which the success
largely depends upon human resource development. The quality and relevance of the
secondary education curriculum have to address the needs of both, viz. those who
want to go in for higher education and those wanting to enter the labour market. The
curriculum is expected to equip the students with adequate cognitive skills to deal
with complex situations in daily routine and also in the world of work. The teaching
methods and the transaction of curriculum in classroom ought to focus on learning
to learn than on familiarising and memorising facts (Reddy 2007).
Regular assessments can serve as checkpoints to assess absorption and assimi-
lation. Teaching must be modified to student needs, instead of serving government
mandates on curriculum. There is a need for close monitoring, and classroom inter-
actions must be enhanced. The teachers need to cater to the needs of an increasingly
diversifying student community. As far as systemic institutional reform is concerned,
the management and planning structures must be strengthened to ensure that the
objectives are changed from curriculum completion to learning. The planning and
budgeting system should focus on school needs and increasing flexibility in spending,
with emphasis on quality education (Kapur 2018).
There is a need to undertake the school mapping exercise with a view to ensure
the requirements of the existing schools and opening of new ones. Equity concerns
in terms of gender, social groups and minority communities have a bigger dimension
at the secondary stage. As free and compulsory education to all children up to 14
years of age is the Constitutional provision in India, many efforts are being made
to realize the goal of UEE. The secondary schooling facilities, though improved to
a significant level, have few areas of concern, as they are not available to a large
number of habitations. Government schools have lower percentage of buildings than
the schools under private management. All types of schools, including unaided private
schools, must contribute towards universalisation of secondary education by ensuring
adequate enrolments for the children from under-privileged sections of society and
those belonging to below poverty line families (Chaudhari 2016, p. 304).
It is imperative to think of appropriate secondary schooling model in terms of
objectives and functions and diversify secondary education to accommodate the
growing social demand for quality schooling. It is important to increase access to
schooling while maintaining quality and equity. The limits of trade-off between
quality, quantity and equity in developing secondary education need to be clearly
laid down. The implications of uniform provisioning and mixed market providers,
i.e. private participation, in terms of coverage and equity as far as schooling is
concerned, must be considered objectively. It is necessary to think in terms of appro-
priate curriculum and evaluation system in order to prepare pupils simultaneously
for workplace, pursue higher education and equip them in life with high levels of
relevance and external efficiency. The mode of financing secondary education that
is sustainable and affordable has to be worked out (Biswal 2011).
Universal Secondary Education in India—Access, Equity … 217

8 Conclusion

The importance of secondary education and higher secondary education cannot be

under-estimated. The investments made in secondary education also have to be size-
able and strategic. Planning for secondary education should involve both national and
state governments. The centre needs to encourage and enable States to comprehen-
sively plan for secondary education reform, focussing on areas such as access, equity,
quality and so on. Instead of the centre deciding on a plan for developing particular
areas of secondary education in the States, the States could develop their own plans,
which could then be supported by the centre. Support to the States could be based
on a clear set of performance indicators. The centre could also develop a range of
technical resources, which the States could draw upon, depending on the focus and
needs defined in their plans. India takes pride in a sizeable ‘demographic dividend’.
However, the basic skill gaps in young population need to be addressed appropriately
to make secondary education universal in terms of access and equity. Equity refers to
the principle of fairness and often used interchangeably with the related principle of
equality. Equity is the process/means and equality is the outcome/end. Access is an
opportunity or the method and possibility of getting near to the desired thing. Equity
through equality can guarantee access, thereby ensuring social justice.

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Determinants of Participation
in Secondary Education
Tracking the Progress of a Child
from Enrolment to Completion
of Secondary Education in India

Deepak Kumar

1 Introduction

With the international efforts to achieve universal primary education, the demand for
secondary education has increased and emerged as an important challenge in many
developing nations. The substantial increase in primary school graduates has put pres-
sure on governments to expand secondary education. It is also argued that providing
access to secondary education is essential to ensure that the universal primary educa-
tion is achieved and continues to be achieved, as the children completing primary
education expect to continue secondary education (UNESCO 2013). Also, the growth
of secondary education is linked with economic and social development and to
the realisation of MDGs, including improvement in wages, the decline in fertility
and child mortality, and increase in overall health and nutritional levels of a nation
(OECD 2010).
Though elementary education has been emphasised by the Government of India
as it was incorporated as Article 21A in the Indian Constitution, secondary educa-
tion also requires special attention. The NSSO data (71st round) shows that the highest
drop-out rate in schools is at the secondary (9th to 10th) level (Business Standard
2018). The high drop-out rates at the secondary level have a multiplier effect on higher
secondary education, as they decrease the potential pool of students who could have
completed higher secondary level of education if they had not dropped out at the
secondary level (i.e. 9th to 10th class). It raises serious concerns for balanced devel-
opment as the education system plays a crucial role in the nation-building process
and is a pivotal component of inclusive development for a developing country like
India (Biswal 2011). For maintaining this balance, it is imperative that the children
enrolling in schools should complete both primary and secondary education. Thus,
secondary education needs more attention to reduce the drop-out rates. It is in this

D. Kumar (B)
Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 110067, India
e-mail: [email protected]

© Council for Social Development 2020 221

J. B. G Tilak (ed.), Universal Secondary Education in India,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5366-0_10
222 D. Kumar

context that we analyse and assess the reasons for the high drop-out rates in secondary
school.
The spectacular growth in Indian elementary education (both in terms of enrol-
ment and completion),1 particularly after the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), has
put enormous pressure on the secondary level to absorb new entrants. There is fair
progress in enrolment rates in secondary schools, particularly after 2010, with the
initiation of Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA). However, retention
rates, particularly amongst the students belonging to marginalised sections of society
and also amongst first generation learners,2 continue to be low.
In India, the Right to Education (RTE) Act provides free and compulsory education
up to elementary level, after which an individual has to cover the secondary education
expenses personally. Apart from the usual costs associated with education, such as
school fees, books, and uniforms, there is often an increase in transportation costs. It is
because the numbers of secondary schools are less than primary and middle schools.
Household expenditures on these school-related items are considerable even for
low socio-economic status families such as Scheduled Caste/tribes and low income
families and students attending government schools (Tilak 2002). In addition to
educational expenses, families also have to consider the high opportunity cost of
children attending secondary school. Children belonging to low-income families are
left with two choices viz. either attend school and forego the income which they
could have earned or drop out of the school to earn a living. Sometimes, a child’s
presence at home facilitates the employment of an older member of the household.
In addition to this, the proportion of public expenditure allocated to the secondary
education in India is much lower than that allocated to elementary education (Tilak
2003).3 Given the low levels of public investment in education, educational attain-
ment of an individual is mainly determined by parental investment, which is highly
dependent on the family’s economic status. Both the low level of public expen-
diture and the higher cost of secondary education intensify the burden on low-
income families as the child progresses from elementary to secondary education
and make it hard for children from poor and uneducated families to obtain a
secondary/higher secondary education. It adversely affects their ability to improve
their socio-economic status and keeps future earnings low (Becker 1964; Barro 2001;
Hanushek and Woessmann 2015). Therefore, it is quite important to examine the

1 In 2010, an estimated 98.5% of children were enrolled in primary schools as compared to 83.6%
a decade earlier. Not only have initial enrolments increased, but the proportion of children who
finished primary education has also risen from 71.5% in 2000 to 97.1% in 2009. However, less than
two-thirds of Indian children who were eligible to be enrolled in secondary school were actually
enrolled by 2010.
2 ‘The drop-out rate in Grades I–X continues to as high as 56.7% (56.6% for boys and 57.3% for

girls). In other words, only around 43 out of every 100 Grade I cohort survive up to Grade X
(Government of India 2008). Moreover, the drop-out rates of 68.4% for SCs and 76.9% for STs
in Grades I–X indicate a huge wastage of resources in school education in India’ (Biswal 2011,
pp. 14).
3 The proportional distribution of educational budget on secondary education by State and Central

government in India is 33.84% and 13.99%, respectively. The sector-wise proportional distribution
of educational budget in India is provided in Table 2 of the Appendix.
Tracking the Progress of a Child from Enrolment to Completion … 223

factors responsible for the high drop-out rate in secondary education in India. In
addition to this, it is also important to analyse the factors that affect the comple-
tion of secondary education of an individual after getting enrolled at this level of
education. Are students from disadvantaged backgrounds at a disadvantage even
when access to education is achieved? Alternatively, are there any other individual
or school-related factors that might be associated more or less with the progression
of an individual through the secondary level of education?
The existing literature (Haveman and Wolfe 1995; Buchmann and Hannum 2001;
Checchi 2006; Björklund and Salvanes 2011) indicates that family background,
mainly parental education and household economic resources, plays a crucial role in a
child’s educational attainment. Several studies in India have shown the persistence of
a large educational enrolment and attainment gap between rich and poor households
(Duraisamy 1998; Filmer and Pritchett 1999; Sengupta and Guha 2002; Srinivasan
2010). Many studies have found that belonging to ‘SC/ST’ and ‘Muslims’ groups
play an important role in determining the educational inequality in India (Borooah
2001; Sengupta and Guha 2002; Srinivasan 2010; Lewin 2011). The literature on
educational inequality in school education in India (which is limited to secondary
education) has mainly focussed on the factors affecting the enrolment of children.
Moreover, they have largely focussed on individual and household characteristics,
ignoring school-related factors and their interactions with individual and household
factors. Our study examines how in addition to family attributes, ‘learning activities’
and ‘access to school resources’ affect the progress of a child from enrolment to
completion of secondary and higher secondary school in India using India Human
Development Survey (IHDS) data. IHDS data is a nationally representative multi-
topic panel survey that has been conducted in 2004–05 and 2011–12. This panel
survey makes the data suitable for tracking the progress of a selected group of children
over time.
The paper is organised as follows: Section 2 is the brief review of literature
that discusses the studies related to the demand side and school-related factors
that affect the educational enrolment and attainment of an individual. Section 3
discusses the data and methodology used in the study, followed by empirical results.
The final section summarises the analysis of the study and suggests some policy
recommendations.

2 Literature Review

Despite the emphasis given by policy-makers, the literature on the causes behind low
completion rate in secondary schools in India is sparse. Researchers have studied the
effect of parental education, income and assets on different educational outcomes
by incorporating them separately or simultaneously. The research work of Nam and
Huang (2009), Huang et al. (2010), Kim and Sherraden (2011) and Huang (2013)
has found strong links between household assets and children’s educational attain-
ment. Parental endowments and economic resources can facilitate a child’s education
224 D. Kumar

directly and indirectly. Borrowing for education is easier with improved financial
status. Various studies, conducted in India, have found that children’s enrolment in
education is positively and significantly associated with the household’s economic
resources (Duraisamy 1998; Sengupta and Guha 2002; Srinivasan 2010). Using the
National Family Health Survey (1992–93) data, Filmer and Pritchett (1999) found
a large gap between the enrolment and attainment of children from rich and poor
households.
Several studies have found a positive relationship between the educational attain-
ment of parents and their children (Lillard and Willis 1994; Cameron and Heckman
1998; Behrman and Rosenzweig 2002; Maitra and Sharma 2009; Huang 2013).
Parents, with higher levels of educational attainment, have better access to financial,
social, and human capital as compared to those with lower educational attainment
(Conger and Donnellan 2007). Moreover, the highly educated parents can make better
choices for their children’s education as they are more informed about the benefits
and quality of education.
In India, caste and religious affiliation are also important factors that affect
the educational attainment of a child (Borooah 2001; Sengupta and Guha 2002;
Srinivasan 2010; Lewin 2011). Children belonging to ‘SC’ and ‘ST’ families have
lower school enrolment rates than children belonging to the upper caste (Filmer and
Pritchett 1998). Evidence of religious affiliation and its impact on education is also
available. A child’s enrolment in school is significantly associated with his or her
religion, and the enrolment rate varies by different religious groups (Borooah 2001;
Sengupta and Guha 2002; Srinivasan 2010). For example, Borooah (2001) found
that the children from Muslim households are less likely to be enrolled and continue
their school education as compared to their Hindu and Christian counterparts. Similar
results have been found by Sengupta and Guha (2002), and Srinivasan (2010).
There are limited studies on the supply-side intervention of different programs
that are initiated for retaining students in secondary schools in India. Higher cost with
the progression in schooling is the prime factor for dropping out of poor students as
the level of schooling increases. After controlling the factors affecting the enrolment
of a student, attending a private school is positively associated with the higher level
of student achievement (Kingdon 2007). Moreover, there exists a significant asso-
ciation between the accessibility of educational resources and the socio-economic
background of an individual (Duncan and Murnane 2011). Apart from this, the expan-
sion of private schools, with higher school fees, may continue to enlarge these gaps
in accessing educational resources and outcomes (Kingdon 2007).
A significant proportion of students takes private tutoring at the secondary educa-
tion level. NSSO (National Sample Survey Office), in its 2014 survey, reported that
37.8% boys and 34.7% girls were enrolled in private coaching centres at the level
of lower and higher secondary schooling (NSSO 2016, p. 98). The literature on
private tutoring in India (e.g. Aslam and Atherton 2013; Azam 2014; Majumdar
2014, 2018; Salovaara 2017) finds that private tutoring can compensate for the defi-
ciencies in mainstream education, but it may also contribute to inefficiencies (cited
in Bhorkar and Bray 2018, p. 149). A study conducted in Maharashtra region by
Bhorkar and Bray (2018) had shown that the high levels of reliance on coaching
Tracking the Progress of a Child from Enrolment to Completion … 225

classes for Board examinations of Class 10 reflect a belief of significant assistance

provided by the coaching classes in exam preparation. Coaching classes are seen as
supplementary to school teaching up to Class 10, but after Class 10, they are viewed
as more important. By using IHDS data, White et al. (2016), found that the time spent
on private tuitions has a strong positive association with the learning of a student
while the number of days absent in the school has a small negative association.
Previous research studies, reviewed in the above section, highlight persistent
educational inequalities based on gender, socio-economic factors such as caste and
religion, income, parental education, private educational expenditure, level of urban-
isation, etc. Building on the core concepts and the formal ground set by the above-
mentioned literature on school education, we take a leap forward and examine the
factors that affect the progress of a child from enrolment to completion of secondary
education in India. The socio-economic background of an individual, association
of individuals and household characteristics, school-related factors, ‘learning activ-
ities’ and ‘access to school resources’ are factors considered in our analysis. Given
the paucity of research on completion rates among enrolled students, this paper will
contribute significantly to secondary education literature in India. The previous liter-
ature shows quality and outcome differences across private and government schools
in India. Using previous literature on this issue as a reference point, we will also
examine if completion rates of secondary and higher secondary students differ across
the government and private school students in India.

3 Data and Methodology

3.1 Data and Sample of the Study

This study uses both rounds of India Human Development Survey (IHDS) data,
i.e. 2004–05 and 2011–12, for tracking the progress of a child from enrolment to
completion of secondary and higher secondary school in India. The IHDS is the
first household survey in which multiple topics on health, employment, education,
social networks, economic status, fertility, marriage, gender relations and social
capital were covered. IHDS (2004–05) is a nationally representative, multi-topic
survey of 215,754 individuals and 41,554 households in 1503 villages and 971 urban
neighbourhoods located in 33 States and Union Territories across India. In 2011–12,
each of these households, including split households,4 was re-interviewed using the
same questionnaire with a re-contact rate of 84% in IHDS-II. This tracking of cohorts
in IHDS-II makes the data suitable for studying the impact of family attributes on
educational attainment at different levels of schooling.

4 Split
households are those that got split from the parent household (in 2005) between the two
surveys time period and they were staying in different houses in 2011. See IHDS-II User’s Guide
for more information.
226 D. Kumar

We have considered only those children who were enrolled in secondary school
(9th and 10th class) in 2004–05 and who were also included in the 2011–12 survey.5
Looking at the 2004–05 IHDS data, a total of 6276 children aged 12–20 years were
enrolled in Classes 9 and 10. IHDS was able to track 3421 of these students in
2011–12. Ninety-four observations had to be excluded due to wrong reportage of the
outcome variable. It left us with a total of 3327 observations. Some other observations
were also excluded due to incomplete reportage6 of some variables. Our final sample
contains a total of 3143 observations.
The distribution of descriptive statistics across different variables for the initially
enrolled children sample and finally tracked children sample is given in Table 3 of
the Appendix. This table shows that distribution of both samples across rural/urban,
social group (caste/religion), type of school (government/private), the age of a child,
household assets, and private educational expenditure, etc. is similar but is different
for gender. This similarity in both samples makes the final targeted sample suitable
for our analysis.

3.2 Model and Design of the Study

The outcome variable that has been used in this study is the educational attainment
of an individual, as measured by completed years of schooling. This outcome vari-
able is divided into two different categories according to the two levels of secondary
education: secondary school completion (SSC), i.e. 10th class, and higher secondary
school completion (HSSC), i.e. 12th class. Two binary dependent variables have
been constructed for this study. For each of these two variables (i.e. Class 10 and
12), the outcome binary variable takes the value ‘1’ if the child has completed
that level of schooling in 2011–12, and ‘0’ otherwise. The outcome variable of
higher secondary school completion is conditioned on the premise that the child
has completed secondary school. Therefore, secondary school completion (SSC) is
measured by whether a child completed 10 or more years of schooling, and higher
secondary school completion (HSSC) by whether a child completed 12 years of
schooling. Due to the binary nature of the outcome variable, this study uses the logit
regression model7 to examine the association of individual and household charac-
teristics as well as ‘learning activities’ and the ‘access to school resources’ with
the probability of secondary and higher secondary school completion. This study
contains 6 logit regressions. Equations 1 and 2 consider the analysis of a full sample
for both secondary and higher secondary school completion. The logit model has

5 The majority of students enrolled in Classes 9 and 10 were aged 12–20 years. In order to avoid the

outlier problem, we have excluded students younger than 12 years or older than 20 years.
6 The total number of deleted observations due to missing values is 184, i.e. 5% of the final sample.
7 Under a logit model: P(Yi = 1)/1 − P(Yi = 1) = e(βˆXi) ⇒ P(Yi = 1) = e(βˆXi) /1 + e(βXi) =
F(β Xi), where: Xi {Xij, j = 1, …, J represents the vector of observations, for individual ‘i’ on ‘j’
variables, and β = βj, j = 1, …, J is the associated vector of coefficient estimates (Amemiya 1981;
Greene 2003).
Tracking the Progress of a Child from Enrolment to Completion … 227

also been estimated separately for the government, and private school samples as
the literature shows quality and outcome differences across private and government
schools. Equations 3 and 4 show the estimates of secondary school completion for
government and private school students, respectively. Similarly, Eqs. 5 and 6 give the
estimates of higher secondary school completion for government and private school
students, respectively.
The estimated coefficients of the independent variables in the ‘logit model’ help
in identifying the direction of the relationship with the dependent variable. These
estimates (depicting the directional relationship with the dependent variable) serve as
a basis for computing more meaningful statistics. Following Long and Freese (2006),
the logit coefficients have been used here to estimate the average marginal effects
and the predicted probabilities of SSC/HSSC for different groups. The predicted
probabilities of different groups across household assets have been presented in the
form of graphs by keeping all other model variables.
For examining the association of individual and household characteristics with the
probability of secondary and higher secondary school completion, we used predictors
such as gender, age of a child, whether the child belongs to an urban area or a rural
area, social group (caste/religion), household assets index as a proxy for long-term
economic resources, computer/internet usage by any household member, and parental
education of an individual. Economic theory suggests that family attributes affect
educational attainment with a lag (Nam and Huang 2009; Huang et al. 2010; Kim
and Sherraden 2011; Huang 2013). We have used the explanatory variables (except
the variable on ‘computer usage’) referring to 2004–05 to predict the completion of
SSC and HSSC in 2011–12.
To measure parental education, we take years of schooling completed by the
highest educated male or female adult (21+) in the household in 2004–05. To facilitate
analysis, we constructed a new variable by dividing years of schooling into four
categories, based on the different levels of education: illiterate or below primary (i.e.
less than four years of completed education), primary or upper primary (i.e. four to
nine years of completed education), secondary or higher secondary (i.e. 10–14 years
of completed education), graduate and post-graduate (i.e. 15 and more than 15 years
of completed education).
The IHDS has given us an asset index8 that we use to measure household assets.
The index value ranges from 1 to 30. An index value close to 1 indicates the poorest
households while 30 indicate the richest households. Research studies indicate that
family assets are a better indicator of long-term economic resources of a family as
compared to income (Nam and Huang 2009). Assets are more stable and also the
income or consumption of a family can change radically when the main income
earner of a household loses a job (Nam and Huang 2009).
For examining the disparities among caste and religion of an individual in SSC
or HSSC, this study uses the social group of an individual to which he/she belongs.

8 Thedata on ownership of resources as household asset index is available in IHDS 2004–05 that
contains data on different variables of goods and house owned by the household, and the quality of
housing. This index is based on the values of 36 different kinds of household assets like Pakka or
Kaccha house, TV, fridge, car, laptop/computer, and AC, etc.
228 D. Kumar

Thus, by using caste and religion variables from IHDS, the ‘social group’ vari-
able has been constructed for analysis of the issue under investigation. The ‘social
group’ variable consists of five categories: ‘upper caste Hindus and OMR’ (all other
minority religions such as Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists etc. except SC and ST of
these religions), ‘OBC Hindus’, ‘SC’ (all religion), ‘ST’ (all religion), and‘Muslims’
(upper caste and OBC Muslims).
The ‘access to school resources’ by a child has been analysed taking into account
the ‘type of school’, i.e. whether the child attended a government, private or another
type of school such as convent, etc., and ‘private educational expenditure’ on a
child. The private educational expenditure on a particular child includes school fees,
expenditure on books or uniforms, transport expenditure, and private tutoring fee.
Adding all the costs of education, the natural log of the total expenditure has been
used in the model. Tilak (2002) found that private household expenditures on school-
related items, such as books, uniforms and fees, are substantial even for low socio-
economic status families, such as Scheduled Castes/Tribes and low income families
and those attending government schools. To observe the effects of any assistance
provided by the government to the students, we use two more variables such as
whether a child has received ‘free uniform or books’ and ‘whether a child has received
any scholarship or not’. Both these variables have been included in the regression
analysis only for government schools.
The statistical analysis of learning activities includes the ‘private tuition hours per
week’, and ‘number of days absent last month’. Several research studies have pointed
out that the use of a computer at home or school is positively associated with the
academic performance and learning of students at different levels of school education
(Battle 1999; Kerawalla and Crook 2002; Lee et al. 2009). Lee et al. (2009), in their
study, have stated that even after controlling for a family’s socio-economic status
computer access at home and its usage is positively associated with the test scores
of a child in mathematics and reading. But, the information on computer usage by a
child is not available in IHDS data. Therefore, the ‘computer/internet usage’ by any
member of the household has been included in the model.
Other individual specific variables that have been included in the study are the
gender of the child, age of the child which ranges from 12 to 20 years, and whether
a child has ever repeated a class or not. This study also tried to takes into account
‘the distance of the school from home’ and ‘medium of instruction in the school’.
However, both the variables mentioned above are statistically insignificant in every
regression equation of our study. It may be because post-enrolment in secondary
school, the distance effect is offset by other considerations and ceases to make of
the school does not make a significant difference in the completion of education.
We have, therefore, dropped these variables in the final model. The denotation and
definition of all variables are provided in Table 4 of the Appendix.
Tracking the Progress of a Child from Enrolment to Completion … 229

4 Empirical Results

For exploring the determinants of secondary and higher secondary school completion
in India, the marginal effects and predicted probabilities are estimated by using the
logit regression model. Table 1 provides the average marginal effects of the explana-
tory variables that affect the probability of an individual completing secondary
schooling (SSC), and higher secondary schooling (HSSC), based on the condition
of secondary school completion. Most of the predictors are significantly associated
with the probability of completing both levels of education.
Table 1 shows that the likelihood of completion is significantly associated with the
gender of an individual at both levels of schooling. The marginal effects show that the
probabilities of completion are 6.2% and 9.86% higher for females as compared to
males at SSC and HSSC, respectively. This finding is consistent with results obtained
by Maitra (2003), who found that the level of grade attained is higher for female
children as compared to male children. The probability of completing both SSC and
HSSC decreases with increase in the age of a student. It shows that students, whose
age is above the standard age of schooling, have lower chances of completing SSC and
HSSC. The students residing in rural areas have a higher probability of completing
secondary school. However, there is no statistically significant difference between a
rural and an urban areas in completing higher secondary school. This finding is not
consistent with the previous studies.
In our analysis, children whose parents are ‘illiterate or below primary level’ have
been taken as the base category. For both SSC and HSSC, the results show that the
probability of completion increases with the change in the level of parental education
from ‘illiterate or below primary level’ to ‘secondary or higher secondary level’ and
‘graduate or above level’. For instance, the chances of completion are 7.33% and
9.19% higher for SSC and HSSC respectively for those individuals whose parents
have attained ‘graduate or above’ level of education as compared to ‘illiterate or
below primary’. This finding is consistent with previous research, both at interna-
tional and national levels, which found that parental education is highly associated
with children’s educational attainment (Lillard and Willis 1994; Haveman and Wolfe
1995; Buchmann and Hannum 2001; Maitra 2003; Maitra and Sharma 2009; Björk-
lund and Salvanes 2011). However, there is no statistical difference in the chances
of completion as the parental education changes from ‘illiterate or below primary’
to ‘primary or upper primary’ at both levels of education.
In analysing the effect of the economic status of the family, we found that the
economic resources possessed by the family are positively and statistically signifi-
cantly associated with the completion of SSC and HSSC. The likelihood of comple-
tion increases by 0.42% and 0.64% with a one unit increase in the household asset
index for SSC and HSSC, respectively. It supports the hypothesis that higher levels
of education are more sensitive to household asset levels. Consistent with the Kim
and Sherraden (2011) study, this study also found that household assets have a direct
positive relationship with the progress of schooling.
230 D. Kumar

Table 1 Logit estimates (Average marginal effects) of secondary and higher secondary school
completion (All)
Explanatory variables (average marginal effects) SSC (Full sample) HSSC (Eligible sample)
Female (Ref.—male) 0.0620*** 0.0986***
(0.0127) (0.0160)
Age −0.00853** −0.0192***
(0.00390) (0.00519)
Urban (Ref.—rural) −0.0393** 0.0155
(0.0161) (0.0180)
Household Assets Index 0.00424*** 0.00644***
(0.00154) (0.00181)
Social Group (Ref.—UC Hindus & OMR)
OBC Hindus −0.0335** 0.0236
(0.0157) (0.0190)
SCs −0.0389** −0.00481
(0.0177) (0.0224)
STs −0.0422 −0.00903
(0.0267) (0.0360)
Muslims −0.0656*** −0.0237
(0.0223) (0.0279)
Parental Education (Ref.—Illiterate)
Primary or Upper Primary 0.00875 0.0223
(0.0163) (0.0233)
Secondary or Higher Secondary 0.0439** 0.0404*
(0.0173) (0.0242)
Graduate or Above 0.0733*** 0.0919***
(0.0241) (0.0301)
Type of School (Ref.—Govt. & Govt.-Aided)
Private School 0.0408*** 0.0337*
(0.0152) (0.0192)
Other type of school 0.0591** 0.0523*
(0.0239) (0.0293)
PTHPW 0.00361*** 0.00144
(0.00139) (0.00150)
DAPM −0.000973 0.00181
(0.000987) (0.00145)
ln (PEE) 0.0150*** 0.000374
(0.00505) (0.00826)
Ever repeat (Ref.—No) −0.0433*** −0.0268
(continued)
Tracking the Progress of a Child from Enrolment to Completion … 231

Table 1 (continued)
Explanatory variables (average marginal effects) SSC (Full sample) HSSC (Eligible sample)
(0.0160) (0.0216)
Use computer (Ref.−No) 0.199*** 0.229***
(0.0112) (0.0165)
Log pseudo-likelihood −1069.48 −1195.68
Pseudo-R2 0.21 0.17
Observations 3143 2654
Standard errors in parentheses; Ref. is the reference category of a categorical variable; ***p < 0.01,
**p < 0.05, *p < 0.1

Social group analysis is done using ‘upper caste Hindus and OMR’ category as
the base category. In case of SSC, we find that the chances of completion are signifi-
cantly lower for all the socially disadvantaged groups such as ‘OBC Hindus’, ‘SCs’
and ‘Muslims’ as compared to ‘upper caste Hindus and OMR’. We also find that
‘Muslim’ students have the lowest chances of secondary school completion. This
finding is consistent with previous research studies, which were based on Indian
Sample (Filmer and Pritchett 1999; Borooah 2001; Sengupta and Guha 2002; Srini-
vasan 2010). Lewin (2011) found that educational attainment is higher for children
who belong to Hindus families as compared to those from Muslim families. He also
found that within Hindus families, the children from Scheduled Caste and Scheduled
Tribe families have the lowest educational attainment.
In the case of HSSC, the estimated results show that there is no statistically signif-
icant difference between ‘upper caste Hindus and OMR’ and all other social groups.
It means that that being a Muslim and belonging to a backward caste in India acts as
a barrier in secondary school completion even after accessing the secondary school.
However, once students completed secondary school, caste and religion of an indi-
vidual did not make a significant difference in higher secondary school completion. It
indicates that the major barrier for students from the marginalised sections of society
comes up during secondary school. Government policies for marginalised sections
of the society should focus on this transition level of education and provide help to
these students so that they can complete their secondary education.9
We find that the students studying in private and ‘other types of schools’ have
higher chances of completing both (secondary and higher secondary) levels of
schooling. For instance, the probability of completion is 4.08% and 3.37% higher for
SSC and HSSC respectively for those students who had studied in private schools
as compared to government schools. The private educational expenditure variable
shows that the likelihood of secondary school completion increases by 1.5% with
every one percent increase in the educational expenditure on a child. However, this
is not significantly associated with higher secondary school completion.

9 This might be possible that the 10th class Board exam is the first Board exam that has to be cleared

by an individual, where most of the marginalised sections’ students are lagging behind as compared
to advantaged groups of the society, if they want to go for higher secondary level of schooling.
232 D. Kumar

The time spent by a child for private tuition leads to an increase in the probability of
secondary school completion by 0.36%, with every one hour increase in the time spent
on tuition per week. Again, it is not significantly associated with higher secondary
school completion. The ‘number of days absent in last month’ is not significantly
associated with secondary and higher secondary school completion. Students, who
have repeated a class, have lower chances of secondary school completion, but it does
not make a significant difference in higher secondary school completion. Comple-
tion probabilities are 19.9% and 22.9% higher for SSC and HSSC, respectively, for
students whose any household member uses computers vis-a-vis those who do not
use computers. Lee et al. (2009) also found that the use of a computer is positively
associated with the academic performance of students in secondary education even
after controlling for family’s socio-economic status.

4.1 Predicted Probabilities of Secondary and Higher

Secondary School Completion

Graphs 1 and 2 present the predicted probabilities of secondary and higher secondary
school completion, respectively, by a child’s parental educational levels at different
levels of household assets of an individual, keeping all other variables constant. The
predicted probabilities have been calculated after estimating the logit coefficients.
Both these graphs of predicted probabilities show that the students, whose parental
education is ‘graduate or above’, have the highest chances of completing both levels
of education, across the complete range of household assets, followed by those whose
parents have ‘secondary or higher secondary’ level of education. Both the graphs
also show that the probabilities of completion increase with the increase in the level

Probabilities of Secondary School Completion across HH Assets

.95
.9
Pr(SSC=1)
.85
.8
.75

0 10 20 30
HH Assets Index
Illiterate Primary or UP
Secondary or HS Graduate or Above

Graph 1 Predicted probabilities of SSC (10th) by parental education and household assets
Tracking the Progress of a Child from Enrolment to Completion … 233

Probabilities of Higher Secondary School Completion across HH Assets

.9
Pr(HSSC=1)
.8
.7
.6

0 10 20 30
HH Assets Index
Illiterate Primary or UP
Secondary or HS Graduate or Above

Graph 2 Predicted probabilities of HSSC (12th) by parental education and household assets

of household assets. Moreover, the gap between the predicted probability curves,
depicting parental education level, is decreasing with the increase in the value of
household assets index from 1 to 30, and this is lowest at the highest level of household
assets. Clearly, parental education and household assets act as substitutes in some
ranges.
To analyse the existence of a class effect within a particular caste/religion, we
have calculated the predicted probabilities of different social groups at different
levels of household assets as shown in Graphs 3 and 4. From the results shown
in Graph 3, it may be noticed that the predicted probabilities curve for ‘upper caste
Hindus and OMR’ children is the highest and the lowest is for Muslims. Moreover,
the gap between ‘upper caste Hindus and OMR’ children’s curve and those of other

Probabilities of Secondary School Completion across SGs

.95
.9
Pr(SSC=1)
.85
.8
.75

0 10 20 30
HH Assets Index
UC Hindu & OMR OBCs
SCs STs
Muslims

Graph 3 Predicted probabilities of SSC (10th) by social groups and household assets
234 D. Kumar

Probabilities of Higher Secondary School Completion across SG

.9
.85
Pr(HSSC=1)
.8
.75
.7
.65

0 10 20 30
HH Assets Index
UC Hindu & OMR OBCs
SCs STs
Muslims

Graph 4 Predicted probabilities of HSSC (12th) by social groups and household assets

social groups is huge. It shows that ‘upper caste Hindus and OMR’ children have
the highest chances of secondary school completion. However, for higher secondary
school completion there is not much difference in the predicted probabilities curves
of different social groups as shown in Graph 4. These graphs also show that the gap
between the predicted probabilities curves by different social groups decreases with
an increase in the value of household assets. These results indicate that caste/religion
barrier to secondary educational attainment for disadvantaged groups, such as ‘SC/ST
and Muslims’, is linked to their economic status, and reducing poverty will improve
their chances of higher educational attainment. In short, lack of economic resources
is the major factor preventing students from completing SSC and HSSC.

4.2 Results for SSC and HSSC Completion

in the Government and Private Schools

Table 5 in the Appendix gives the marginal effects of the explanatory variables that
are associated with the probability of a student completing secondary and higher
secondary schooling for government and private schools students separately. The
estimated results show that the probability of completing secondary and higher
secondary level of education is higher for females as compared to males in both
private and government schools. In addition to this, the magnitude of the marginal
effect of being a female is higher in government schools relatively to private schools
at both levels of schooling.
Apart from this, the separate analysis of government and private school students
shows that the household assets are significantly associated with completion of both
secondary and higher secondary levels of education by government school students
while they do not make a significant difference in the case of private school students.
Tracking the Progress of a Child from Enrolment to Completion … 235

Moreover, we can also infer that there is a significant association between social
groups and private tuition hours in government schools only at the level of secondary
school completion. In all other cases, they do not make a significant difference. A
student, who uses the computer for learning, has higher chances of completion of
(secondary and higher secondary education) in both government and private schools
but the magnitude of the marginal effect (of using a computer) is relatively higher for
a student of a government school than the student of a private school at both levels
of schooling.
In addition to these factors, this study has also taken into account two more factors
in the government school sample: whether a child received ‘free books or uniform’
and a ‘scholarship’. We find that the ‘free books or uniform’ received by a child
are not significantly associated with either level of completion. However, if a child
receives a scholarship, the probability of completion increases.
Graph 5 presents the predicted probabilities of secondary and higher secondary
school completion by government and private school students across household assets
of an individual, keeping all other variables constant. We see that private school
students have higher probabilities of completion as compared to government school
students for both levels of education. The predicted probability curves at both levels of
education show that the marginal effects of increasing household assets are greater
for government school students, particularly for higher secondary completion, as
compared to private school students. It is because the probability curve of government
school students has a higher slope than that of their private counterparts.

Probabilities of SSC and HSSC by Govt. and Pvt. Schools

1
Pr(SSC or HSSC=1)
.9
.8
.7
.6

0 10 20 30
HH Assets Index
Government (SSC) Private (SSC)
Government (HSSC) Private (HSSC)

Graph 5 Predicted probabilities of SSC and HSSC by the government and private school children
across household assets
236 D. Kumar

5 Conclusion and Policy Recommendations

In the presence of a low public investment in education, educational attainment of an

individual is mainly determined by parental investment which is highly dependent on
the family’s economic status. In the Indian case, the proportion of public expenditure
allocated to secondary education is much lower than that allocated to elementary
education, making the burden on the poor and uneducated families high.
We have focussed on the factors associated with secondary and higher secondary
education completion after the accessibility of secondary education by a child. In
particular, we have examined the impact of factors like ‘learning activities’ and
‘access to school resources’ on the progress of a child from enrolment to completion
of secondary and higher secondary schools in India. We have also conducted sepa-
rate analysis for government and private schools students in secondary and higher
secondary schools.
The biggest factors influencing completion of secondary and higher secondary
school by a student are household assets and parental educational attainment. The
chances of completing both levels of schooling (secondary and higher secondary)
increase with the increase in the level of household assets and the level of parental
education. The association of both household assets and parental education becomes
greater with the progress in the level of schooling from secondary to higher secondary.
We also found that parental education and household assets act as substitutes for each
other within a fairly broad band. The marginal impact of both the factors, particularly
household assets, is higher for girls as compared to boys.
An interesting result, relating to the association of caste/religion of an individual
with their educational attainment, has been found in this study. We find that the major
hurdle for the marginalised sections of the society such as ‘SC/ST and Muslims’
crops up at the secondary school stage, particularly in government schools. Once
this hurdle is cleared, there is no significant effect of caste/religion of an individual
in completing the higher secondary level of schooling. We also found that the class
effect is more important than the caste effect in determining educational inequality
among the children. Therefore, the government policies for marginalised sections of
the society should focus on secondary or below secondary schools because most of the
children from marginalised sections are not able to complete their secondary school
education.10 The National Commission to review the working of the Constitution
(NCRWC 2002), suggested incorporating the right to free education (as a part of
Article 21A) for members of SC and ST community until they attain the age of
18 years. But this provision has also not been implemented till now.
The results of this study also reflect that male students, enrolled in private schools,
have significantly higher chances, compared to their counterparts in government

10 Most recent debate in case of Delhi government schools analysed that public schools are

performing better than private schools in Class 12 results with passing rate of 90%. However,
the Delhi government schools’ data also shows that more than 40% of the students dropped out
before completing 9th or 10th class. Source: https://www.newslaundry.com/2018/06/09/delhi-gov
ernment-schools-print-filtering-students-aam-aadmi-party
Tracking the Progress of a Child from Enrolment to Completion … 237

Table 2 Sector-wise public expenditure on education of the Education Department (Revenue

Account) for the year 2012–13 (actual)
Different sectors of education States & UTs (%) Centre (%)
Elementary education 50.00 54.37
Secondary education 33.84 13.99
Adult education 0.21 0.71
University & higher education 11.25 17.32
Technical education 2.87 12.88
Others 1.83 0.77
Source Analysis of Budget Expenditure on Education 2012–13 to 2014–15 (MHRD)

schools, for both levels of secondary and higher secondary school completion.
However, no significant statistical difference was found regarding completion of
secondary education for females, whether they studied in private or government
schools. Apart from this, we found that easing of financial constraints, by increasing
private educational spending (for private school students or by the provision of schol-
arships to students in government schools), improves chances of completion of higher
secondary school. Aid in the form of free books or uniforms does not have this effect.
It suggests that the State should focus on monetary aid rather than aid in kind.
We also found that girls have higher chances of completing secondary educa-
tion as compared to boys once both get enrolled/reach the secondary education. It
suggests that government policies and programs should target girl children during the
transition from middle to secondary school, specifically to reduce gender inequality
in education.

Appendix

See Tables 2, 3, 4 and 5.

238 D. Kumar

Table 3 Comparison of descriptive statistics for both the ‘final study sample’ and ‘total enrolled
children in secondary schools (9th and 10th class) in 2004–05’
Categorical variables Description Study sample (In %) Total (In %)
Gender Male 66.25 54.7
Female 33.75 45.3
Location Rural 60.41 61.65
Urban 39.59 38.35
Social group UC Hindus & OMR 29.89 30.48
OBC 33.26 33.99
SC 20.2 18.16
ST 5.51 6.87
Muslim 11.14 10.5
Type of school Government 68.23 68.71
Private 26.03 25.3
Others (Convent etc.) 5.74 5.99
Highest adult (21+) Illiterate or BP 18.85 18.42
Education Primary or UP 33.66 34
Secondary or HS 33.15 32.3
Graduate 14.34 15.28
Total observations 3327 6276
Other variables Description Mean Mean
Household assets index Assets 14.15 14.16
Age of student Age 15.18 15.24
Private tuition hours PTHPW 2.95 2.89
Days absent in a month DAPM 2.52 2.57
ln (PEE) PEE 7.47 7.45

Table 4 Notation and definition of variables

Name of variables Description Definition of variables
Level of education ‘SSC’ or 1, if an Individual has completed Secondary (10th
Class)
Completed ‘HSSC’ or Higher Secondary (12th Class) level of Schooling
0, otherwise
Gender Male 0, if an individual is male
Female 1, if an individual is female
Location Urban 1, if an individual resides in an urban area
(continued)
Tracking the Progress of a Child from Enrolment to Completion … 239

Table 4 (continued)
Name of variables Description Definition of variables
Rural 0, if an individual resides in a rural area
Social group UC Hindus 1, if an Individual is upper caste Hindu or other
minority
& OMR Religion such as Christian, Sikh, Jain, etc. except SC
& ST
OBCs 2, if an Individual is OBC Hindu
SCs 3, if an Individual is SC
STs 4, if an Individual is ST
Muslims 5, if an Individual is Muslim
Type of School Government or 1, if an individual has studied in government or
Government-Aided government-aided school
Private 2, if an individual has studied in private school
Others 3, if an individual has studied in another type of
school
Highest Adult (21+) Illiterate or BP 1, if the HH is illiterate or below the primary
Education (HH) Primary or UP 2, if the HH has completed primary or upper primary
Secondary or HS 3, if the HH has completed secondary or
Higher secondary level of education
Graduate 4, if the HH is graduate or above graduate
HH assets index Assets This index is made from 33 different household
assets
Uses computer Yes 1, if an individual hh member uses a computer
No 0, otherwise
Ever repeated Yes 1, if an individual has ever repeated a class
No 0, otherwise
Age of student Age Age of the student
Private tuition PTHPW Time spending at private tuition (total hours/week)
Absenteeism DAPM No. of days absent in last month (Days/month)
Private educational ln (PEE) Household expenditure on the education of a child
Expenditure (PEE) (In Rupees) (School fee or private tuition fee or
Books/Bus/Uniform)
Note SSC secondary school completion; HSSC higher secondary school completion; UC upper
caste; OBC Other backward caste; SC schedule caste; ST schedule tribe; PTHPW private tuition
hours per week (In last week); DAPM days absent per month (In last month); ln (PEE) is natural
log of private educational expenditure on a child
240 D. Kumar

Table 5 Logit Estimates (Average marginal effects) of SSC and HSSC by the government and
private school samples
Variables (marginal SSC government SSC private HSSC government HSSC private
effects)
Female (Ref.—male) 0.0762*** 0.0390** 0.103*** 0.0632**
(0.0168) (0.0193) (0.0213) (0.0260)
Age −0.0110** −0.00464 −0.0172** −0.0305***
(0.00544) (0.00525) (0.00701) (0.00829)
Urban (Ref.—rural) −0.0339 −0.0557** 0.0562** −0.0219
(0.0217) (0.0238) (0.0238) (0.0289)
Household Assets index 0.00346 0.00243 0.00945*** 0.000402
(0.00214) (0.00214) (0.00249) (0.00283)
OBC (UC Hindus & −0.0424** −0.0347 −0.00735 0.0582**
OMR) (0.0205) (0.0251) (0.0253) (0.0290)
SC −0.0749*** 0.0341 −0.0163 −0.0248
(0.0242) (0.0254) (0.0296) (0.0393)
ST −0.0716** 0.0311 −0.0564 0.0567
(0.0357) (0.0355) (0.0473) (0.0500)
Muslims −0.117*** 0.0275 −0.00105 −0.0582
(0.0309) (0.0274) (0.0383) (0.0410)
Primary or UP 0.00944 0.0272 0.0220 0.0659
(Ref.—illiterate) (0.0210) (0.0306) (0.0286) (0.0498)
Secondary or HS 0.0407* 0.0679** 0.0116 0.117**
(0.0226) (0.0312) (0.0306) (0.0499)
Graduate 0.0919*** 0.0653* 0.0899** 0.123**
(0.0324) (0.0371) (0.0406) (0.0561)
PTHPW 0.00457** 0.00288 0.00246 −0.000466
(0.00181) (0.00213) (0.00207) (0.00200)
DAPM −0.00140 1.93e−05 0.00116 0.00118
(0.00135) (0.00137) (0.00190) (0.00284)
ln (PEE) 0.0210*** 0.0125*** −0.00478 0.0212**
(0.00736) (0.00469) (0.0105) (0.00908)
Ever Repeat a Grade −0.0417** −0.0738** −0.0246 −0.0358
(Ref.—No) (0.0209) (0.0306) (0.0273) (0.0392)
Use Computer 0.224*** 0.141*** 0.249*** 0.173***
(Ref.—No) (0.0142) (0.0218) (0.0206) (0.0310)
Free Books or Uniform 0.0254 – 0.00570 –
(Ref.—No) (0.0182) – (0.0233) –
(continued)
Tracking the Progress of a Child from Enrolment to Completion … 241

Table 5 (continued)
Variables (marginal SSC government SSC private HSSC government HSSC private
effects)
Scholarship (Ref.—No) −0.0239 – 0.0577** –
(0.0229) – (0.0284) –
Log pseudo-likelihood −816.84 −166.41 −826.51 −264.66
Pseudo-R2 0.19 0.29 0.16 0.19
Observations 2078 820 1688 752
Standard errors in parentheses; ***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.1

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Socio-Economic Determinants
of Secondary Education in India

Susmita Mitra

1 Introduction

Secondary education is a decisive stage in the educational pyramid and an effective

link between elementary and higher education. Secondary education consolidates the
gains received from elementary education and provides relevant skills for the labour
market, in order to lift people from below poverty line in a sustainable manner. It has
the potential to be a major instrument of social change—in raising economic growth,
improving income distribution, reducing poverty and improving human development.
Realising the importance of secondary education, the Sustainable Development Goal
(SDG) 4 included universalisation of secondary education by 2030, as a logical
extension to the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of achieving universalisation
of primary education.
Unfortunately, even after various international initiatives and national planning
of individual countries, there are millions of children who are out of school. Youths
have higher probability to be out of school compared to children of primary school
age due to poverty and a variety of other reasons (UIS Fact Sheet No. 48, 2018).
South Asia, alone, has half of the out-of-school youths (15–17 years) of the world.
More than one-fourth of South Asia’s out-of-school youths live in India. The number
of out-of-school youths in India alone is higher than that of entire East and Southeast
Asia (Table 1).
Out-of-school youth is an unfortunate current phenomenon for India, because if
we look back to the history of Indian education system, then 12 years of education was
considered as basic education (from age 6 to 18 years). Throughout those 12 years,
students had to stay at the residence of the parent-like teacher called Guru. With
such a strong foundation of basic education, India’s higher education was renowned

S. Mitra (B)
Council for Social Development, Sangha Rachana, 53 Lodi Estate, K.K. Birla Lane, New Delhi
110003, India
e-mail: [email protected]

© Council for Social Development 2020 245

J. B. G Tilak (ed.), Universal Secondary Education in India,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5366-0_11
246 S. Mitra

Table 1 Out-of-school youth (15–17 years) in India and different parts of the World
Region Out of school number (millions)
Total Boys Girls
Europe and Northern America 2.8 1.5 1.3
Latin America and the Caribbean 6.9 3.6 3.3
Central Asia 0.5 0.3 0.3
Southern Asia 67.3 34.4 32.9
Eastern and Southeastern Asia 15.8 9.9 5.9
Northern Africa and Western Asia 8.8 4.2 4.6
Sub-Saharan Africa 35.8 17 18.9
Oceania 0.5 0.3 0.2
World 138.5 71.1 67.4
India 17.8 9.3 8.4
Source UIS Fact Sheet No. 48, (2018) and NSSO (2014) for India

worldwide, and several foreign students used to come to India to acquire higher
education (Singh 2017). Unfortunately, the glorious higher education system was
completely dismantled by the time the British came to India. However, the primary
level indigenous education was well spread in the entire country (Dharampal 1983).
British rulers adopted the downward filtration theory of education, citing the logic of
availability of limited resources for this purpose. They found it convenient to educate
the upper classes in order to fulfil the requirement of English-knowing employees to
run the commerce and administration and leave it to them to spread elementary educa-
tion among the masses. Although some universities were established (e.g. Calcutta,
Madras and Bombay), no such attention was attached to intermediate secondary
education.
In post-Independence India, the Constitution promised universal education up to
the age of 14 years within a period of 10 years of its commencement. Meanwhile,
there were commissions on higher and secondary education, perhaps presuming
that the Constitution had taken ample care of elementary education. However, over
the period, this simple target was prioritised, re-prioritised but never achieved. In
2010, the Right to Education (RTE) Act came into effect mandating that all children,
within the age groups 6–14 years, would receive free and compulsory education. This
development resulted in rapid progress in universal elementary education. Sarva
Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) has been the main vehicle to achieve the target. On the
lines of SSA, the Government of India has also launched Rashtriya Madhyamik
Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA), with the objective of universalising secondary education.
Recognising the linkages between elementary and secondary education, the Central
Advisory Board of Education has also recommended integration of SSA and RMSA,
with the government launching the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan recently.
In this background and context, the present paper explores the socio-economic
determinants of secondary school attainment (15–18 years) in India on the basis of
Socio-Economic Determinants of Secondary Education in India 247

data from 71st round survey (2014–15) of the National Sample Survey Organisation
(NSSO).
Theoretically, children between the age group of 15 to 18 years are supposed
to be in secondary and senior secondary school education, covering, classes IX,
X, XI and XII. If children of this age group are out of school, then it acts as a
deterrent to universalisation of secondary (including senior secondary) education.
Out-of-secondary-school children are an under-researched phenomenon although
the problem is prevalent. Earlier, Chakrabarti (2009) undertook a similar work using
NSSO 52nd round data (1995–96), though it was for the entire higher education
(age group 15–24 years). She found that students from SC and ST backgrounds had
lower probability of attending higher education compared to upper castes. Similarly,
chances of girls having higher education were lower than that of boys. Rising cost of
higher education was found to have a significant detrimental impact on the likelihood
of participation in higher education. Based on 68th round of NSSO data (2011–12),
Pramanik (2015) studied the socio-economic determinants of higher education (age
group 18–29 years). She found that parental education and family income have a
direct effect on an individual’s propensity to participate in higher education. In terms
of social group and gender, her findings were in line with that of Chakrabarti (2009).
This paper departs from these earlier studies in many aspects. It considers
secondary school education (15–18 years) in the background of universalisation
of secondary education, whereas earlier studies focussed on higher education. These
earlier studies delved into family characteristics only, while this paper goes beyond
and builds a holistic conceptual framework, and include distance to nearest school,
thanks to NSS recent version data set of 71st round (2014). This paper adds value to
the existing literature by analysing both demand and supply-side determinants.

2 Theoretical and Conceptual Framework Based

on the Existing Literature

Human capital approach, based on instrumental value of education, (Schultz 1960,

1961; Becker 1964) is the theoretical foundation for demand-side analysis, i.e.
economic logic behind household’s preference for schooling of the child in order
to maximise the lifetime wealth. People invest, and if they are poor, they take loans
to invest in education. It is just seen as an individual gain from individual invest-
ment. However, if we consider endogenous growth theory, based on this human
capital approach (Romer 1990; Lucas 1988) and diverse empirical evidence of signifi-
cant returns to education on economic development (Gounden 1965; Psacharopoulos
1994; Barro and Lee 2013), then the question that arises is that if a country is growing
due to investment in education, should poor people take loan for this investment or
is it the duty of the nation?
248 S. Mitra

Theories based on intrinsic value of education like capability theory, social posi-
tive externality on education and the recent right-based approach provide strong theo-
retical foundation for the role of government in supplying/providing free universal
education (Sen 1988; Dreze and Sen 1996; Tilak 2004; Singh 2014). The supply-
side theoretical foundation is closely interlinked with demand-side factors as well,
particularly in poor developing countries, due to information asymmetries. Parents,
with little or no education, often do not realise the benefits of investing in education
of their children, even when the private rate of return is high (Boissiere 2004). For
example, even after numerous studies have established the benefits of education,
particularly for girls (surveyed in Sperling and Winthrop 2015), there is still gender
discrimination in education in many developing countries.
On the basis of survey of the existing literature, conceptually, the following can
be noted as the socio-economic determinants of school enrolment, retention or drop-
out in education:

2.1 Individual Factors

(a) Age (Colclough et al. 2000; Cardoso and Verner 2006; Rumberger and Lim
2008; Manandhar and Sthapit 2012). Older teenagers are more likely to give up
school, mainly because their opportunity costs increase with age.
(b) Gender (Al-Samarrai and Peasgood 1998; Kingdon 2002; Tansel 2002; Khan
and Ali 2005; Lloyd et al. 2005; Rammohan and Dancer 2008; Rumberger
and Lim 2008; Chakrabarti 2009; Mucee et al. 2014). Education of boys is
often given priority over girls. Moreover, the gendered division of labour within
households often sees girls taking on household duties and care of younger
siblings, which often keep them out of school.
(c) Non-interest in education/indifferent attitude towards education
(Rumberger and Lim 2008; Chugh 2011). However, according to (Chugh
2011), disinterest in studies is closely related to school and educational quality
in terms of infrastructural facilities, teachers’ preparedness and curriculum
relevance.
(d) Work involvement/child labour with or without payment (Khanam 2008;
Cardoso and Verner 2006; Hunt 2008; Rumberger and Lim 2008; Mucee et al.
2014; Nekongo-Nielsen et al. 2015). The most prevalent types of child labour
appear to be domestic and household-related duties (girls) and agricultural
labour (boys), which are, for the most part, unpaid, under-recognised and take
up substantial amounts of time.
(e) Poor academic achievements (Rumberger and Lim 2008; Hanushek et al.
2008; Chugh 2011). However, although it is an individual factor, it is closely
related to classroom teaching, parent’s education and poverty. If students are
not able to comprehend classroom teaching, are unable to get parental support
in doing homework and also not able to afford private tuitions due to financial
Socio-Economic Determinants of Secondary Education in India 249

constraints, then lack of interest in education and poor academic achievements

are the obvious consequences.
(f) Disability (Thurlow et al. 2002). Lack of proper infrastructure in schools and
considering disability a social taboo, often keep children out of school.

2.2 Household-level factors

(a) Education of parents, particularly mothers (Al-Samarrai and Peasgood 1998;

Jayachandran 2002; Tansel 2002; Khanam 2008; Okumu et al. 2016; Rumberger
and Lim 2008; Zhao and Glewwe 2010; Mueni 2015; Mike et al. 2008; Iddrisu
et al. 2017; Dostie and Jayaraman 2006; Khan and Ali 2005; Hati and Majumdar
2012; Nekongo-Nielsen et al. 2015; Pramanik 2015; Damas 2016). Educated
parents understand the importance of achieving education and, thus, would
be more willing to send their children to schools compared to parents with
little or no education. Educated parents are also more equipped to evaluate the
investment in human capital that would increase the wage expectations for their
children.
(b) Financial or capacity/household income/wealth of family (Tilak
2002a; Jayachandran 2002; Ranasinghe and Hartog 2002; Tansel 2002;
Khan and Ali 2005; Dostie and Jayaraman 2006; Rumberger and Lim 2008;
Chakrabarti 2009; Zhao and Glewwe 2010; Chugh 2011; Hati and Majumdar
2012; Mueni 2015; Nekongo-Nielsen et al. 2015; Pramanik 2015; Kainuwa
et al. 2017; Iddrisu et al. 2017). Education entails a range of costs like school
fees, uniforms, travel and also the opportunity costs of sending a child to school
(Tilak 2002b ; Mike et al. 2008; Hunt 2008; Guntur and Lobo 2017).
(c) Female work participation (Jayachandran 2002). If mothers are going to work,
very often the elder children look after younger siblings and domestic chores.
(d) Orphanhood (Bicego et al. 2003; Hunter and May 2003; Hunt 2008). Death
of parents has direct adverse effect on schooling, particularly for poor children.
Death of mother increases the domestic workload, whereas death of single-
earning father is often linked to an increased likelihood of poverty and child
labour.
(e) Household’s perceived benefits of schooling (Al Samarrai and Peasgood 1998;
Hunt 2008). Perceived benefits to the household from education depend on a
variety of factors, including prospective remittances, likelihood of obtaining
paid work in the present as well in the future. Therefore, it can have either
positive or negative effect on children’s schooling.
(f) Reluctance and lack of support towards a child’s education by parents
(Juneja 2001). This lack of interest in the child’s schooling is cited as an
important factor in dropping out or infrequent attendance.
250 S. Mitra

2.3 Community/social infrastructure/social context-level

factors

(a) Public expenditure on education, particularly on development of schools

(Glewwe and Ilias 1996; Duflo 2001; Handa 2002; Handa and Simler 2006;
Bhakta 2015). Building new schools with public expenditure has significant
positive impacts on schooling, especially for countries where level of school
and other public infrastructure is deficient.
(b) Common economic factors like gross state domestic product (GSDP) for
macro-level studies/village development variables for micro-level studies
(Dostie and Jayaraman 2006; Bhakta 2015). It is generally expected that more
income or more funds for development will be reflected in more schools or other
educational infrastructure.
(c) Caste and other form of social discrimination (Dostie and Jayaraman 2006;
Chakrabarti 2009; Govinda and Bandopadhyaya 2010; Mananadhar and Sthapit
2012; Pramanik 2015). Sedwal and Kamat (2008) indicate a number of reasons
for children from Scheduled Caste or Tribe groups being more likely to drop
out from school in India. These include: economic disadvantage, poor quality of
available schooling (many study in badly equipped schools with poor infrastruc-
ture and under-trained teachers) and forms of social expectation. Discrimination
against under-privileged social groups results in push-out rather than drop-out
of children (Balagopalan and Subrahmanian 2003).
(d) Rural–urban differences (Mike et al. 2008; Mike et al. 2016). The probability
of a child being out of school is generally less in urban areas. This could,
perhaps, be attributed to the fact that it is easier to access schools in urban areas
as compared to rural areas.
(e) Work-related migration (Tansel 2002; Damas 2016). Seasonal migration of
parents along with their children obviously has an adverse effect on these chil-
dren’s education, because of the breaks or gaps in the study. However, parents
permanently migrating to areas with better schooling facilities might increase
the possibility of schooling for their children. Opportunity to migrate and get
decent jobs also increases the incentive of education.
(f) Role models in the community (Damas 2016). Children coming particularly
from families of poor and illiterate parents lack the incentives for attending
schools. In these situations, motivated teachers or successful youngsters in the
community play the part of role models and increase the likelihood of children
attending school.
(g) Early marriage (Brock and Cammish 1997; Colclough et al. 2000; Chugh
2011; Mucee et al. 2014; Nekongo-Nielsen et al. 2015 Fentiman et al. 1999;
Rose and Al Samarrai 2001; Hunt 2008). The early marriage of girls is linked to
drop-outs in certain socio-cultural contexts. However, early marriage can also
be the consequence of lack of secondary schools.
(h) Socio-political conflict and emergency situations (Sinclair 2001; Sommers
2005; Karam and Somokanta 2016; Pankaj et al. 2018). Children caught up in
Socio-Economic Determinants of Secondary Education in India 251

conflict, or politically fragile and emergency situations often find difficulties

remaining in school and many drop out. Many children are forced to migrate
also, thereby disrupting the schooling they had begun.

2.4 School-related factors

(a) Availability of school/distance to nearest school (Colclough et al. 2000;

Jayachandran 2002; Tansel 2002; Mike et al. 2008; Rumberger and Lim 2008;
Chugh 2011; Siddhu 2011; Hati and Majumdar 2012; Nekongo-Nielsen et al.
2015; Damas 2016). Access to school is the pre-condition for school-related
factors. Distance to school is also an important determinant for girls and poor
children.
(b) Teachers’ quality and pedagogy (Chugh 2011; Nekongo-Nielsen et al. 2015
). Teachers, being the backbone of the school, the quality of teachers act both
as pull or push factor to school.
(c) Availability of female teacher (Colclough et al. 2000; Sperling and Winthrop
2015). This is, particularly, important for universalisation of girls’ secondary
education.
(d) Size of the class or pupil–teacher ratio (Woessmann and West 2006). Lower
class size is expected to have a positive effect on education, particularly for
children of lower grades, in view of the logic of special attention per child.
(e) School infrastructure and facilities (Glewwe and Ilias 1996; Hunt 2008;
Rumberger and Lim 2008; Damas 2016; Pankaj et al. 2018). The existence
of proper school infrastructure and facilities has a positive impact on school
enrolment and retention of children. The presence of girls’ toilets in working
condition has a major role in increasing the likelihood of secondary education
of girls.
(f) Monitoring (Banerjee and Duflo 2006). Monitoring of various forms, both on
teachers and students, has a positive impact on regular attendance.
(g) Mid-day meal (Tilak 2002; Dreze and Goyal 2003; Singh et al. 2013; Nekongo-
Nielsen et al. 2015). Mid-day meal has immense role in bringing young children
to schools, particularly in poverty-affected regions.
(h) Language of instruction (Gautam 2003; Hunt 2008; Pankaj et al. 2018). When
students are taught in a language that is not their native tongue (especially in
the earlier years), the same can be particularly exclusionary.
(i) Corporal punishment (Hunt 2008; Pankaj et al. 2018). Different relationships
have been suggested in the literature on how beatings and intimidation ‘affect
children’s motivation to attend school’.
(j) Schools’ non-response to special educational needs of the teenagers
(Balagopalan 2003; Chugh 2011). This reason is a significant push-out factor,
particularly when the opportunity cost of the teenager is high.
From the survey of the literature, the conceptual framework of socio-economic
determinants of education has been developed. Socio-economic determinants can be
252 S. Mitra

clubbed under various headings; some depend on the student/child herself/himself,

some on the household characteristics, some on the community the child belongs and
some on the availability and quality of schools. These factors do not stand alone. They
are often influenced and affected by income and expenditure (whether household,
village, State or national level), and discrimination and exclusion (whether gender,
caste or regional). The conceptual framework is illustrated in the following Fig. 1.

3 Methodology and Hypotheses

The population/universe, i.e. the children in the age bracket of 15–18 years, can
broadly be segregated into three groups—(a) never attended, (b) ever attended but
dropped out, (c) continuing formal or informal education. The consolidation of the
first two categories can be defined as out-of-school children. The sign and statistical
significance of the socio-economic determinants of secondary education has been
tested through the following multivariate logistic regression:
 
Poos j
ln = β0 + β1i AGEi + β2 SEX j + β3k HHEDUk
1 − Poos
+ β4l EXPQNTLl + β5m SCTRm + β6n RELGNn
p
+ β7o SCGPo + β8 DIST p

where Poos is the probability of being out of school. The dependent variable is binary,
which takes only two values, 1 = out of school and 0 = in school. Age and gender
have been considered as individual factors. Age dummy AGEi , i = 1, 2, 3, 4, takes
four values for the years 15, 16, 17 and 18, respectively, and gender dummy SEX j ,
j = 1, 2, takes two values for boys (1) and girls (2), respectively. Education level
of household head (as a proxy of parents education level), and expenditure quintile,
as a proxy of household income, have been considered as family-related determi-
nants. Education dummy HHEDUk , k = 1, 2, 3, takes three values, illiterate or below
primary educated household head (1), school educated household head (2) and house-
hold head with secondary and above (3). Expenditure1 quintile dummy EXPQNTLl ,
l = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, take five values poorest (1), poorer (2), middle (3), richer (4), richest
(5). Social infrastructure-related determinants have been considered as: rural–urban,
religion and caste dummy. Rural–urban dummy SCTRm , m = 1, 2, takes two values
for rural (1) and urban (2). Religion2 dummy RELGNn ,n = 1, 2, 3, takes three
values for Hindu (1), Muslim (2) and Christian (3). Caste or social group dummy
SCGPo ,o = 1, 2, 3, 4, takes four values—Scheduled Tribes (1), Scheduled Caste (2),
Other Backward Class (OBC) (3) and General/Others (4). The only school-related

1 Since NSSO data do not provide data on income, we have considered annual consumer expenditure

as a proxy of economic class.

2 We have considered only three major religions, Hindu, Muslim and Christian, since the populations

of other religions were negligible.

Socio-Economic Determinants of Secondary Education in India 253

Individual factors:

• Age
• Gender
• Non- interest in education
• Work involvement
• Poor academic achievement
• Disability

Family related factors:

• Education of parents
• Household income
• Female work participation

Discrimination and exclusion (whether gender,

Income and expenditure (whether household,

• Orphanhood
• Household’s perceived benefits of
schooling
• Lack of parental support in education
village, state, or national level)

Community/social infrastructure related

factors:

caste, or regional)
• Public expenditure on development of
schools
• State or village-level income and
expenditure fund
• Caste and other forms of social
discrimination
• Rural-urban difference
• Work- related migration
• Role models in the community
• Early marriage
• Socio-political conflict and emergency
situations

School- related factors:

• Availability of schools
• Teachers’ quality and pedagogy
• Availability of female teachers
• Pupil-teacher ratio
• School infrastructure and facilities
• Monitoring
• Mid-day meal
• Language of instruction
• Corporal punishment
• Schools’ non response to special
educational needs of the teenagers

Fig. 1 Conceptual framework of socio-economic determinants of education. Source Prepared by

author
254 S. Mitra

factor that we have been able to include is distance to nearest secondary school
dummy, DIST p , p = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 which takes five values less than one kilometre
(km) (1), more than one km but less than two kms (2), more than two kms but less
than three kms (3), more than three kms but less than five kms (4), more than five
kms (5).

Hypotheses
Age: Since opportunity cost increases with age, the probability of being out of school
is expected to increase with age.
Gender: Due to prevalence of patriarchal mentality of a large section of Indian
population, the likelihood of being out of school is anticipated to be higher for a girl
child.
Parents’ Education: Since educated parents generally have enlightened attitude
about education and often provide a more conducive environment for children’s
education as compared to uneducated parents, one may expect the probability of
being out of school to decline with education level of the household.
Household income: Poverty is seen as the most crucial barrier to education
in India. Thus, the likelihood of being out of school is assumed to decrease with
household income.
Sector (rural–urban): One might expect that urbanisation would exercise a posi-
tive influence on education due to better infrastructure and developed educational
facilities. Further positive peer pressure or bandwagon effect might also work in
urban areas. Thus, the probability of being out of school is expected to be lower in
urban areas.
Religion: Compared to dominant religion, i.e. Hindu, likelihood of being out of
school is presumed to be higher in case of the minority religion, Muslim, for historical
reasons.
Social group: Historically, lack of access and exposure to education could lead to
low level of education among persons belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled
Tribes. Moreover, discriminatory practices could also exist within the classroom
towards children belonging to disadvantaged communities. Therefore, one might
expect the likelihood of being out of school to be lower in the case of those from
general caste compared to other disadvantaged social groups.
Distance to school: Ceteris paribus, school attendance is reasonably expected to
be higher with lesser distance to school, particularly for girl children, due to safety,
and poor children, due to transportation cost.

4 Findings

As per NSSO 71st round data (2014–15), 31.3 million children of the age group 15
to 18 years are out of school. This is 25 percent of the total children in the age group.
The percentage is quite disturbing as one of every four youth is out of the realm of
secondary education (Fig. 2).
Socio-Economic Determinants of Secondary Education in India 255

Fig. 2 Status of current educational attendance of youths (15–18 years). Source 71st round survey
(2014–15) of National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO)

The econometric estimation of the socio-economic determinants of secondary

school education goes along the expected hypotheses, which is presented in Table 2.
The likelihood of being out of school increases with age. This establishes our
hypothesis of increasing opportunity cost of youth, leading to increased drop-out
from secondary schools. This implies that only bringing children to the secondary
education is not enough, but their retention is a bigger challenge. Inclusion of voca-
tional training, along with secondary education, could be helpful in attracting and
retaining secondary students. It will also increase the opportunity cost of dropping
out of school before completing secondary/higher secondary education.
Compared to boys, the probability of being out of school is significantly higher
for girls. Apart from preference for boys’ education, and involvement of daughters
in domestic works, a major problem particular to India is lack of government-funded
secondary schools. After Class VIII, girl children from economically weak back-
grounds either have to join high fee-charging private schools in the vicinity or travel
a long distance for attending the nearest government secondary schools. The sharp
increase in fees or expenditure on transportation, along with the safety and security
concern to travel such a long distance, often acts as a barrier for their secondary
education.This phenomenon is closely linked with early marriage of girls. If early
marriage is a community practice, then it can be removed or reduced through aware-
ness and education. However, if girls are sitting idle at home either due to lack of
government secondary school in the vicinity or they are not adequately skilled for
the labour market, then early marriage is a simple consequence. Parents neither feel
safe to keep their teenage daughters alone at home (if both of them are out for work),
Table 2 Result of logistic regression
256

Probability of being out of school (dependent variable: out of school = 1, in school = 0)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Constant −1.29*** −1.36*** −0.81*** −0.41*** −0.41*** −0.50*** −0.21*** −0.46***
Age dummy (reference category = 15 years)
16 years 0.41*** 0.41*** 0.46*** 0.50*** 0.50*** 0.50*** 0.52*** 0.53***
17 years 0.65*** 0.66*** 0.76*** 0.80*** 0.80*** 0.83*** 0.84*** 0.85***
18 years 1.34*** 1.34*** 1.47*** 1.54*** 1.53*** 1.56*** 1.58*** 1.58***
Gender dummy (reference category = boys)
Girls 0.08*** 0.12*** 0.15*** 0.15*** 0.15*** 0.15*** 0.15***
Education of head of household dummy (reference = below primary)
School-educated −1.07*** −0.95*** −0.96*** −0.92*** −0.86*** −0.86***
Higher secondary onwards −2.36*** −1.98*** −1.98*** −1.90*** −1.80*** −1.78***
Economic class dummies (reference category = poorest)
Poorer −0.43*** −0.44*** −0.50*** −0.47*** −0.46***
Middle −0.55*** −0.56*** −0.62*** −0.59*** −0.58***
Richer −0.90*** −0.91*** −0.99*** −0.94*** −0.93***
Richest −1.45*** −1.46*** −1.50*** −1.41*** −1.38***
Sector dummy (reference category = rural)
Urban 0.04*** −0.03*** 0.00*** 0.11***
Religion dummy (reference category = Hindu)
Muslim 0.73*** 0.91*** 0.92***
(continued)
S. Mitra
Table 2 (continued)
Probability of being out of school (dependent variable: out of school = 1, in school = 0)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Christian −0.44*** −0.61*** −0.64***
Caste dummy (reference category = ST)
SC −0.19*** −0.14***
OBC −0.43*** −0.39***
Others −0.71*** −0.66***
Sec-school distance dummy (ref category = less than 1 km)
1–2 kms 0.22***
2–3 kms 0.22***
3–5 kms 0.37***
More than 5 kms 0.47***
Number of observation 89,940,740 89,940,740 89,940,740 89,924,726 89,924,726 89,902,146 89,894,220 89,893,815
LR chi2 5,138,161.30 5,166,933.74 1.48e + 07 1.77e + 07 1.77e + 07 1.91e + 07 1.98e + 07 2.02e + 07
Prob > chi2 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Pseudo R2 0.04 0.04 0.13 0.15 0.15 0.16 0.17 0.17

Source Author’s calculations

Note ***implies statistical significance at 1%, **implies statistical significance at 5%, *implies statistical significance at 10%
Socio-Economic Determinants of Secondary Education in India
257
258 S. Mitra

nor do they feel comfortable to send them to secondary schools 10–15 km away.
They feel most comfortable to get them married off. This trend is prevalent in rural
India.
Compared to children coming from household, whose head is either illiterate
or educated up to below primary level, the probability of being out of school is
significantly lower for children coming from school educated and, more importantly,
higher educated headed households. It implies that if one generation gets education
with government support, those people will be able to take care of education of the
future generations.
The hypothesis about poverty to be the most crucial barrier to education in India
has been well established by the econometric estimation. The likelihood of children
being out of school declines at every stage as we move from poorest to the richest
quintiles.
Rural–urban differentiation of secondary education does not come out very clearly
in our empirical estimation. In one case, probability of being out of school is higher
in rural areas compared to urban areas; however, in rest of the equations, it is the
other way round. This is an interesting finding. It implies that compared to general
arguments of better exposure and positive peer pressure, it is the availability of
schools in the vicinity that increases the possibility of schooling, irrespective of the
rural–urban differentiation. This is further accentuated by the fact that the chances
of being out of school increase quite consistently with increase in distance to the
nearby school having secondary classes,
Compared to Hindu, the probability of being out of school is lower for Muslims,
but higher for Christians. Compared to STs, the likelihood of being out of school is
lower in SCs, OBCs and upper castes particularly.

5 Conclusion and Recommendations

Secondary education is a crucial stage in the educational hierarchy that consol-

idates the gains received from elementary education and provides relevant skills
that might be useful in the labour market (Tilak 2007). Unfortunately, youths of
secondary school age group have a higher probability to be out of school due to
poverty and various other reasons. The share of out-of-school youths in India is one
of the highest in the world. Presently, the Indian government is attempting to univer-
salise the secondary education system. In this background, this paper explores the
socio-economic determinants of secondary education in India, using unit-level NSSO
data. This paper adds value to the related existing literature by developing a holistic
conceptual framework and analysing both demand and supply-side determinants of
secondary education in India.
The results of our estimated multivariate logistic regression indicate that the like-
lihood of being out of school increases with age. This calls for tailoring secondary
education according to the needs of teenagers. Inclusion of vocational training, along
Socio-Economic Determinants of Secondary Education in India 259

with secondary education, could be helpful in attracting and retaining secondary

students. It will also increase the opportunity cost of dropping out of school before
completing secondary/higher secondary education. Parents’ education is revealed
to have significant positive influence on children’s education. The hypothesis about
poverty to be the most crucial barrier to education in India has been well established
by the econometric estimation.
Compared to Hindus, probability of being out of school is higher among Muslims
and lower among Christians. Compared to STs, the likelihood of being out of school is
lower in SCs, OBCs and upper castes particularly. Compared to boys, the probability
of being out of school is significantly higher for girls. Apart from preference for
boys’ education, and involvement of daughters in domestic works, a major problem,
particular to India, is lack of government-funded secondary schools. After Class
VIII, girl children from economically weak background either have to join private
schools in the vicinity or travel a long distance for attending the nearest government
secondary schools. The sharp increase in fees or expenditure on transportation, along
with the safety and security concern to travel such a long distance, often acts as
a barrier for their secondary education. Interestingly, we found that compared to
general arguments of better exposure and positive peer pressure, it is the availability
of schools in the vicinity that increases possibility of schooling, irrespective of the
rural–urban differentiation.
In fact, an important feature of the present secondary education in India is a high
proportion of private schools—government-supported private institutions, and, more
importantly, private-unaided institutions, depending exclusively on student fees. The
expenditure on education increases drastically, if one were to go a private school and
this is one of the major reasons behind drop-out rate to peak after Grade/Class VIII,
as per NSSO data.
In the background of small number of government-funded secondary schools,
child labour and early marriage might be the consequence rather than the reasons
for out-of-school children. Lack of access to government schools being a prominent
reason for drop-out, universalisation of secondary education has strong potential,
provided it is supported by extension of the existing government schools to higher
secondary level, wherever possible, or otherwise constructing new schools. This
might help in reduction of child labour, early marriage and income inequality, some
of the major concerns of our country at present.

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Who Completes Secondary Education
in India? Examining Role of Individual
and Household Characteristics

Nivedita Sarkar

1 Background

Education, one of the most potent instruments for social inclusion and socio-
economic upward mobility, holds the key to sustainable development. Therefore,
promoting an equitable, inclusive and well-structured educational system should
occupy the centre stage of the development agenda in each society. While India has
made considerable improvement at all levels of education, it is yet to achieve the
desired outcome at both the secondary and higher education level.
As universal elementary education comes close to realisation, there are concerns
about whether secondary education will withstand the pressure of increasing numbers
of children moving up to that level. In the past couple of decades, it is further argued
in the literature that secondary education needs to be expanded, both as a response
to increased social demand and as a feeder cadre for higher education. It is often
termed as the key link between education and economic development, preparing
young adolescents to learn life skills and participate in the growth process (Biswal
2011; Singh 2015). The CABE committee report (2005) further notes that ‘universal
secondary education is a pre-condition for equitable social development, widening
participation in India’s democratic functioning, building up of an enlightened secular
republic, and becoming globally competitive’ (p. 14). Thus, to achieve universal
access to secondary education, Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) was
launched in March 2009 with the goal of universal access to secondary education
by 2017 and universal retention by 2020. The scheme not only seeks to escalate
the gross enrolment in Grades IX and X by improving access, but also to improve
the quality of education imparted. In 2009, when the RMSA was initiated, India’s
GER at the secondary education level was only 63%. This figure was not only way

N. Sarkar (B)
School of Education Studies, Ambedkar University of Delhi, (Lodi Road Campus) Aliganj,
B.K.Dutt Colony, Lodi Road, New Delhi 110003, India
e-mail: [email protected]

© Council for Social Development 2020 263

J. B. G Tilak (ed.), Universal Secondary Education in India,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5366-0_12
264 N. Sarkar

below that of Latin American countries (82%), but also lower than other Asian peers
(70%) (Siddhu 2010). After that, the GER improved substantially, and in 2014–15,
the GER at the secondary level reached 78.5% (MHRD 2016), albeit with huge
variation across regions and income groups. A World Bank report (2009) states
that access to secondary education in India is highly unequal, with a 40% point
gap in secondary enrolment rates between students from the highest and lowest
expenditure quintile groups (70% versus 30% enrolment, respectively). A further
worrisome aspect is the high drop-out rate at this level due to various reasons. Around
35% of the students, enrolled in Grade IX, drop out before completing Grade X
and 38% before completing Grade XII (CSD, 2018). National Sample Surve (NSS)
data for the year 2014 highlights that across all educational levels, ‘lack of interest
in education’ is one the most significant factors; at the secondary level, where costs
rise substantially, financial constraints (20.4%) becomes a more pressing reason for
dropping out, pushing out adolescents to engage in economic (18.6%) and other
domestic activities (15.6%). Further, the children, who are getting enrolled to Grade
IX but are unable to complete secondary stage, are in effect left with no choice but
to take up unskilled and low paid jobs, since elementary education does not allow
them to even undertake vocational courses.
An ample body of the literature in this area underlines that there are a number
of ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors which critically impact the decision of students to drop-
out. While push factors are mainly related to schools, namely availability of the
school in the vicinity, school size, teacher quality, cost of schooling etc., the pull
factors include individual and family characteristics (Tilak 2002; Rumberger and
Lim 2008; Singh and Mukherjee 2015). Studies have found that gender, ethnicity,
father’s education and economic condition of the households play crucial roles in
determining the survival through and completion of the level, apart from child’s
ability and quality of schooling (Suryadarma et al. 2006; Stearns and Glennie 2006;
World Bank 2009; Biswal 2011; Singh and Mukherjee 2015; Härmä et al. 2016). In
the case of rural Uttar Pradesh, it was found by Siddhu (2011) that individual and
household characteristics such as gender, socio-economic status, educational attain-
ment of parents and number of children in the family significantly affect decisions
about schooling. Analysing the all-India level data of 2009–10, Basumatry (2012)
notes that poverty level of a particular State has a statistically significant impact
on drop-out rates, particularly in the rural areas. NSS data further suggests, in the
Indian context, that age-specific enrolment rates are much lower than gross enrol-
ment rates. This implies, many who reach secondary level of education are overage
for their grades. This is even more prevalent among Scheduled Castes (SCs), Sched-
uled Tribes (STs) and Other Backward Castes (OBCs), for whom enrolment rates
may have to double to reach universal levels (Härmä et al. 2016). Based on Young
Lives longitudinal data from Andhra Pradesh for the years 2007, 2008, 2010 and
Who Completes Secondary Education in India? Examining Role … 265

2014, Singh and Mukherjee (2015) find that pre-school attendance is a significant
predictor of secondary education completion. The study further shows that children,
who attended private pre-schools are 2.2 times more likely to succeed in completing
secondary schooling than those children who did not attend any pre-school. Interest-
ingly, no significant association was found between attendance of public pre-schools
and secondary education completion. Thus, based on the survey of the literature,
one could posit that there are several intertwined factors that act simultaneously
to determine the access, survival, transition and completion of secondary level of
education.
With this backdrop, the present paper attempts to examine the determinants of
completion of secondary education considering socio-demographic, household and
individual factors.
Rest of the paper is organised as follows: Section 2 presents the data. Section 3
describes the estimation strategy, Sect. 4 provides the empirical results and in Sect. 5
a few concluding observations are made.

2 Data

The paper draws on the unit-level data of National Sample Survey (NSS) 71st round
on ‘Social Consumption: Education’, conducted in 2014. This specific round is
chosen as it is the most recent nationally representative survey conducted specif-
ically focussing on education. Like all other rounds of NSS, 71st round survey had
also adopted a stratified multi-stage sampling design. A sample of 65,926 households,
36,479 from rural areas and 29,447 from urban areas, spread across the country, was
surveyed in this round. It provided exhaustive information on educational partici-
pation of the individuals, belonging to the age group 5–29 years, and the private
expenditure incurred by them at different levels of education, along with other vari-
ables like educational wastage in terms of drop-out and its causes, the extent of use of
educational infrastructure, or facilities and incentives provided by the government,
etc.
However, the present study considers only those who have at least completed
elementary education, which is a prerequisite for enrolling at the secondary level.
The study further considers the age cohort 15–20 years, as the literature already
indicates that considerable number of students in India are over-aged (at least by
2 years) for the secondary grade, due to late entry in school (Härmä et al. 2016).
Thus, their completion also gets delayed along with the fact, that being over-age
reduces the likelihood of completion of schooling (Lewin 2011). Ersado (2005)
and Siddhu (2010) endorse the previous result; in addition, they also find a relation-
ship between, over-age and drop-out. The present study, thus, in order to capture
over-aged students, has chosen the age band of 15–20 years.
266 N. Sarkar

3 Method of Estimation

The principal objective of the paper is to find out the probability of an indi-
vidual completing secondary education, i.e. Grade X, controlling for their individual
and household characteristics. Since our dependent variable is the completion of
secondary education, i.e. Grade X, the sampled students could fall into either of two
groups viz. (i) those who have completed secondary education or (ii) those who could
not. Since the dependent variable is categorical and dichotomous in nature, linear
regression model could not be used. Therefore, a binary probit regression model has
been employed in the present case.
Probit model follows a normal cumulative distribution function, and the dependent
variable is normal real-valued indexed variable for observations (and is unobserv-
able or latent). Thus, it could be argued that underlying propensity/willingness to
complete secondary education for an individual is a latent variable (say, e*), which
is determined by a set of socio-economic factors (say, x j ).
Hence, the latent equation is:

e∗ = x j β j + u j

However, if the propensity crosses a certain threshold level (assumed zero for
simplicity), it manifests itself, and thus, the individual completes secondary level.
This is observable and can be represented by a dummy variable, say s, taking value
1 if the individual has completed secondary level of education and 0 otherwise.

s = 1 if e∗ > 0 and
s = 0 if e∗ ≤ 0

Since probit model assumes that the error term (uj ) is independently and normally
distributed, therefore, it allows estimation of the likelihood of completion (of
secondary grade) conditional on a set of exogenous independent variables (x j ). As
a result, the determinants of the probability of completion of secondary level of
education are assessed using the following:

Pr(s = 1) = x j β j

The maximum likelihood estimates (of β j ) yield the desired response probability,
i.e. the probability that the individual would complete Grade X and, at the same time,
enable us to capture the direction and magnitude of impact of the set of explanatory
variables on the response probability.
Who Completes Secondary Education in India? Examining Role … 267

Table 1 Particulars of the variables used in the model

Variables Definition
Sex_female Dummy variable which takes value 1 if the individual is
a female and 0 otherwise
Location Dummy variable takes the value 1 if individual is from
rural area and 0 otherwise
ST Dummy variable which takes value 1 if an individual
belongs to schedule tribe group and 0 otherwise
SC Dummy variable which takes value 1 if an individual
belongs to schedule caste group and 0 otherwise
OBC Dummy variable which takes value 1 if an individual
belongs to other backward caste group and 0 otherwise
Others Dummy variable which takes value 1 if an individual
belongs to non-SC/ST caste group (others, here) and 0
otherwise
Head_illiterate/no formal education Dummy variable which takes value 1 if an individual’s
parent is illiterate and 0 otherwise
Head_literate/with formal education Dummy variable which takes value 1 if an individual’s
parent is literate and 0 otherwise
HH Size Size of household (continuous variable)
Distance Distance of secondary school from home
ln_mpce Log of monthly per-capita consumption expenditure
(proxy for household income; a continuous variable)

3.1 Independent Variables

Drawing from the existing literature, independent variables (for details see Table 1)
are chosen to control for the social, demographic and economic background of the
individual.1
(i) Individual Characteristics
(a) Gender: Gender is the most pervasive and enduring factor of inequality
which exists almost everywhere, and thus, the same is expected to be perti-
nent in case of secondary education as well. State-specific studies have
already shown that the probability of non-completion of secondary grade
is higher for girls (Siddhu 2010; Singh and Mukherjee 2015). Therefore,
in order to study the gender effect, a binary variable ‘sex_female’ has been
introduced. It takes the value 1 if the individual is a female student and
zero otherwise.

1 Thispaper has the limitation of not being able to include school-level quality indicators such as
teaching–learning processes. Further, the study has not included religion as a controlling variable.
268 N. Sarkar

(ii) Household Characteristic: Ample body of the literature already highlights that
social group/caste,2 parental education and the household’s socio-economic
status play crucial roles in influencing the odds of participation at the secondary
grade by individuals.
(a) Social Group: The diverse nature of Indian society, in terms of different
social groups, makes it all the more important to study how caste or social
group of individuals influences their educational outcomes. The literature
shows that enrolment rate varies enormously across various caste groups
at all the levels of education. Thus, it is imperative to examine whether
the same has any impact on individual’s probability to complete secondary
education, i.e. Grade X. Therefore, to estimate the same, we have included
variables, namely ‘SC’, ‘ST’, ‘OBC’, and ‘others’, to indicate social group
of the individual to which she/he belongs. In general, one would expect
that households belonging to SCs, STs and OBCs will have lesser odds of
completing secondary education.
(b) Education of Head of the Household: The NSS data set does not provide
direct information of individual’s parental education; instead, it gives infor-
mation on education level of head of a household along with relation of
each member of the household to the household head. This information is
used to create household head’s education variable for each children of that
particular household. Household head’s education is, therefore, used as a
proxy for parental education of a particular child. For estimation, house-
hold head’s education is included in the probit model as a binary dummy
‘head_illiterate/no formal education’, ‘head_literate’ to allow for the fact
that when parents are literate, there will be a better probability of enrol-
ment and completion of secondary grade. Several studies have corroborated
similar result (Siddhu 2011; Singh and Mukherjee 2015).
(c) Household Income. Studies depict that at the secondary level, when cost
(both direct and indirect) of attending educational institution increases, the
likelihood of completion decreases substantially. This is, particularly, true
for the older students who have higher opportunity costs in areas where
there is paid employment available. Further, girls, especially from lower
income quintiles, are also not encouraged to go to school and expected to
contribute in household activities and also married off. Therefore, one can
argue that the economic background of a household may have considerable
impact on completing secondary education. There is ample evidence which
corroborate this fact (Siddhu 2010; Lewin 2011; Singh and Mukherjee
2015; Härmä et al. 2016). Thus, we have included the log of household
monthly per-capita consumption expenditure (lnMPCE) as a proxy for
household income as NSS does not provide individual or household income
or assets directly.

2 Thestudy has interchangeably referred caste and social group. NSS data refers caste as social
group.
Who Completes Secondary Education in India? Examining Role … 269

(f) Household Size. As household demographic variable, we have also taken

the household size (hh_size) as an explanatory variable. Studies suggest
that larger the household size, the less will be spent on education which,
in turn, will ultimately manifest in lower enrolment and completion from
bigger families (Singh and Mukherjee 2015; Myhr et al. 2017).
(g) Distance of school. The role of access to schooling in determining educa-
tional outcomes has been well recognised in the literature (Duflo 2001 and
2004; Filmer 2007; Glick and Sahn 2006; Orazem and King 2007); most
of it relates to access to primary schooling and its effect on enrolment.
There are few studies which attempted to examine the same with regard to
post-primary/secondary education (Lavy 1996; Muralidharan and Prakash
2012, 2013). Nonetheless, the results are, sometimes, contradictory. The
present study has incorporated this variable so as to have an idea as to
whether access (in terms of distance of school) to school really affects
secondary grade completion.

4 Empirical Results

4.1 Completion of Secondary Education by Household

Characteristics: Sample Characteristics

Drawn on NSS 71st round unit-level record, Table 2 shows that within the age
cohort of 15–20 years, 49% girls and 48.2% boys completed secondary education
by 2014. With regard to caste groups, the data further reveals that within the same
age cohort, 53.8% students from non-backward caste (Others) completed secondary
vis-à-vis 40.1% STs and 42.8% STs. Contrary to the expectation, the number of
non-completing individuals is high in urban areas (53.7%) than in the rural areas
(45.4%). Access to secondary school in terms of distance from the household shows
that if the school is located far (more than 5 km.) from the residence, a huge chunk
of students (62.22%) drop out without completing the grade.

4.2 Empirical Results of the Econometric Analysis

This section is devoted to estimating the results from probit regression model,
mentioned in the previous section, where completion vis-à-vis non-completion of
secondary grade has been taken as dependent variable. The focus is to estimate
the probability that an individual in the age group of 15–20 years has completed
secondary grade, based on maximum likelihood estimates obtained from the associ-
ated probit model. Further, in order to assess the magnitude of impact of an explana-
tory variable, the corresponding ‘marginal effect’ has been calculated. The estimation
270 N. Sarkar

Table 2 Descriptive
Explanatory Secondary education
statistics: secondary
variables Not completed (n = Completed (n =
education by individual
and household characteristics 38,111,629) 35,991,426)
Gender
Male 51.8 48.2
Female 51.0 49.0
Location
Rural 45.4 54.6
Urban 53.7 46.3
Social group
ST 59.9 40.1
SC 57.2 42.8
OBC 50.0 50.0
Others 46.2 53.8
Distance of school
d < 1 km 48.23 51.77
1 km d < 2 kms 48.99 51.01
2 kms d < 3 kms 54.57 45.43
3 kms d < 5 kms 59.48 40.52
d ≥ 5 kms 62.22 37.78
Household head’s education
Head illiterate/no 51.4 48.6
formal education
Source Author’s computation based on NSS 71st round (Unit-
Level Records)

has been done separately for all-India level, for males and females and also for rural
and urban regions. The results are discussed below.

4.3 Impact of Social Group

Given the diversity of India, it is important to examine whether and how the social
background of the individual influences the completion of secondary grade. Probit
estimation is done to examine the same, controlling for location (rural/urban),
household expenditures, gender and so forth.
Table 3 provides the probit estimates for all-India level along with the marginal
effects. Marginal effects indicate how the odds of completion differ for different
social groups, with reference to Others (non-backward group). At the all-India level,
one could see that individuals belonging to backward caste-groups have lower odds
Table 3 Probability of completing secondary grade: probit estimates at all-India level
Completed_secondary Coef. Std. Err. P > |z| Marginal effect
Sex_female 0.030 0.026 0.252 0.012
Rural 0.067 0.030 0.124 0.027
ST −0.147 0.046 0.001 −0.058
SC −0.136 0.039 0.000 −0.054
OBC −0.002 0.032 0.950 −0.001
lnMPCE 0.447 0.027 0.000 0.178
HH size 0.001 0.006 0.851 0.000
Distance −0.058 0.011 0.000 −0.023
Head_illiterate/no formal education 0.012 0.037 0.742 0.005
Constant −3.181 0.229 0.000
Who Completes Secondary Education in India? Examining Role …

Number of obs = 24,374

Wald chi 2(8) = 488.21
Log pseudolikelihood = −49,623,290 Pseudo R2 = 0.0330
Source Author’s computation based on NSS 71st round (Unit-Level Records)
271
272 N. Sarkar

of completing secondary education. The table shows that STs and SCs have, respec-
tively, 5.8% and 5.4% lower likelihood of completing secondary education than that
of other category students. The data further depicts that although OBCs also have
lower chances of completing secondary education, they are at least in a better posi-
tion than SCs and STs, as they have negligible (0.1%) lower odds of completing
secondary grade than the non-backward caste-groups/others.
The gender-wise disaggregation of the data highlights a similar trend. It is evident
from Table 4 that both SC and ST males and females are in disadvantageous situation
and have lower odds of completing Grade X compared to others. The coefficients
for OBCs are statistically insignificant both at all-India level and across gender.
Location-wise disaggregation also depicts a similar trend. Table 5 shows that SC
students, living in urban localities, are in the most disadvantageous situation and
have approximately 8.7% less probability of completing secondary education than
that of other/non-backward group.
All these findings are in line with the previous studies, depicting the low comple-
tion (along with lesser enrolment) of individuals belonging to the backward Caste
group. An important reason could be that caste and economic status of individuals
are highly correlated in India, and the literature notes that household income strongly
influences enrolment and completion of secondary schooling.

4.4 Impact of Location, Distance of School and Household

Size

It has been already established that in India, there is a considerable gap between urban
and rural populations in terms of their educational outcomes, with rural children’s
participation lagging by 20% points at the secondary level (Siddhu 2010). Studies
further highlight that location of residence has important role to play in impacting
the chances of staying in school, progress through grades or completing a specific
grade; nonetheless, the impact is, usually, through the distance to school (Siddhu
2010; Härmä et al. 2016). The present study also finds a similar result, where the
coefficient of location is statistically not significant. However, the variable distance
of school negatively related to probability of completing secondary education and
the coefficient are highly statistically significant, except for urban localities. At the
all-India level, increase in distance (see Table 3) lowers the probability of completing
secondary grade. Similar trends are evident for males and female (Table 4) and in the
case of rural locality (Table 5). In the case of urban areas, the coefficient is statistically
not significant probably because of the better transport facilities (to commute to
school) in comparison with rural areas. Data further suggests that household size has
no significant role to play in determining the probability of completing secondary
level of education. This is true across the board.
Who Completes Secondary Education in India? Examining Role … 273

Table 4 Probability of completing secondary grade: probit estimates by gender

Completed_secondary Male Female
Coef. Std. P > |z| Marginal Coef. Std. P > |z| Marginal
Err. effect Err. effect
Rural 0.081 0.040 0.043 0.032 0.055 0.044 0.206 0.022
ST −0.112 0.062 0.073 −0.044 −0.186 0.067 0.006 −0.074
SC −0.154 0.052 0.003 −0.061 −0.108 0.058 0.064 −0.043
OBC −0.016 0.044 0.714 −0.006 0.014 0.047 0.767 0.006
lnMPCE 0.455 0.037 0.000 0.181 0.434 0.040 0.000 0.173
HH size −0.005 0.009 0.566 −0.002 0.007 0.009 0.476 0.003
Distance −0.049 0.014 0.000 −0.020 −0.068 0.016 0.000 −0.027
Head_illiterate/no −0.091 0.057 0.112 −0.036 −0.085 0.049 0.085 −0.034
formal education
Constant −3.135 0.313 0.000 −3.123 0.333 0.000
Number of obs = 13,410 10971
Wald chi 2(8) = 112.85 106.55
Log pseudolikelihood = −9151.4066 −7487.47
Pseudo R2 = 0.0146 0.0151
Source Author’s computation based on NSS 71st round (Unit-Level Records)

4.5 Impact of Economic Status of Household

Studies have already found that family income does play an important role in child’s
educational attainments. While Haveman and Wolfe (1995), through an extensive
survey of literature, concluded that lower parental income levels do result in lower
educational outcomes for their children, the study by Hasan and Mehta (2006) ascer-
tained the positive impact of household’s better-off economic status on college enrol-
ment in India. In the case of India, Lewin (2011) notes that household income has a
critical role in determining enrolment in secondary school. Tamim and Tariq (2015)
argue that any level of direct costs can be enough to exclude the poor. This is mainly
because of the reason that direct and indirect costs of (even) secondary level schooling
remain substantial in India. Drawing on large household surveys, Lewin (2011) notes
that in India, the poorest allocates less than five per cent of total expenditure to educa-
tion. ‘Even if the assumptions are varied such that 10% of expenditures are available
for education, it would remain the case that most would find secondary schooling
unaffordable. At 10%, only the top two urban quintiles and the highest rural quintile
could afford the costs’.
The results, reported in Tables 3, 4 and 5, reveal that households’ economic status,
in terms of lnMPCE, plays a critical role in determining the likelihood of completing
secondary grade. At all-India level, it is evident that one per cent increase in MPCE
increases the probability of completing Grade X by 17.8%. The trend is similar in
both rural and urban areas as well as for males and females.
274 N. Sarkar

Table 5 Probability of completing secondary grade: probit estimates by location (rural and urban)
Rural Urban
Completed_secondary Coef. Std. P > |z| Marginal Coef. Std. P > |z| Marginal
Err. effect Err. effect
Sex_female 0.015 0.032 0.652 0.006 0.061 0.040 0.129 0.024
ST −0.155 0.053 0.004 −0.061 −0.069 0.092 0.453 −0.028
SC −0.110 0.048 0.022 −0.043 −0.220 0.064 0.001 −0.087
OBC −0.005 0.041 0.897 −0.002 0.010 0.046 0.825 0.004
lnMPCE 0.440 0.036 0.000 0.175 0.458 0.039 0.000 0.181
HH size 0.002 0.008 0.766 0.001 −0.003 0.010 0.737 −0.001
Distance −0.061 0.012 0.000 −0.024 −0.031 0.025 0.212 −0.012
Head_illiterate/no −0.034 0.046 0.455 −0.014 0.125 0.061 0.142 0.050
formal education
Constant −3.017 0.289 0.000 −3.375 0.340 0.000
Number of obs = 14,498 9883
Wald chi 2(8) = 90.68 85.86
Log pseudolikelihood = −9910.6817 −6710.08
Pseudo R2 = 0.0099 0.146
Source: Authors’ computation based on NSS 71st round (Unit-Level Records)

4.6 Impact of Gender and Educational Profile of Household

Head

Gender is widely documented as a crucial factor in all types of schooling choices

in India, including whether or not the child get a chance to attend school and till
what age and level and in what type of school. Drawing on the household-level data,
Rawal and Kingdon (2010) find a large gender gap in participation of individuals at
the primary level. Nonetheless, Härmä et al. (2016), on the basis of NSS 71st round,
concludes that, at the secondary level, girls are catching up, particularly since 2010,
and the gender gap is gradually narrowing down at this level of education.
On the basis of probit estimates reported in Tables 3 and 5, one can argue that
gender is not acting as a critical variable in determining the completion of secondary
grade in recent times (the coefficient is statistically insignificant). NSS 71st round
education data shows that while the overall secondary grade completion rate is 53%
at all- India level, the same for female is only a little below, at 50.9%.
The present study further suggests that household head’s educational level (in
terms of whether being literate and illiterate has any role in influencing their wards’
secondary completion) plays a statistically insignificant role in determining the
odds of secondary grade completion at the all-India level. This result holds true for
both rural and urban areas. However, the gender-wise disaggregated result provides
contrary evidence—for females, if the head of household is illiterate or does not
have any formal education, the individuals would have lower chances of completing
Who Completes Secondary Education in India? Examining Role … 275

secondary grade. Drawn on longitudinal data from Andhra Pradesh, Singh (2015)
shows if the father has attained beyond secondary level of education, it can signif-
icantly (statistically) impact the likelihood of Grade X completion for the lower
income quintile.

5 Conclusion

To conclude, it could be argued that Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA)

is a major initiative designed to address the low rates of participation at lower
secondary level. Although this initiative has substantially increased the enrolment rate
since the 11th five year plan, it still lags behind BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China
and South Africa) countries with whom India is often compared. India’s secondary
education participation rates are only comparable to sub-Saharan Africa (Lewin
2011). It is, thus, perhaps not surprising that in India, high school completion rate
still remains an abysmal 42% (Sahni 2015).
In this context, the current study throws light on the significant determinants of
successful completion of secondary education among 15–20 years age cohort sample
of children in India, and it is clearly evident that there are a multitude of factors
which impact the same. The study by Lewin (2011) argues that low levels of access
to secondary schooling play a critical role on both transition to and completion of
secondary level. It further notes that—‘where few go to secondary school, many will
lack the motivation to persist to Grade VIII, and may judge the costs greater than the
benefits’ (p. 382).
Based on unit-level records on NSS 71st round, the present study shows that
economic status of household (measured in terms of lnMPCE) and caste/social group
of individual are two most important factors that play crucial roles in determining the
probability of secondary grade completion. This trend holds true across the board.
Several other studies, devoted to this area, also corroborate the same (Siddhu 2010;
Lewin 2011; Singh 2015; Härmä et al. 2016).
Contrary to the popular belief, this study shows that the probability of completion
of secondary grade for the girls is not statistically different than that of boys. This
is an encouraging result as Härmä et al. 2016, already document that the gender
gap in secondary education participation is continuously decreasing since 2010. The
study further highlights that location of residence does not significantly influence
the odds of completion, though; however, it is the distance of the school from the
household which matters. The probit estimates reveal, at the all-India level, increase
in distance of school from home (see Table 3) lowers the probability of completing
secondary grade. A similar trend is evident across gender. Interestingly, in case
of urban areas, the distance of school does not significantly impact completion of
secondary grade. Availability of good transport facilities might be one of the reasons
behind this. The results also ascertain that if the household head is illiterate, then
their wards have poor chances to complete secondary grade. This is mainly because
household head’s education not only determines his/her perception about education,
276 N. Sarkar

but also critically determines the affordability to spend on education. Studies show
that drop-outs are disproportionately high from the lower income quintiles (Lewin
2011). NSS 71st round also corroborates the same. According to this data, more than
54% student dropped out without completing secondary grade either due to financial
constraints or they had to engage with other economic or domestic activities. Thus,
to retain the enrolled students within the system, the government has to reduce
the out-of-pocket expenditure incurred by households. Expanding access to poorer
households may mean that even modest fees are unaffordable (Lewin and Caillods
2001). Further, private providers are unlikely to grow to provide secondary education
to the poorest sections. Most growth will, therefore, be in government or government-
aided schools, and government will remain the provider of the last resort. Tilak
(2008) argues that affordability of higher levels of participation is really a State-level
issue since it is the States that formally have the responsibility for delivering most
secondary schooling. This implies a huge government allocation needs to be made
towards this sector. Lewin (2011) estimated that India has to increase the allocation
by about two per cent of GDP or more for secondary education, which is way above
what it spends currently for secondary education.

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Universal Secondary Education
in the Telugu-Speaking States: Prospects
and Challenges

P. Prudhvikar Reddy, V. Nagi Reddy, and D. Sree Rama Raju

1 Introduction

Universal Education implies creating universal access and opportunity for all chil-
dren to receive education. Secondary education spreads over the ages of 15 and
16 years, and senior secondary over the ages 17 and 18 years. It serves as a
link between the elementary and higher education, thus playing an important role.
GOI’s Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) committee on Universalisation
of Secondary Education (2005) recommends universal secondary education by 2015.
As per the report, the projection of enrolment, transition rate indicates full possibility
of universal enrolment in secondary education by 2015. By 2020, the target should
be universal enrolment, full retention and mastery of learning in all kinds of learning
tasks by more than 60% learners.
The government of India has launched a national drive to universalise secondary
education by 2020. The 12th five-year Plan approach contemplates “faster, sustain-
able and more inclusive growth”, implying universal access for children to school,
increased access to higher education and improved standards of education, including
skill development. Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) is an initiative
of the Government of India, in partnership with State governments, which seeks
to universalise enrolment in Grades 9 and 10 across the country. The goal is to
universalise entry into secondary school by the end of 2017 and achieve universal

P. Prudhvikar Reddy (B) · D. Sree Rama Raju

Centre for Economic and Social Studies, Nizamiah Observatory Campus, Begumpet, Hyderabad
500016, India
e-mail: [email protected]
V. Nagi Reddy
International School of Business, ICFAI Foundation of Higher Education University, Dontanpally,
Hyderabad 501203, India

© Council for Social Development 2020 279

J. B. G Tilak (ed.), Universal Secondary Education in India,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5366-0_13
280 P. Prudhvikar Reddy et al.

completion of Grade 10 by 2020. Now the question is whether Sustainable Devel-

opment Goal-4 (SDG), i.e. ‘ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and
promote lifelong learning opportunities for all’ is achievable in India by 2030?
It is true that India has achieved considerable growth in economic development
in the recent past, but it is not free from criticism. This is because the growth has
not narrowed down the gap between the rich and the poor and rather widened the
gap contrary to the 11th five-year Plan approach, i.e. ‘towards inclusive growth’.
If we examine the progress in different components of Education for All (EFA),
India has made remarkable improvements in enrolment. Despite these attainments,
there are areas of apprehension which are acting as hurdles to achieve the goals
of universal literacy and univeral school education. Existing literature shows that
special emphasis on the education of women is crucial for universalising school
education as it is vital to the improvement of the health practices of its community
apart from human capital development. In addition to overall low levels of literacy
at the national level, disparities across regions, genders, social groups, etc., are of
serious concern.
UNESCO’s new Global Education Monitoring (GEM) reports (2015) and 2016
reveal that India is expected to achieve universal primary education by 2050, universal
lower secondary education by 2060 and universal upper secondary education by 2085.
In other words, India would be more than half a century late for the 2030 SDGs
deadline (IndianExpress.com 2015). The report further suggested that the govern-
ment take inequalities in education seriously by getting information directly from
families. International Institute for Educational Planning, under UNESCO, reports
that more than 50% of secondary schools in India have enrolments below 50 in
Grades 9 and 10. The report further states that financing universal secondary educa-
tion, at current cost structures, could require more than 2% of State Gross Domestic
Product which is unsustainable and requires greater efficiency. It is suggested that
those worse-off among the marginalised groups need to be given preference over
the better-off to achieve equity in education. Basing on UNESCO data, IndiaSpend
reports (2016) reveal that there is still large disparity in the achievement of basic
skills, such as reading and mathematics, where there has been a decline in learning
outcomes.
Within South India, progress in education is not satisfactory in Telugu-speaking
States, i.e. Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Perhaps this might have prompted the
Telangana State government to announce free education from Kindergarten (KG) to
Postgraduate (PG). A study undertaken by CESS (2016), on Millennium Develop-
ment Goals (MDGs), clearly indicates the presence of intra-State variations in both
the Telugu-speaking States with regard to school enrolment and in youth literacy.
Young lives, a longitudinal survey in Telugu-speaking States shows that 91% of 15-
year-old children were enrolled in secondary schools in 2016, up from 78% in 2009.
However, the study reveals a decline in the performance of mathematics in 2016
compared to 2009 (Galab and Reddy 2017a, b; https://www.younglives.org.uk).
Universal Secondary Education in the Telugu … 281

Table 1 Literacy rates of 7+ population in united Andhra Pradesh and all India
Year United Andhra Pradesh All India
Person Male Female literacy Gender Person Male Female literacy Gender
literacy literacy rate gap literacy literacy rate gap
rate rate rate rate
1961 21 30 12 18 28 40 15 25
1971 25 33 16 17 34 46 22 24
1981 30 39 20 19 44 56 30 26
1991 44 55 33 22 52 64 39 25
2001 61 70 51 19 65 75 54 21
2011 68 76 60 16 74 82 66 16
Source Census data

2 Growth in Population

The growth in population has implications for universalising the secondary educa-
tion. The share of the population of Telangana State in the total Telugu-speaking
States was 39.2% in 1991 and increased to 41.8% by 2011. The population growth
rates of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh during 1991–2011 were 35.2 and 22.1 respec-
tively. We find relatively high growth in population during 1991–2011 in Southern
Telangana zone (42.2%) in Telangana State comprising Mahabubnagar, Rangareddy,
Hyderabad, Nalgonda and Khammam districts, and Rayalaseema zone (29.9%) in
Andhra Pradesh State consisting of Ananthapur, Cuddapah, Kurnool and Chittoor
districts.1 Given the existing structural barriers and the policy approach towards
encouraging private players in education, it is of interest to examine the status of
literacy of 7+ populations at disaggregated levels as it may help the policy-makers
take suitable actions in the required areas.

3 Literacy Rates in United Andhra Pradesh and All India

Like growth in population, literacy rate among 7+ population also plays an impor-
tant role in the universalisation of secondary education. The literacy rate in Andhra
Pradesh and Telangana States, together, was always lower than the all-India average
(Table 1). The combined State of Andhra Pradesh has made substantial progress
during the two decades, i.e. 1981–2001, but the results of the 2011 Census figures do
not reveal an encouraging picture. It is important to observe that the number of liter-
ates is increasing considerably but, at the same time, population is also increasing.

1 North Telangana comprises Medak, Warangal, Karimnagar, Nizamabad and Adilabad districts
in Telangana state. North Coastal Andhra covers Srikakulam, Vizianagaram and Visakhapatnam
districts in Andhra Pradesh; South Coastal Andhra zone comprises East Godavari, West Godavari,
Krishna, Guntur, Prakasam and Nellore districts in Andhra Pradesh.
282 P. Prudhvikar Reddy et al.

If we neglect this, then there will be a danger of accumulation of more and more
illiterates in these States. Thus, there is need for overall improvement in the literacy
rates, irrespective of social category, gender and geographical areas.2 The combined
State of Andhra Pradesh, with a person or total literacy rate of 67.7, is among the
four least literate States in India. The other three least literate States are Bihar (63.8),
Rajasthan (67.1) and Jharkhand (67.6). In terms of male literacy, combined Andhra
Pradesh (75.6) is just only above Bihar (73.4). While the overall literacy rate has
increased from about 44% in 1991–68 in 2011; the male literacy rate has increased
from 55% to 76%.3 What is encouraging is that the female literacy rate has improved
substantially from 33 in 1991–60 in 2011. The ratio of female literacy to male literacy
has exhibited increasing trend after 1981, both for the united Andhra Pradesh and
for all India, thus revealing the narrowing of gender gap in the literacy in both the
cases, which is a welcome sign (Table 1).
At the disaggregate level, in Telangana State, only Hyderabad district, with literacy
rate of 83.2 and gender disparity in literacy of about seven points, has reached the
11th Plan literacy targets. Apart from Hyderabad, the other district which has literacy
rate higher than the all-India literacy rate of 74 is Rangareddy (76). Not only are the
literacy rates of all the other districts in Telangana less than 74 (the literacy rate at
all-India level), but the gender disparities in literacy are also substantially higher than
16.6 (the gender disparity in literacy at all-India level) except in Khammam (14.9)
and Rangareddy (12.7). We find that Mahabubnagar (55.0) is the least literate district
in Telangana State. All the districts in Telangana State have rural literacy rates lower
than the all-India rural literacy rate of 67.8. It is highly disheartening to note that the
urban–rural gap in literacy rates in all the districts in Telangana State is substantially
higher than that of the all-India urban-rural literacy gaps for both the males and the
females and also in case of all persons (Reddy et al. 2017).
In the new State of Andhra Pradesh, the only districts that are closer to the All-
India literacy rate of 74% are Krishna (73.7%) and West Godavari (74.6%). Further,
the female literacy rates of these two districts (69.2 and 71.4, respectively) and East
Godavari (67.5) are higher than the all-India female literacy rate of 65.5%. We find
the districts Vizianagaram (58.9) and Kurnool (60.0) are low literate districts (also in
terms of both the male and the female literacy rates as well). It is also worth noting
that the male literacy rates of all the districts in Andhra Pradesh are lower than the
all-India male literacy rate of 82.1%.
To sum up, the low literacy rate districts and districts with high gender gap in
literacy rates need adequate attention. Some of the low literate (FLR, MLR and
PLR) districts, such as Kurnool in Andhra Pradesh and erstwhile Mahabubnagar

2 Study by Galab et al. (2013) on primary education in Andhra Pradesh reveals that education
officers in the state perceived that there is no gender discrimination in education but children of
tribal communities and migrating labour are facing problems in having access to education. The
officers observed that teacher absenteeism is higher in tribal areas and special training is needed for
teachers in tribal areas. Vacant posts and inadequate support are the reasons for lack of monitoring
mechanism affecting the governance.
3 Dixon’s study (2010) revealed that generally private-unaided schools are contributing significantly

to India, achieving the target of education for all.

Universal Secondary Education in the Telugu … 283

in Telangana, are also having relatively high gender differences in literacy rates
(GDLR), and relatively high MLR districts, such as Cuddapah in AP and erstwhile
Nalgonda in TS, are also having high GDLR values. Thus, there is need to give
more thrust in these areas to improve equity in literacy which is essential to achieve
universalisation of secondary education. The results, flowing from the analysis of
sex ratio, strongly recommend that the rural mandals, with child sex ratio less than
950, need special attention, since adverse child sex ratio will have implications on
gender equity and literacy of the future generation.

4 Universalising Secondary Education—All India

4.1 Data Sources and Methodology

This study used four rounds of data collected by National Sample Survey Organisa-
tion (NSSO), i.e. 50th (1993–94), 61st (2004–05), 66th (2009–10) and 68th round
(2011–12). The data collected relate to school attendance rates, educational status
(never attended, drop-out, currently attending) and educational levels of children
in the specified age groups. This facilitates estimating trend growth rates (annual
compound growth rates) in the above specified variables along with its precision
levels and estimating their values for the specified future years. The study also esti-
mates probit models to find out the factors impacting the completion rates and the
net enrolment ratios by location and by different social groups. For assessing the
status of universalising secondary education, we confined ourselves to the net enrol-
ment rates (NER), never-enrolled, and drop-out rates from school in the age groups
14–15 years and 16–17 years at all-India level.
For the model Log Y t = a + b t, the compound annual growth rate
(CAGR) is (eb − 1)100

5 Probit Model
Y = a + b1 x1 + b2 x2 , . . . , bn xn + e

where Y = 1 if the student completes secondary education, and = 0 otherwise

X1 father’s education
X2 mother’s education
X3 share of education expenditure in total expenditure
X4 enrolment in government school = 1, and = 0 otherwise and e = error term
284 P. Prudhvikar Reddy et al.

6 Net Enrolment Rates (NER) in the Age Group 14–15

and 16–17 Years at All-India Level

Net enrolment rate is the number of pupils who are enrolled in school as a percentage
of the total children in the specified age group of the population. This is important
in the context of universalising secondary education. At all-India level, the data on
the percentage of children in the age group 14–15 years who are enrolled in the
educational institutions reveals an increase from 32.2 in 1993–94 to 51.7 by 2011–
12. The estimated trend growth rate in the percentage of children in the age group
14–15 years, enrolled in educational institutions, is 2.7, and it is significant. At this
growth rate of 2.7, we expect that only 62.1% of children in the age group of 14–
15 years would be enrolled in the educational institutions by 2020 whereas CABE
report contemplated universal enrolment in secondary education by 2015. However,
around three-fourths of the children from economically rich households (top quintile)
would be net enrolled in schools by 2020 (Table 2). In contrast, little over half of the
children (55.3%) alone from the poor households (lowest quintile) are expected to
be enrolled by 2020. Urban children would also be lagging behind in net enrolment.
It is interesting to note that the projected values for 2020 show that the difference
between other castes (OCs) and other marginalised groups is narrowing though we

Table 2 All-India: net enrolment rates (NER) of children in the age group 14–15 years across
socio-economic categories during different NSSO rounds—trend growth rates and predicted values
of NER
Population Rounds of NSSO Growth rate Predicted values of Significance
groups NER
50th 61st 66th 68th By 2015 By 2020
Scheduled 22.2 25.8 39.8 47.8 4.5 48.9 60.8 *
Tribes (ST)
Scheduled 21.6 31.8 40.9 44.9 4.4 50.4 62.5 ***
Castes (SC)
Other Castes 35.7 44.8 49.2 54.1 2.4 56.7 63.7 ***
(OC)
Boys 35.4 43.5 49.7 52.8 2.4 55.9 62.8 ***
Girls 28.2 37.3 42.8 50.4 3.2 52.5 61.6 **
Poor 18.1 22.7 36.6 40.0 4.8 43.6 55.3 *
Rich 53.3 73.2 59.8 66.5 1.0 69.3 73.0
Rural 27.0 35.8 44.5 50.0 3.6 53.6 63.9 ***
Urban 47.0 55.1 53.0 56.3 1.0 57.7 60.5
All 32.2 40.6 46.6 51.7 2.7 54.3 62.1 ***
Source Different rounds of NSSO; Rich = top quintile, Poor = lowest quintile
Note *Significant to 10% level
**Significant to 5% level
***Significant to 1% level
Universal Secondary Education in the Telugu … 285

Table 3 All-India: net enrolment rates (NER) of children in the age group 16–17 years across
socio-economic groups during different NSSO rounds—trend growth rates and predicted values of
NER
Population groups Rounds of NSSO Growth Predicted Significance
rate values of NER
50th 61st 66th 68th By By
2015 2020
ST 18.8 30.2 22.1 31.0 2.2 30.7 34.1
SC 21.2 32.7 27.8 31.2 2.0 33.8 37.4
OC 33.5 43.7 35.7 42.1 1.0 42.1 44.2
Boys 35.9 45.1 34.6 40.8 0.3 40.1 40.7
Girls 23.6 35.2 30.8 37.1 2.3 38.8 43.4
Poor 17.0 21.2 16.8 22.3 0.9 21.0 22.0
Rich 44.9 66.6 57.2 58.9 1.5 65.2 70.3
Rural 25.4 36.1 28.6 36.0 1.5 36.0 38.8
Urban 42.7 52.0 44.0 47.1 0.4 48.0 48.9
All 30.3 40.5 32.9 39.1 1.1 39.3 41.5
Source Different rounds of NSSO; Rich = top quintile, Poor = lowest quintile

observe considerable differences in 1993–94 and 2011–12. It is due to higher rate

of growth in net enrolment among Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes
(STs). However, we should note that given the rate of growth, 100% net enrolment
of children in the age group 14–15 years would be achieved only by 2038.
For universalising secondary education, net enrolment rates of children aged 16–
17 years also play a pivotal role. At all-India level, around 30% of the children in
this age group alone were enrolled in schools as on 1993–94 and it has increased to
39.1% by 2011–12 with a growth rate of 1.1% (Table 3).
At this rate of growth, 41.5% of children alone would be enrolled in school by
2020. Children from poor households and ST households are the most deprived ones
and they need special attention. Even from economically rich, 70% of the children
alone are likely to be in the schools by 2020. However, disparities between social
groups and gender are narrowing over time, and more so, in the case of gender. It
will take about 80 years beyond 2020, to achieve 100% net enrolment of children in
the age group 16–17 years.
The school attendance status of children in the age group 14–15 years, which is
also important in achieving the universalisation of secondary education, varies with
the socio-economic groups. For instance, rural SC boys would be reaching 100%
target by 2022; rural children in the poor households would be reaching 100% target
by 2019; and it is very difficult for ST and SC children in the urban areas to reach
the target even after 2020.4 The gender disparity in the attendance rates (GDIA) and
the urban–rural gap in attendance rates are decreasing over time. In fact, the GDIA

4 Results available with authors and will be shared on request.

286 P. Prudhvikar Reddy et al.

Table 4 All-India: never-enrolled rates of children in the age group 14–15 years across socio-
economic groups during different NSSO rounds—trend growth rates and predicted values of never-
enrolled children in the age group 14–15 and 16–17 years at all-India level
Population groups Rounds of NSSO Growth Predicted values of Significance
rate never-enrolled rates
50th 61st 66th 68th By 2015 By 2020
ST 38.7 19.0 8.9 4.5 −11.0 4.3 2.4 **
SC 33.4 12.4 6.9 6.3 −9.6 4.5 2.7 ***
OC 19.6 8.3 5.3 3.8 −8.9 3.1 2.0 ***
Boys 17.8 7.0 4.6 3.7 −8.8 2.8 1.8 ***
Girls 30.4 13.5 7.7 5.2 −9.5 4.4 2.7 **
Poor 38.9 19.5 11.0 8.4 −8.5 7.0 4.5 **
Rich 9.2 1.8 0.8 0.6 −15.0 0.4 0.2 ***
Rural 28.0 11.4 6.4 4.7 −9.8 3.7 2.2 ***
Urban 10.4 5.8 4.5 3.6 −5.9 3.1 2.3 ***
All 23.5 10.0 5.9 4.4 −9.2 3.5 2.2 ***
Source Different rounds of NSSO; Rich = top quintile, Poor = lowest quintile
Note *Significant to 10% level
**Significant to 5% level
***Significant to 1% level

Table 5 All-India: never-enrolled rates of children in the age group 16–17 years across socio-
economic groups during different NSSO rounds—trend growth rates and predicted values of never-
enrolled
Population groups Rounds of NSSO Growth Predicted values of Significance
rate never-enrolled rates
50th 61st 66th 68th By 2015 By 2020
ST 43.8 22.3 8.5 5.8 −11.0 4.9 2.7 **
SC 36.8 13.5 6.5 5.8 −10.6 4.0 2.3 ***
OC 20.6 10.0 5.1 4.2 −9.0 3.4 2.1 **
Boys 18.0 8.6 4.4 3.8 −8.9 2.9 1.8 ***
Girls 33.7 15.1 7.2 5.7 −9.9 4.5 2.6 **
Poor 42.3 22.6 12.2 10.2 −8.1 8.3 5.5 **
Rich 11.5 2.0 0.6 0.6 −16.9 0.3 0.1 ***
Rural 30.5 13.8 6.3 5.2 −10.0 4.0 2.4 **
Urban 11.5 6.0 4.0 3.2 −7.1 2.7 1.9 ***
All 25.1 11.6 5.7 4.6 −9.5 3.6 2.2 **
Source Different rounds of NSSO; Rich = top quintile, Poor = lowest quintile
Note *Significant to 10% level
**Significant to 5% level
***Significant to 1% level
Universal Secondary Education in the Telugu … 287

Table 6 All-India: school drop-out rates in the age group 14–15 years across socio-economic
groups during different NSSO rounds—trend growth rates and predicted values of drop-out rates
Population groups Rounds of NSSO Growth Predicted values of Significance
rate drop-out rates
50th 61st 66th 68th By 2015 By 2020
ST 18.6 25.8 19.1 14.4 −1.0 17.4 16.5
SC 20.7 25.3 18.4 15.1 −1.5 16.8 15.6
OC 19.5 19.1 12.2 9.7 −3.8 10.1 8.3
Boys 17.7 18.8 11.7 10.1 −3.2 10.4 8.9
Girls 22.1 23.2 17.1 12.5 −2.8 14.0 12.2
Poor 19.5 27.7 20.3 16.2 −0.7 19.2 18.6
Rich 14.0 6.3 3.1 4.1 −8.0 2.6 1.7 **
Rural 20.6 22.1 15.3 12.0 −2.8 13.0 11.3
Urban 17.0 17.3 10.5 8.9 −3.6 9.1 7.6
All 19.7 20.9 14.1 11.2 −2.9 12.0 10.4
Source Different rounds of NSSO; Rich = top quintile, Poor = lowest quintile
Note *Significant to 10% level
**Significant to 5% level
***Significant to 1% level

Table 7 All-India: School drop-out rates in the age group 16–17 years across socio-economic
groups during different NSSO rounds—trend growth rates and predicted values of drop-out rates
Population groups Rounds of NSSO Growth Predicted values of Significance
rate drop-out rates
50th 61th 66th 68th By 2015 By 2020
ST 27.6 37.1 38.1 33.1 1.4 38.6 41.5
SC 31.6 41.6 33.0 28.7 −0.3 32.4 31.9
OC 32.8 35.5 26.8 22.2 −2.0 23.9 21.6
Boys 31.5 34.8 26.6 21.9 −1.8 23.8 21.7
Girls 33.0 39.2 32.0 27.3 −0.8 30.1 28.8
Poor 31.0 46.9 40.3 34.6 1.0 41.4 43.5
Rich 26.2 16.5 9.5 8.3 −6.6 7.1 5.0 **
Rural 33.2 39.6 32.1 26.5 −1.0 29.6 28.2
Urban 29.6 29.8 21.2 18.9 −2.5 19.1 16.8
All 32.2 36.8 29.0 24.4 −1.3 26.6 24.9
Source Different rounds of NSSO; Rich = top quintile, Poor = lowest quintile
Note *Significant to 10% level
**Significant to 5% level
***Significant to 1% level
288 P. Prudhvikar Reddy et al.

Table 8 All-India: Secondary completion rates of 17-year-olds (SCR17) across socio-economic

groups during different NSSO rounds—trend growth rates and predicted values of SCR17
Population groups NSSO rounds Growth Predicted values Significance
rate of SCR17
50th 61st 66th 68th By By
2015 2020
ST 28.1 27.6 42.8 48.4 3.2 48.0 56.1
SC 25.2 34.6 46.3 53.8 4.4 58.0 72.1 **
OC 43.4 49.9 59.4 66.6 2.4 67.9 76.5 **
Boys 40.2 46.2 55.7 63.7 2.6 64.5 73.2 **
Girls 39.6 45.1 55.1 62.2 2.6 63.2 71.7 *
Poor 23.0 25.2 36.5 42.7 3.6 43.0 51.2 *
Rich 56.7 72.7 81.3 83.9 2.4 91.0 100.0 ***
Rural 33.1 40.4 49.3 59.1 3.2 60.0 70.3 **
Urban 52.1 56.8 70.0 71.7 2.0 74.7 82.3 *
All 40.0 45.8 55.4 63.1 2.6 63.9 72.5 *
Source Different rounds of NSSO; Rich = top quintile, Poor = lowest quintile
Note *Significant to 10% level
**Significant to 5% level
***Significant to 1% level

among children in the age group 14–15 years during 2011–12 in rural, urban and all
areas at all-India level are 5.2, 3.1 and 4.6, respectively. GDIA among children in
OCs and STs are relatively higher compared to that of the SCs in both the rural and
the urban areas at all-India level.
Every child in the age group 14–17 years must be in school to achieve the goal
of universalising secondary education. Taking the clue from the previous years, it is
estimated that by 2020, around 2.2% of children in the above-said age group would
be never-enrolled. It is true that there is substantial improvement in the enrolment
across various socio-economic groups (Tables 4 and 5). For instance, 23.5% were
never-enrolled in the year 1993–94, and it reduced to 4.4% of children in 2011–12 in
case of children aged 14–15 years and, with the rate of growth, never-enrolled would
be 2.2% by 2020. Despite improvement in enrolment, there are huge differences in
the never-enrolled between children from poor and rich households. Similar results
hold good in the case of children aged 16–17 years (Table 5). Higher percentage of
girls compared to boys are likely to be never-enrolled.
Universal Secondary Education in the Telugu … 289

7 Drop-Out Children in the Age Groups 14–15

and 16–17 Years at All-India Level

It is all the more imperative to arrest the drop-outs from schools in the said age
groups of children to achieve universalisation of secondary education. It is true that
there is a drastic decline in the drop-out rates among the school-going children in the
age groups 14–15 and 16–17 years (Tables 6 and 7). There is nearly 8.5% points of
decline from 1993 to 94 and 2011 to 12 among the school-going children aged 14–
15 years (Table 6). At the given rate of decline, nearly one-tenth of children would
be dropping out by 2020 which would pose a hurdle in achieving the universalisation
of secondary education. In case of children in the age group of 16–17 years, around
one-fourth of children are likely to drop out of school by 2020 (Table 7). There are
huge differences in the school drop-outs. For instance, one-third of children dropped
out in 2011–12 and this would increase to 41.5% by 2020. We also observed gender
differences and differences between poor and rich in drop-outs.

8 Secondary Completion Rates (SCR17) at All-India Level

We noticed that some children may complete secondary education only after 16th year
due to late entry to schools. Hence, we examined the status of Secondary Completion
Rate (SCR) of 17-year-old children and factors affecting SCR of children. Thus, we
expect all children to complete secondary level by the time they reach the age of
17 years. The data on the SCR of children at the age of 17 years indicates that it
has increased from around 40.0 in 1993–94 to 63.1 in 2011–12. The estimated trend
growth rate in the SCR of children at age 17 years is 2.6, and it is significant. At this
growth rate of 2.6, we expect that about 65.2% of the 17-year-old children would
be completing secondary level during 2016, and only about 72.5% of the 17-year-
old children would be completing secondary level during 2020. The SCR of girls is
higher than that of the SCR of boys in the urban areas, and it is simply the reverse in
the case of rural areas. The same holds across all the social categories. We find that
the SCR of children in the rich households reaches 100 by the year 2019, whereas
the picture is gloomy in the case of the children belonging to the poorer households.
Overall, it will take 13 years beyond 2020, to achieve 100% in completion rates of
17-year-olds in secondary education. Children from poor households would achieve
100% only by 2039 and children from ST households by 2038. From this perspective,
it may be noted that universalising secondary education is only a distant dream.
290 P. Prudhvikar Reddy et al.

9 Determinants of Secondary Completion Rates (SCR17)

Probit analysis is used to find out the factors determining the secondary completion
rates by location and by different social groups. The salient findings are given in
Table 9, and the details are as follows:
• Father’s education has significant positive impact on the SCR17 of OC children
(except rural boys), whereas it has no impact on the SCRs of SC and ST children
in both the rural and urban areas.

Table 9 Signs and significant levels of the coefficients of the estimated probit model: secondary
completion rate (SCR) of 17-year-old children
Independent variables All Rural Urban Boys Girls
SCR of 17 year all children: Signs and significance levels of the estimated coefficients
Education of father +ve** +ve** +ve** +ve** +ve**
Education of mother +ve** +ve** +ve* +ve** +ve*
Education expenses share +ve** +ve** +ve** +ve** +ve**
Monthly per-capita expenditure +ve** +ve** +ve** +ve** +ve**
Enrolment in Govt = 1 and = 0 otherwise NS −ve* +ve** NS NS
SCR of 17-year-old OC children
Education of father +ve** +ve* +ve** +ve* +ve**
Education of mother +ve** +ve** +vea +ve** +ve**
Education expenses share +ve** +ve** +ve** +ve** +ve**
Monthly per-capita expenditure +ve** +ve** +ve** +ve** +ve**
Enrolment in Govt = 1 and = 0 otherwise +ve* NS +ve** NS +ve*
SCR of 17-year-old SC children
Education of father +vea +vea NS NS NS
Education of mother +ve* NS +vea NS NS
Education expenses share +ve** +ve** +ve* +ve** +ve**
Monthly per-capita expenditure NS NS NS NS NS
Enrolment in Govt = 1 and = 0 otherwise NS −ve** NS NS −ve**
SCR of 17-year-old ST children
Education of father +ve* +ve* NS +ve* NS
Education of mother NS NS NS NS NS
Education expenses share +vea NS +vea +vea NS
Monthly per-capita expenditure NS NS NS NS NS
Enrolment in Govt = 1 and = 0 otherwise NS −ve * NS NS NS
**, * and “a” denote significance levels of the coefficients at 1%, 5% and 10%, respectively
NS not significant
Universal Secondary Education in the Telugu … 291

• Similarly, mother’s education has significant positive impact on the SCRs of OC

children in the rural areas only, and it has no significant impact on the SCRs of
SC and ST children in both the rural and the urban areas.
• The share of household expenditure on education of children has a significant
positive impact on the SCRs of all the OC children and all the SC children (except
urban boys) and on ST urban boys only.
• Per-capita monthly consumer expenditure has a significant positive impact on the
SCRs of all the OC children only.
• The SCR of the children studying in government and private-aided schools is
significantly higher than the SCR of children studying in private-unaided schools
in the case of OC urban boys only and whereas it is in the reverse direction in the
cases of rural SC girls and rural ST boys.
• There are no significant differences in all the other cases.

10 Prospects of Universalising the Secondary Education

in Telugu States

An attempt is made to assess the prospects of universalising the secondary education

using NSSO data and Young Lives panel data in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana
States. We also reflect on the results of the recent related research studies in the
States handled by the authors. Due to time constraints, we used 50th and 68th rounds
of NSSO for the Telugu-speaking States, and that too for net enrolment of 6–14 years,
for the assessment.
The NSSO data reveals that there is substantial improvement in the net enrolment
rates in both the States, viz. Telangana and new Andhra Pradesh. For instance, in
Telangana, NER was 52% in 1993–94 and increased to 78% in 2011–12, registering
a growth rate of 2.2%. At this rate, NER of 6–14 years would be 95% by 2020
(Table 10). Within the State, erstwhile Hyderabad district, followed by Karimnagar,
Nizamabad, Warangal and Adilabad are laggard districts by 2020 and there is need
to pay attention on these erstwhile districts. We observe substantial improvement in
enrolment by 2011–12 in most laggard districts such as erstwhile Mahabubnagar and
Nalgonda that would be likely to achieve 100% enrolment before 2020. However,
one needs to be cautious in interpretation as this is due to higher rate of growth owing
to low base value. Telangana State will achieve 100% enrolment of children aged 6–
14 years by 2022 at this growth rate, erstwhile Karimnagar by 2049 and Hyderabad,
not in the near future.
In the case of new Andhra Pradesh, like Telangana, 95% of the children in the
age group 6–14 years are likely to be enrolled by 2020, an increase of 41% points
over 1993–94. The State would achieve 100% NER by 2023, Visakhapatnam district
by 2059, Cuddaph district by 2036 and Srikakulam by 2030. Thus, there is need
to concentrate on these laggard districts to achieve the goal of universalisation of
secondary education in the near future.
292 P. Prudhvikar Reddy et al.

Table 10 Net enrolment rates (NER) of children aged 6–14 years in the Telugu-speaking States
District/State NSSO 50th round NSSO 68th round CAGR Projection
2015 2020
Adilabad 56.27 78.16 1.74 85.0 91.8
Nizamabad 52.79 73.95 1.79 80.6 87.2
Karimnagar 65.17 75.07 0.75 77.9 80.7
Medak 48.99 75.16 2.28 83.7 92.3
Hyderabad 78.16 79.51 0.09 79.9 80.2
Rangareddi 54.85 87.62 2.50 98.6 100.0
Mahbubnagar 29.45 75.70 5.09 95.0 100.0
Nalgonda 34.60 78.26 4.39 95.4 100.0
Warangal 60.30 79.82 1.49 85.8 91.7
Khammam 49.24 76.91 2.37 86.0 95.2
Telangana State 51.88 78.09 2.18 86.6 95.1
Srikakulam 51.90 72.08 1.74 78.4 84.6
Vijayanagaram 52.85 82.28 2.36 92.0 100.0
Visakhapatnam 71.46 78.58 0.50 80.5 82.5
East Godavari 51.48 78.55 2.25 87.4 96.2
West Godavari 55.76 74.78 1.56 80.6 86.4
Krishna 56.03 84.31 2.17 93.5 100.0
Guntur 56.42 83.21 2.07 91.8 100.0
Prakasam 47.65 82.39 2.92 94.4 100.0
Nellore 55.11 80.76 2.03 89.0 97.2
Coastal Andhra 55.65 79.89 1.92 87.6 95.2
Cuddapah 56.67 72.32 1.29 77.0 81.7
Kurnool 38.70 83.05 4.10 100.1 100.0
Ananthapur 62.00 79.02 1.28 84.1 89.2
Chittoor 56.89 77.13 1.61 83.4 89.6
Rayalaseema 53.83 78.75 2.02 86.7 94.7
Andhra Pradesh 53.86 78.91 2.03 86.9 94.9

11 What Does the Young Lives Longitudinal Panel Study

Reveal?

Young Lives (https://www.younglives.org.uk) is a longitudinal panel study in Andhra

Pradesh and Telangana following the same children (3000) and their households since
2002 and, so far, five rounds of data collection have been completed. It is a two cohort
study—younger cohort were one year old in 2002 and turned to 15 years by 2016
when the fifth round was completed; older cohort, who were eight-year-old in 2002,
turned to 22 years by 2016. The study facilitates inter-cohort comparison on important
Universal Secondary Education in the Telugu … 293

Table 11 Enrolment details from young lives—A longitudinal panel study in Telugu states
Population Groups Enrolment of younger cohort (%) Enrolment of older
cohort (%)
Age 8 in 2009 Age 12 in 2013 Age 15 in 2016 Age 15 in 2009
Male 99.40 97.42 92.54 82.65
Female 98.74 96.90 89.47 73.82
SC 98.83 97.97 91.10 77.20
ST 98.93 96.09 86.67 75.73
BC 98.85 96.44 90.62 75.83
OC 100.00 98.95 95.45 85.48
Poor 98.40 95.59 84.43 68.00
Rich 99.84 99.36 96.81 88.37
Urban 99.79 98.67 94.80 86.79
Rural 98.85 96.59 89.56 75.43
Govt. school 54.67 59.26 57.79 64.11
Andhra Pradesh 99.24 97.66 90.78 79.35
Telangana 98.80 96.21 91.63 75.79
Both the states 99.09 97.18 91.11 78.10

indicators, including education. There is a substantial improvement in enrolment of

15-year-olds in both the States. In fact, 79.35% of 15-year-olds were enrolled as
on 2009 in A P and in seven years’ time, i.e. by 2016, the enrolment of children
aged 15 years increased to 90.8%, accounting for around 11% points increase in
enrolment. We find much higher increase in the case of Telangana (Table 11).
Despite increase in enrolment of 15-year-olds in a seven-year period, there are
differences in enrolment among socio-economic groups. For instance, around 12%
points difference between poor and rich, around three percentage points between
gender, and nearly nine percentage points of difference between other castes and ST
children. These results, by and large, are in conformity with the predictions based on
NSSO data presented earlier. There is a need to target the laggard sections to achieve
universalisation of secondary education in both the States.
But the CABE under the Ministry of Human Resources, in its report, contemplates
that by 2020, the target should be universal enrolment in secondary education, full
retention and mastery learning in all kinds of learning tasks by more than 60%
learners. Thus, universalisation is not merely enrolment but mastery learning by
majority of students. Young Lives study results provide inter-cohort comparison in
learning by 15-year-olds (i.e. 15-year-olds in 2009 and in 2016) by posing common
mathematics questions. The questions posed and the learning outcomes of students
are placed in Table 12.
The results reveal that a quarter of the 15-year-olds did not answer any comparable
questions correctly in both the States, and more so in Telangana, either in 2009 or in
2016. Around 12% of the students answered all the comparable questions correctly in
294 P. Prudhvikar Reddy et al.

Table 12 Learning outcomes of 15-year-old children in Telugu States—Evidence from panel study
Population Answered common mathematics questions Answered all Did not answer
Groups correctly (%) comparable any comparable
Solving Reading a Approximating mathematics mathematics
addition pie chart annual sales from questions questions
9.81 + 7.62 weekly data correctly (%) correctly (%)
2009 2016 2009 2016 2009 2016 2009 2016 2009 2016
Male 57.1 58.7 40.5 37.2 37.2 29.2 16.8 11.3 23.5 24.4
Female 50.1 58.7 35.1 38.4 24.6 24.4 7.1 8.6 29.6 24.0
SC 40.8 52.8 30.2 33.2 29.6 23.2 7.3 6.8 34.6 26.4
ST 50.5 50.7 24.7 36.1 28.9 23.4 7.2 6.9 34.0 27.4
BC 53.4 59.3 38.6 37.3 28.1 26.4 11.0 10.0 27.3 25.8
OC 68.0 68.6 50.3 44.2 38.7 34.3 20.4 15.2 13.3 16.5
Poor 42.9 50.3 27.1 32.8 27.1 22.1 6.2 6.0 35.2 30.8
Rich 62.9 67.9 45.9 41.7 35.4 31.9 16.0 13.8 17.7 17.0
Urban 59.5 66.7 46.3 40.2 34.6 30.1 14.2 13.3 18.5 20.0
Rural 51.6 56.1 35.0 37.0 29.5 26.0 11.1 9.0 29.2 25.6
Govt. 51.8 54.5 33.9 37.9 29.4 25.4 9.7 9.0 26.3 25.8
school
Private 74.9 74.3 55.1 43.2 40.9 31.9 20.2 14.0 8.9 13.2
school
Andhra 55.8 63.7 40.0 40.4 30.4 29.3 11.9 11.6 25.2 21.3
Pradesh
Telangana 49.2 49.5 33.5 32.8 31.4 22.8 11.6 7.1 29.4 29.7
Both states 53.5 58.7 37.7 37.8 30.7 27.0 11.8 10.0 26.6 24.2

2009 and only 10% in 2016, i.e. a two percentage points decline in the performance.
The decline in learning outcomes in Telangana is much more (4.5% points) compared
to A P. There are huge socio-economic differences in the learning achievement and
it is true in both the States. Thus, both the States are far away from the contemplated
objective of CABE report in terms of learning achievement, though some sections
are better placed in enrolment.

11.1 What the Recent Survey on Out-of-School Children

in Telangana Reveal?

The authors were associated with the recent survey (2018), conducted by Centre
for Economic and Social Studies (CESS), on out-of-school children in Telangana
and present brief results that help in assessing the situation on universalisation
of secondary education. As a part of the research, we conducted a listing survey,
Universal Secondary Education in the Telugu … 295

Table 13 Out-of-school children in the age group 6–16 years in the State of Telangana
District Total No. of Never attended % Drop-out % OoSC %
Hhlds
Jogulamba 544 25 4.6 92 16.9 117 21.5
Gadwal
Jayashankar 398 10 2.5 31 7.8 41 10.3
Bhupalpally
Komaram 415 6 1.4 69 16.6 75 18.1
Bheem
Hyderabad 592 17 2.9 81 13.7 98 16.6
Total 1949 58 3.0 273 14.0 331 17.0
Note OoSC = out-of-school children; Hhlds = Households having 6–16-year-old children
Source CESS field survey 2018

covering 3357 households spread over the four newly-formed districts in the State
of Telangana. Out of 3357 listed, 1949 households reported the presence of 6–16-
year-old children. The main objective of the study was to estimate the numbers
of out-of-school children (OoSC) and ascertain the reasons for the out-of-school
incidence.
The results reveal that 17% of 6–16-year-olds in the State (Telangana) are out-of-
school, comprising 14% drop-outs and three percentage never-enrolled (Table 13).
OoSC varies across districts, i.e. highest in Jogulamba Gadwal district (21.5%) and
the lowest in Jayashankar Bhupalpalle district (10.3%). Within the social groups, STs
recorded the highest with 18.8% of OoSC, followed by BCs (16.3%), SCs (15.4%)
and OCs (14.1%). Thus, there are never-enrolled and drop-outs in the age group
6–16-years, irrespective of the district and social group, and the strategy must be to
address the issue at micro level.
Among the drop-outs, it emerges that overall 41% of the children aged 6–16-years
are dropping out in the primary classes, i.e. before reaching Grade-5. Another 42%
are dropping out in the elementary classes, i.e. Grades-6, 7 and 8, and 16.6% in the
secondary and higher secondary classes, i.e. Grades-9, 10 and 11 (Table 14). On an
average, these children are completing only Grade-6. The drop-out rate by district,

Table 14 Caste-wise, grade-wise drop-out rates in Telangana

Caste Up to primary Grades 6 + 7 + 8 Grade 9 Grade 10 Grade 11 Average grade at
which dropped
out
SC 20.8 58.5 10.4 7.8 2.6 6.8
ST 63.3 29.9 5.1 1.7 0 4.4
BC 32.4 45.9 8.1 5.6 8.1 6.6
OC 50.0 16.7 8.3 8.3 16.7 6.4
All 41.3 42.1 7.6 4.8 4.2 5.9
296 P. Prudhvikar Reddy et al.

caste and grade differs and there are huge variations. For instance, around 29% are
dropping out by the time they complete primary classes in Jogulamba Gadwal district.
This is 40% in the case of Jayashankar Bhupalpalli, 45% in the case of Komaram
Bheem, and 50% in the case of Hyderabad. Given the trend, universalisation of
enrolment in secondary schools is a distant dream and, as such, efforts have to made
in mission mode to achieve universalisation of secondary education.

12 Summary and Conclusion

Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) committee in 2005 recommended

universalising of secondary education by 2015. The target envisaged universal enrol-
ment, full retention and mastery learning in all kinds of learning tasks by more than
60% learners by 2020. RMSA, in partnership with State governments, seeks to univer-
salise enrolment in Grades 9 and 10 across the country. The target is for universalising
entry into secondary school by the end of 2017 and achieving universal completion of
Grade 10 by 2020. SDG also contemplates to ensure inclusive and equitable quality
education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all in India by 2030. But
the literature, including UNESCO reports, shows wide disparities in enrolment and
in learning levels across socio-economic groups, while expressing concern on the
possibilities of achieving universalisation of secondary education. With regard to
literacy rate, the Telugu-speaking States (Andhra Pradesh and Telangana) together
was always lower than the all-India average. The combined State of Andhra Pradesh,
with a person or total literacy rate of 67.7, is among the four least literate States in
India. The other three least literate States are Bihar (63.8), Rajasthan (67.1) and
Jharkhand (67.6). Against this backdrop, the study attempts to assess the prospects
and challenges in achieving the universalisation of secondary education in India and
in the two Telugu-speaking states using NSSO data, and other surveys and reports.
At all-India level, the estimated trend growth rate in the percentage of children in
the age group 14–15 years, enrolled in educational institutions, is 2.7 during 1993–94
and 2011–12 and it is significant. At this growth rate of 2.7, only 62.1% of children
would be enrolled by 2020, whereas CABE report contemplated universal enrolment
in secondary education by 2015. With the present rate of growth, 100% net enrolment
of children in the age group 14–15 years would be achieved only by 2038. It will take
80 years beyond 2020, to achieve 100% net enrolment of children in the age group
16–17 years. It is more important to arrest the incidence of drop-outs from school in
the said age group of children to achieve universalisation of secondary education. At
the given rate of decline, nearly one-tenth of children in the age group 14–15 years
and one-fourth in the age group 16–17 years would be dropping out from schools by
2020. Only about 65.2% of the 17-year-old children would be completing secondary
level during 2016 and about 72.5% would be completing secondary level during 2020.
Overall, it will take 13 years beyond 2020 to achieve 100% in secondary completion
rates of 17-year-olds. Children from poor households would achieve 100% only by
2039 and children from ST households by 2038. From this perspective, we may note
Universal Secondary Education in the Telugu … 297

that universalising secondary education is only a distant dream. Parental education

and the share of expenditure on education are some of the factors that are determining
the completion rates.
Similarly, Telangana State will achieve 100% enrolment of children aged 6–
14 years only by 2022 and new Andhra Pradesh by 2023. Young lives, a panel and
inter-cohort study, shows an increase of 11% points in enrolment of 15-year-olds
from 2009 to 2016, i.e. around 91% of 15-year-olds were in schools in 2016. It is, by
and large, true in both the States. In the case of 6–16 years, the out-of-school chil-
dren are around 17% in Telangana, as per the research report 2018, and the average
grade completed by those dropped out is only Grade-6. All these show that univer-
salising the secondary education in the Telugu state is also a distant dream. Apart
from the enrolment, the learning levels in both the States are declining which is a
major concern that calls for the attention of the policy-makers.

References

CESS–MDG reports on Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. (2016). Goal-2. Hyderabad: Centre for
Economic and Social Studies.
CESS draft report on “Out of school children in the state of Telangana (2018)—An assessment.
Hyderabad: Centre for Economic and Social Studies.
Dixon, P. (2010). Policy review RTE act & private school regulation. No. 4, New Delhi, India:
Centre for Civil Society.
Galab, S. P., Reddy, P., & Reddy, V. N. (2013). Primary schooling in Andhra Pradesh—Evidence
from young lives school based component. Hyderabad: Centre for Economic Social Studies.
Galab, S., & Prudhvikar Reddy, P. (2017a). Education and learning in Andhra Pradesh—Prelimi-
nary findings from the 2016 young lives survey. Hyderabad: Young Lives, Centre for Economic
and Social Studies.
Galab, S., & Prudhvikar Reddy, P. (2017b). Education and learning in Telangana—Preliminary
findings from the 2016 young lives survey. Hyderabad: Young Lives, Centre for Economic and
Social Studies.
GOI. (2005). Report of the CABE committee—Universalization of secondary education. New Delhi,
India: MHRD.
IndianExpress.com. (2015, September 5). PTI report, New Delhi, India.
IndiaSpend Reports. (2016, August). Global Investigative Journalism Network. Mumbai.
Reddy, V. N., Sree Rama Raju, D., Reddy, S., & Reddy, P. (2017). Trends in rural literacy in the
states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana: A disaggregate analysis. Paper presented in the IASSI
Annual Conference held in ANU, Guntur.
UNESCO. (2015). Global education monitoring (GEM) report Gender and EFA 2000–2015:
Achievements and challenges. Paris: UNESCO.
UNESCO. (2016, Apr 21). Universalizing secondary education in India, UNESCO-IIEP. http://
www.iiep.unesco.org/en/universalizing-secondary-education-india-3531.
Skill Development, Vocational
Education and Employment
Elusive Vocational Education
Programme: An Analysis of Trends
in Indian Secondary Schools

Mona Sedwal

Vocational education, based on occupation and employment, is also known as career

and technical education (CTE) or technical and vocational education and training
(TVET). It prepares students, with specific skills, through practical sessions for
careers at various levels in all spheres of life. Vocational education (VE) in India has
been an age-old dream that is sought to be realised in the context of the changing
demographic dividend. As projected, by 2020, the population in the working age
group (15–59) years is likely to increase from 58% in 2001 to more than 65% by
2021. “Demographic Dividend” is the term used for the population in the younger age
group of 20–35 years, which makes India as the “country with the maximum young
population” in the world (Mehrotra 2014). As a response to this, the Government
is focussing on vocational education by taking a number of important initiatives in
this area. The link between education and employment has always been debated on
the basis of acquiring either knowledge or skills. Historically, in India, the basis
of colonial education was to prepare the local masses for administrative jobs by
providing basic skills alone. The Macaulay’s minute had been a landmark as it stated
that education was only related to the idea of acquiring a job in the government
sector. With this backdrop, vocational education can also be traced from the historical
context and this is imperative in understanding the implementation of the vocational
education programme.
The trend of increasing industrialisation and declining agriculture, since the
nineties, is the consequence of the youth migrating from rural to urban areas in
search of profitable employment. The education and skill characteristics are not in
line with the rapidly industrialising and developing economies. A broad shift in the
occupational structure of the Indian economy–from farm to non-farm—has resulted
in new skill requirements for the emerging workforce. The World Bank indicates

M. Sedwal (B)
National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, 17-B Sri Aurobindo Marg,
New Delhi 110016, India
e-mail: [email protected]

© Council for Social Development 2020 301

J. B. G Tilak (ed.), Universal Secondary Education in India,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5366-0_14
302 M. Sedwal

that skill development enrolment in vocational education in India is negligible when

judged by international comparisons. It also states that only five per cent of the Indian
labour force in the age group of 20–24 has received vocational training (World Bank
2008). As a follow-up, India developed a roadmap for skill development, with an
institutional structure at the national level, which was followed by the National Policy
on Skills Development in 2009, with the target of imparting skills’ training to 500
million by 2022. It also focussed on outcome and linkage to jobs and employability
of the trained people (GOI 2009).
Globally Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 2030 focusses on building capac-
ities and TVET, in particular, presents an account of practices adopted for the
economic development of the country. In one of its capacity building programmes
for the African region, it was pointed out that there is a need to transform the TVET
at the national and institutional level, informed by global and regional trends and
vision, through the alignment of local issues with the regional and global agendas
(UNESCO 2017). While many Asian countries like Malaysia, Korea, Singapore, etc.
have focussed on the TVET since the nineties with emphasis on aligning the multiple
departments for providing the implementable policy with the attainable goal. (Tilak
1988 and 2003)
In the Indian context, vocational education and training was introduced way back
in 1854. However, the goal for its expansion is far from being realised due to various
pertinent issues, one of them being that this education is the last option rather than
a choice for the students and this aspect is explored in the paper. This paper takes
into account the genesis of vocational education and its growth in the secondary
education with a focus on its impact on the education system. It also traces the
development of vocational education through the Five Year Plans of the country for
analysing the trends. The involvement of various players, who have no interface with
each other in designing the curriculum to its delivery to students, is probed through
identification of gaps between policy and practice by addressing the demand for
creating employment opportunities for educated students. The focus of the paper is
on identifying the issues and challenges in vocational education with a way forward
in realising the promise of employment for all.

1 Tracing the Origin of Vocational Education

Vocational education is an area that needs to be explored through the lens of employ-
ability as the goal which needs to be traced from school education. This needs to
be in tune with designing of policies for increasing avenues in the job market for
students, as per their demands, though in reality, there is a mismatch between the job
market and number of persons equipped with skills. This section traces vocational
education from its roots, with an attempt to probe its demand which is seen usually
as the last option rather than the choice.
Elusive Vocational Education Programme: An Analysis of Trends … 303

1.1 Pre-independence

Eighteenth century was an era that witnessed the industrial revolution where the
human resources got replaced with machines for goods production. This led to the
need for trained persons for handling the technology, and this was met through
formal training in the technology. In the Indian context, this economic change in
the world, that demanded technically trained employees to meet the occupational
needs, led to the change in the education system. As a colonial nation, the focus
was to acquire trained human resources through technical education for which the
vocational education and training was conceptualised to meet the demand of the
industries. It must be noted that the technical education centres that focussed on
providing training for middle-level technical personnel required improvement in the
physical infrastructure or the artisans and craftsmen for maintaining appliances and
apparatus of the armed forces.
The demand of skilled manpower was firstly addressed in the Woods Dispatch
1854 that recommended to establish professional or vocational institutions offering
specialization in medicine, engineering, law and other professions. Later Hunter
Commission (1882) also emphasized to the provision of vocational education but
only it was confined to the Bombay Province that too in the area of agriculture.
The period from 1902–1921 illustrates that there had been no major progress in the
vocational education as no adequate measures were taken to mainstream it as was
desired by the Hunter Commission and, further, there was no demand for it. (Nurullah
and Naik 1943)
In 1929, Hartog Committee also pointed out that formal education overscored
the vocational education as it had ‘little contact with the educational system and
was, therefore, largely infructuous’. Later, in 1934, Sapru Committee recommended
11 years of school education with vocational studies, commencing after school
education. In 1937, Abott and Wood’s Report on problems of vocational educa-
tion recommended that the colonial government start its first massive nation-wide
training programme in 1940 under “War Technicians Training Scheme”, to meet
urgent defence requirements, related to World War II, in the country. The report is
crucial as many of the issues are found to still have contemporary relevance in so far
as comparison with the subject stream specialisation and its expansion throughout
the country is concerned.
During the same time in 1937, the Wardha Scheme also focussed on teaching
the basic craft through vocational in the self-sufficient mode, with special focus on
manual labour. This was thought to be the best way of individual learning, leading
to earning of a livelihood since it was linked with the child’s surroundings. Thus,
it can be concluded that there was no consensus on the designing and implemen-
tation of vocational education at this point of time as the vocations were based on
providing support to the government requirements while earning a livelihood. The
vocational education was an integral part of the learning in the informal manner as
it was an in-built part of the social structure. Employability was the first priority of
an educated person due to economic necessity. Similarly, Sargeant Report (1944)
304 M. Sedwal

also recommended having adequate provision for efficient training with practical
exposure.
While the pre-Independence era formed the backdrop for the genesis of the voca-
tional education since 1854, the expansion took place only after the Abott and Wood’s
Report in 1937. The reports of various committees pointed out that there was a lack
of demand for vocational education as also the nature of courses to be transacted.
This led to the sluggish progress of vocational education that was further accentuated
due to the lack of funds and trained teachers.

1.2 Post-independence

In continuation of the need for skilled human resources for economic and indus-
trial development post-Independence, the All India Council for Technical Education
(AICTE) , established in 1945, took initiatives for expansion of technical institutions
throughout the country. The major focus was to provide technical education, after
high school, through various policies and commissions at different points of time.
The Ministries of Education, Labour, Industry and Commerce besides the Central
Advisory Board of Education (CABE) were involved in the exercise.
For catering the constant demand for vocational education in 1948–49, the Univer-
sity Education Commission recommended that students completing tenth grade in
vocational education could take admission in the newly-constructed intermediate
colleges, The objective was to cater to the demand for vocational education with
employment skills also keeping pace with the general education for higher educa-
tion. Later in 1952, Mudaliar Commission also recommended that the student have
the option for taking up the vocations with diversification of the courses at the
secondary as well as post- secondary level. This was further reinforced in the Educa-
tion Commission 1964–66 with reference to the importance of vocational education
and suggested two distinctive streams at higher secondary stage: one to prepare
students for advance studies at universities and professional colleges and, second, to
prepare students for a variety of occupations. It insisted that work-experience should
be introduced as an integral part of all education and these recommendations led to
policy formulation in 1968 and 1986 on vocationalisation of school education under
the MHRD.
The centrally sponsored scheme of Vocationalisation of Higher Secondary Educa-
tion was launched in 1988 to cover 10,000 schools with intake capacity of about ten
lakh students. The scheme was revised in September 2011 as Vocationalisation of
Secondary and Higher Secondary Education to meet the demand for highly skilled
human resource for the national and international markets. In April 2013, the scheme
was merged under the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan scheme. Some of
the significant amendments were introducing the vocational education from Class
IX onwards, with increased financial provisions, for inviting resource persons and
engaging with the Industry/Sector Skill Councils (SSCs) for assessment, certification
and training. The status of vocational education in Table 1 illustrates the gap between
the sanctioned schools and the implementation.
Table 1 Status of vocational education
S. No. State Number of schools approved Number of schools implemented
2011–12 2012–13 2013–14 2014–15 2015–16 2016–17 2017–18 Total
1 Andaman & Nicobar Isles 0 0 0 0 5 12 4 21 17
2 Andhra Pradesh 26 0 0 0 100 80 206 126
3 Arunachal Pradesh 0 0 10 11 0 78 0 99 21
4 Assam 59 0 0 0 95 0 100 252 154
5 Bihar 0 0 38 0 0 0 0 38 0
6 Chandigarh 0 0 5 1 4 2 2 14 12
7 Chhattisgarh 0 0 25 0 96 270 100 491 391
8 Dadra and Nagar Haveli 0 0 0 0 2 2 0 4 0
9 Daman and Diu 0 0 0 0 2 3 0 5 2
10 Delhi 0 0 22 0 0 0 0 22 22
11 Goa 0 0 0 37 38 3 0 78 78
12 Gujarat 0 0 0 0 20 0 0 20 0
13 Haryana 40 0 100 100 250 500 11 1001 990
14 Himachal Pradesh 0 100 0 100 300 467 23 873 850
Elusive Vocational Education Programme: An Analysis of Trends …

15 Jammu and Kashmir 0 0 22 110 0 220 0 352 132

16 Jharkhand 0 0 0 0 53 107 55 215 160
17 Karnataka 0 250 0 0 0 0 0 100 100
18 Kerala 0 0 0 0 20 20 0
19 Madhya Pradesh 0 0 50 0 0 263 313 626 313
20 Maharashtra 0 0 0 347 0 164 10 516 479
(continued)
305
Table 1 (continued)
306

S. No. State Number of schools approved Number of schools implemented

2011–12 2012–13 2013–14 2014–15 2015–16 2016–17 2017–18 Total
21 Manipur 0 0 9 30 0 3 0 42 42
22 Meghalaya 0 0 0 0 5 5 3 13 0
23 Mizoram 0 0 0 0 10 1 3 14 11
24 Nagaland 0 0 5 0 0 5 1 11 10
25 Odisha 0 0 30 0 0 178 106 314 208
26 Punjab 0 0 0 100 300 380 0 780 400
27 Rajasthan 0 0 0 70 220 380 50 720 670
28 Sikkim 0 44 0 8 12 57 0 121 121
29 Tamil Nadu 67 0 67 0
30 Telangana 0 20 0 0 100 72 192 120
31 Uttar Pradesh 0 100 0 0 100 0 200 189
32 Uttarakhand 0 0 11 33 36 120 0 200 0
33 West Bengal 93 0 0 0 196 211 100 600 500
Total 192 540 327 947 1644 3798 1053 8227 6118
Source http://www.rmsaindia.gov.in/en/component/pdf/__recentdocs.html?catid=199&main=199&Itemid=224&type=-1
Inclusive of higher secondary schools
M. Sedwal
Elusive Vocational Education Programme: An Analysis of Trends … 307

Table 2 Vocational schools

S. No. State name 2015–16 2016–17
in India (IX–X)
1 Andaman and Nicobar Islands 13 20
2 Arunachal Pradesh 21 8
3 Assam 83 150
4 Bihar 1 1
5 Chandigarh 10 12
6 Chhattisgarh 85 404
7 Goa 77 71
8 Gujarat 8 0
9 Haryana 490 990
10 Himachal Pradesh 553 888
11 Jammu And Kashmir 131 343
12 Jharkhand 18 1
13 Karnataka 7 0
14 Kerala 32 0
15 Madhya Pradesh 65 260
16 Maharashtra 369 430
17 Manipur 0 1
18 Meghalaya 10 0
19 Mizoram 10 27
20 Odisha 3 1
21 Puducherry 1 0
22 Punjab 482 471
23 Sikkim 63 0
24 Telangana 5 0
25 Uttar Pradesh 13 0
26 West Bengal 0 6
Total 2550 4084
Source Computed from UDISE data

Another major change was the introduction of the National Vocational Education
Qualification Framework (NVEQF) in 2012. NVEQF is a descriptive framework
that organises qualifications according to a series of levels of knowledge along with
skills with the aim of integrating general academic education, vocational education,
vocational training and higher education as a comprehensive system. The number
of vocational schools have been increasing due to the change in economy which is
creating demand for skilled persons (Table 2).
308 M. Sedwal

2 Vocational Education Under Five Year Plans: A Review

Education policies addressed the major issue of providing employment to all with
the continued efforts in expanding the choices in vocational education along with the
option for higher education. Initially, the vocational education in school was known
as Work Education from Grades I to VIII for introducing the concept of work. Pre-
vocational education is imparted in Grades IX–X (secondary level) with a view to
providing the students a measure of familiarity with the wide spectrum of the world
of work. In Grades XI–XII, which is the higher secondary level, distinct streams are
introduced. Consequently, the Government of India took various measures to make
the country self-reliant by way of massive economic and industrial development
through its Five Year plans.
Tracing the journey of vocational education in secondary schools through the lens
of five year plans is crucial for assessing its implementation and development. In the
first five year plan, the focus was to provide a vocational bias based on the Direc-
tive Principles of the State Policy as per the constitutional provisions and approved
schemes. It further states that the present education system does not provide scope
for children who have a practical approach towards learning. The five year plan also
mentions that “suitable types of multilateral or unilateral schools offering parallel
courses should be provided and the personnel for vocational guidance should be
trained. The standards to be attained should be high enough, … majority of students
whose education ends at the secondary stage to be efficient workers and ….”. The
most significant statement to be considered is ‘Secondary education is regarded as
the weakest link in the educational chain and an expert examination of its problems
has become overdue’ (GoI 1951, p. 223). Thus, it was stated that secondary education
needs special planning as it is the link between the basic and the higher education.
During the second five year plan, a comprehensive review of the issues related to
the secondary education in 1953 reported the need to overhaul the curriculum as it
was not related to the child’s experience. Thus, it was proposed to engage substantial
numbers of skilled workers, technicians and specialists in specific vocations. The
budget for the technical and vocational education doubled from 230 million from the
previous plan period to 480 million (GoI 1956, p. 500). The proposal was to achieve
the development goals by focussing on the education provided to the children in
the 14–17 years’ age group. For this purpose, the courses and training were to be
designed according to the child’s aptitude and capacities. During the previous plan,
250 multi-purpose schools were started and it was expected to be increased to 1187
during the second plan for imparting diversified vocational courses. It must be pointed
out that the focus in this plan was ‘to develop agriculture at the secondary stage in
rural areas…provide additional 200 agricultural courses’ (GoI 1956, p. 510).
The five year plan also proposed setting up of junior technical schools for general
and technical education along with workshop training for a period of three years
for boys in the age group of 14–17 years. It also recommended attending to the
requirement of training of the secondary teachers in vocational courses. The Ministry
of Education also recommended having a programme for training 500 degree teachers
Elusive Vocational Education Programme: An Analysis of Trends … 309

and 1000 diploma teachers for multi-purpose and junior technical schools. State Plans
provided Rs. 460 million for the reorientation of secondary education for providing
educational and vocational guidance (GoI 1956, p. 510).
The Third Plan focussed on expanding the reach of quality vocational guidance
programmes among the students, with an emphasis on consolidation and improve-
ment of all aspects of secondary education reorganisation. The observations were
recorded regarding the difficulties in the functioning of the multi-purpose schools. As
discussed earlier, 2115 multi-purpose schools were established that offered practical
courses in Technology, Agriculture, Commerce, Home Science and Fine Arts in addi-
tion to Humanities and Science. But the major issue was related to the lack of trained
teachers and teaching material for these courses. The plan proposed to consolidate
the scheme by strengthening the established schools and limiting the expansion for
only 331 schools. The focus was on integrated teacher training programme for which
four regional training colleges were proposed to be set up to ‘prepare teachers for
the multi-purpose schools through in-service and pre-service training programmes to
stimulate greater experimental work for providing courses of study suited to different
levels of ability, including special programmes of education for gifted students’ (GoI
1961). The Fourth five year Plan reinforced the need to provide skills to students
after elementary schooling with reference to the new demands (GoI 1967).
The following plan also proposed that ‘vocationalisation at the secondary stage
will be initiated in selected areas during the next two years so that well-conceived
and fully thought-out programmes are implemented’ (GoI 1973). A similar trend was
also followed in the sixth five year plan, which merely focussed on designing the
model for linking the vocational education with the employment opportunities. It was
proposed to carry this out through the ‘detailed surveys of existing and potential work
opportunities and of available educational and training facilities. It should also keep
in view the specific roles and responsibilities of the different agencies and ensure
coordination at the operational level between the developmental programmes and the
educational system’ (GoI 1981). The focus was to establish linkages with different
agencies for practical experience in the vocational skills, namely Krishi Udyog, Van
Vikas and vocational training centres and the new facilities need to be created only in
the rural areas. This programme made limited progress, with an enrolment of about
55,000 students in vocational education, confined to nine States and three Union
Territories where it had been introduced.
The Seventh five year plan opined that the ‘socially useful productive work (work
experience) programme component …. Besides, the support system for development,
training, management and supervision available for vocationalisation programmes,
will also be utilised for the programme of socially useful productive work at the
secondary stage. Some courses/activities of pre-vocational character will also be
introduced for more effective implementation of this programme’ (GoI 1985). Thus,
the major focus was provided on vocational education in the higher secondary schools
by ensuring that there is no overlap of the courses between technical and vocational
institutions and the schools. It also stated that vocational education courses are to
be initiated in a flexible manner, linking with the upcoming job opportunities. The
310 M. Sedwal

success of vocational education scheme can be achieved only through collabora-

tion with the States, for which an expert committee was set up for expanding the
programme in coordination with the education system.
The following plan coincided with the liberalisation of the economy that marked
the expansion of the education system in the country. The vocational education
scheme was revised, and it was reported that ‘By the end of 1991–92, about 8.7% of
the higher secondary students (5.85 lakhs) would have been diverted to vocational
stream… education would be linked to the world of work … improving the quality
of vocational education’ (GoI 1992). In the Eighth five year plan, the National Open
Schooling (NOS) was made responsible for introducing and developing courses for
vocational education for ‘health, agriculture and rural development in collaboration
with the concerned departments’. It also focussed on the courses which could be
flexible and need-based, catering to the disadvantaged groups. At this point, it was
suggested ‘experimental projects with other vocational education models are also
tried out, e.g. pre-vocational education at the lower secondary level…involve major
industrial houses … services of commercial agencies and NGOs will also be utilised’
(GoI 1992).
The Ninth five year plan recorded that ‘secondary education curricula continue
to be liberal and oriented to the first degree courses, in spite of the strong advocacy
in favour of vocationalisation and investments made to divert students to vocational
courses’ (GoI 1999). It emphasised on pre-vocational training at the secondary level
for industrial and agricultural development with practical training. In 1993–94, pre-
vocational training to students enrolled at the secondary stage was initiated and
the programme of vocationalisation was extended to 6476 schools during 1995–96
with a share of 11.5% of students in the vocational streams. But it must be noted
that ‘in spite of creating capacity for diversion of 11.5% secondary pass students
to vocational courses, only 4.8% students could be diverted’ (GoI 1999). The NOS
contributed to vocational education by developing ‘23 secondary courses including
vocational courses in the areas of Agriculture, Commerce and Business, Technology,
Para-medical and Home Science… 105 are vocational study centres’ (GoI 1999).
Basic premise for introducing the vocational education scheme was to divert at
least 25% of school students in self-employment but only 4.8% of students opted for
it against the 25% target. The scheme required a huge pool of academic expertise
and logistical support along with strong linkages between the industries and insti-
tutes. Thus, it became pertinent to revise the scheme with the provision for providing
employability to the target group, based on the coordination among different depart-
ments of the various ministries. The plan outlay of Rs. 1000 million was provided
under the vocational education scheme.
By Tenth plan the vocational education rolled out was functional in 6700 schools
offering more than 150 courses in six major disciplines: agriculture, business and
commerce, engineering and technology, health and para-medical services, home
sciences and humanities. With so many courses, there is a need to collaborate with
various ministries, private sector and NGOs for providing training for hands-on
experience as well as financial support for setting up personal ventures. It was also
reported that for promoting vocational education, around 168 NGOs were provided
Elusive Vocational Education Programme: An Analysis of Trends … 311

financial assistance for designing innovative programmes for rural unemployed youth
and school drop-outs. This was proposed due to partial success of the vocational
education scheme at the secondary stage as students preferred to opt for general
education whereas the need was for skilled and technical human resources with the
change in the economic scenario due to liberalisation (GoI 2002). The demand and
need-based approach to the vocational education was emphasised with flexibility ‘to
allow students to switch courses with changes in demand patterns’ (GoI 2002). It
also recommended involvement of industries and professional institutes in designing,
training and certification of courses. The convergence of different programmes was
also mentioned as the State scenarios were different and there was a need to contextu-
alise the course with the demand for regular updation of the curriculum. The need for
training vocational education teachers was reinforced with a need to create platforms
for sharing ideas between trainers and trainees. Involvement of industry associations
like Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), Associated
Chambers of Commerce and Industry (ASSOCHAM) and Confederation of Indian
Industry (CII) was also suggested for imparting skills.
Eleventh five year plan introduced the concept of National Vocational Qualifica-
tion (NVQ) system that was to be developed in collaboration with public and private
sectors to cater to the demand of the industry and the individuals. Central Institute
of Vocational Education (PSSCIVE), Bhopal served as the national resource insti-
tution for policy, planning, and monitoring of vocational programmes. NVQ was in
the form of modular competency vocational education with a mechanism of testing
skills. SCERTs, DIETs and BRCs were to extend an integrated institutional mech-
anism for effective implementation of vocational programmes in convergent mode.
The proposal was to cover 20,000 schools by 2011–12 while so far 9583 schools
were created (GoI 2008).
In the Twelfth Plan, ‘a mechanism was created for convergence of vocational
courses offered by various ministries, private initiatives and vocational education
institutions, and use schools as the outlet for vocational education of young people’
(GoI, 2012). The vocational education scheme was reviewed and supported by
National Vocational Education Qualifications Framework (NVEQF) for smooth tran-
sition from school to higher education ‘and provide more options to students to choose
vocational modules depending on their aptitude and economic requirements’ (GoI,
2012). Competency-based modules were developed for vocational courses and a pilot
programme, within the NVEQF, in 40 pilot schools in eight districts of Haryana to
about 400 schools by 2013–14. An MIS and web portal on vocational education to
share best practices and experiences was proposed. The emphasis was to develop
skills in the formal education from Grade IX onwards and a vocational education
cell has been established within the CBSE. Based on the CBSE-NIOS collaboration
model, the States were also supported for setting up similar cells in the State Boards.
The model allowed the credit accumulation and transfer for accelerated participa-
tion of students to opt for vocational courses along with academic courses either as
combination subjects or additional subjects. For quality assurance, the course design
and TLM development was to get decentralised while PSSCIVE got responsibility
for quality assurance in vocational education.
312 M. Sedwal

Analysis of all the five year plans on vocational education exemplify that since
1950s with the first Five Year Plan (1951–56), vocational education as a programme
has been considered a very crucial area at the secondary level as it is a link between
primary and higher education. The same idea prevailed with the subsequent plans
until the nineties when the National Policy on Education (NPE), 1986 brought voca-
tional education at the centre stage. In 1995–96, vocational education programme was
expanded, but it had a very tepid response from the students in spite of the provisions
made for pre-vocational training, pointing towards a relook at the programme.

3 Translating Plans into Reality: Pragmatic Outlook

The vocational education has been a very complex area for deeper interventions with
a blanket approach as there are many skills transacted in the limited scope of streams.
From the previous sections, it is evident that there had been no demand for vocational
education due to which its expansion had been very limited. Figure 1 illustrates the
major landmarks in the field of vocational and skill education, based on the education
policies and the developments specific to it.
As mentioned earlier, vocational education falls under the purview of the Ministry
of Human Resources Development (MHRD). The All India Council for Vocational
Education (AICVE), under MHRD, is responsible for planning, guiding and coordi-
nating the programme at the national level while State Councils for Vocational Educa-
tion (SCVEs) execute it at the State level (Prasad et al. 2010). The vocational educa-
tion programme was initiated with a view to reducing the pressure on higher education
by diverting 50% students who complete Grade X, according to the NPE, 1968. In

1968 •National Policy on Education

1986 •National Policy on Education

1992 •Modified National Policy on Education

2008 •National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC)

2009 •National Policy on Skill Development

2013 •National Skills Qualification Framework

2014 •Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship

2015 •National Policy on Skill Development and Entrepreneurship

2018 •National Council for Vocational Education and Training

Fig. 1 Landmarks in development of vocational education

Elusive Vocational Education Programme: An Analysis of Trends … 313

1970, very few States and UTs accepted the vocational education and by 1976, the
National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) document, Higher
Secondary Education and its Vocationalization, prepared a model conceptual frame-
work for implementation across the nation (Pilz 2016). Subsequently, the National
Policy on Education 1986 pointed towards the systematic and well-planned reor-
ganisation of vocational education as a stream offering different vocations. In 1988,
the National Working Group on Vocationalisation of Education (also known as the
V.C. Kulandaiswamy Committee) reviewed the Vocational Education Programme
and prepared the guidelines for expansion of the programme. Based on its recom-
mendations, a centrally sponsored scheme was implemented in the States and UTs,
both in the formal and non-formal sectors.
The vocational education scheme focussed on providing diversified educational
opportunities, besides reducing the gap in demand for supply of skilled persons while
providing an alternative for higher education. Initially, the scheme was for two years
at the higher secondary stage and later, based on the report of the evaluation study, it
was suggested that vocational education needs to be of a longer duration. In 1995, the
Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) introduced pre-vocational education
scheme for providing basic skills to Classes IX and X students.
Over 2009–10, the scheme was completely revamped, and was implemented from
April 2011, but on an extremely small scale because 2011–12 was the final year of
the Eleventh Plan. In the beginning of the Twelfth Five Year Plan from April 2012,
along with the National Qualification Framework (NQF), various bodies/committees
for governance, monitoring and implementation were set up. The Central Board of
Vocational Education (CBVE) and State Board of Vocational Education (SBVE) for
accreditation/affiliation, examination, certification and equivalence was also formed,
which in 2013, were subsumed under Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyaan
(RMSA).
The financial provisions for the scheme, which are shared by the Centre and
the States, are varied as the Central government gives 100% assistance for 11
components: apprenticeship training, district vocational surveys, textbook devel-
opment workshops, instructional material subsidy, resource persons training, work-
shop/laboratory building, equipment to schools, teacher training courses, curriculum
development workshop, etc. While 50% assistance is given to the States for five
components, viz. vocational wings at State Directorates of Education, SCERT voca-
tional wings, district vocational wings, provision of raw material/contingency funds
and field visits by students. The ratio of 75:25 is followed for sharing the finan-
cial responsibility between the Centre and the State for vocational school staff. The
States completely finance the expenditure on conducting examinations and providing
vocational guidance (GoI 2002).
In 2014, with the creation of Ministry of Skills Development and Entrepreneurship
(MSDE), a unified policy on skills’ sector was designed. Further, the formulation
of National Policy on Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (NPSDE) 2015 was
published. The main challenge that required to be addressed was that only 4.69%
of the workforce was skilled. In this context, the 2016 budget illustrated the focus
and direction of the government’s policy on skills, including the announcement of
314 M. Sedwal

a new National Board for Skill. NPSDE focussed on global partnerships that were
viewed as enablers for achieving the target by adopting the certification and assess-
ment framework for quality assurance. In 2018, the Union Cabinet announced the
merger of regulatory institutions National Council for Vocational Training (NCVT)
and the National Skill Development Agency (NDSA) with the National Council for
Vocational Education and Training (NCVET). It is expected that this would make
vocational education a desired option for students and lead to the augmentation of
skilled manpower in the country. But a mere change in the policies also needs to be
clubbed with the expansion of the work market as the demand and supply of both
the sectors needs to be balanced well to facilitate a major change.

3.1 Curriculum and NSQF

Vocational education Scheme recommends various career options in skills through

Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) with 15 Vocational Courses in
different sectors at Secondary level and 40 courses at senior secondary level. Many
courses are offered, in collaboration with professional organisations, at the secondary
level in a format wherein the vocational subject can be offered as an additional sixth
subject along with the existing five academic subjects. Thus, if any student fails in
any one of the three elective subjects (i.e. science, mathematics and social science),
then this subject will be replaced by the vocational subject (offered as the sixth addi-
tional subject) and the result of Class X will be computed based on best five subjects.
However, if a candidate desires to reappear in the failed subject, he/she may appear
in the same along with the compartment examination. There is also a provision for
opting for a seventh subject as optional, if vocational subject is taken as a compulsory
one (CBSE website).
Overall, more than 100 job roles are covered under vocational education. In 17
sectors, a four-year curriculum is offered for the students. Vocational education is
also known as career and Technical Education (CTE) which prepares students in
specific trades, involving various practical experiences, while learning. The National
Skills Qualification Framework is followed for designing the curricular and learning
outcome at the secondary level. The various sectors, offered to be transacted in the
secondary schools, are the following:
• Agricultural: With the job role as annual health worker, dairy worker, nursery
worker, paddy farmer, solanaceous crop cultivator
• Apparels, Made-ups and Home Furnishings: With the job role as Hand
Embroiderer-Addawala, Sewing Machine Operator
• Automotive: With the job role as automotive service technician L-3
• Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI): With the job role as Business
Correspondent (NA)
• Beauty and Wellness: With the job role as Assistant Beauty Therapist
• Construction: With the job role as Assistant Mason
Elusive Vocational Education Programme: An Analysis of Trends … 315

• Electronics and Hardware: With the job role as Field Technician-Other Home
Appliances
• Information Technology (IT)/IT-enabled Services (ITeS): With the job role as
Domestic Data Entry Operator
• Retail: With the job role as Store Operations Assistant
• Physical Education and Sports: With the job role as Physical Trainer/Teacher
• Plumber: With the job role as Plumber-General
• Power: With the job role as Consumer Energy Meter
• Private Security: With the job role as Unarmed Security Guard
• Telecom: With the job role as optical fibre Splicer
• Tourism and Hospitality: With the job role as Housekeeping Attendant-Manual
Cleaning: Food and Beverage Service Trainee
• Transportation Logistics and Warehouse: With the job role as Consignment
Tracking Executive, Warehouse Packer.
• Multi-skilling: With the job role as Multi-Skill Technician Course (NA).
NVEQF, piloted (in mid-2012) in two States (Haryana and Assam), was repli-
cated in over 1000 schools in India. The main features of the NVEQF are to involve
the private sector, in the form of Sector Skills Councils (SSCs), being sponsored
by the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), in TVET; courses to be
offered from Grade IX; adopting of semester system with credit accumulation; and
teaching/training to be based on national occupation standards for each level of voca-
tional education and training for individual skills. The timeframe for implementing
the NVEQF was 2017, with the provision of student mobility from vocational to
general education and vice versa. The modular courses provide an option to the
student for undertaking the higher education with an expectation of increased demand
for vocational education (GoI 2013). Academic qualifications were to be assessed and
certified by educational bodies and vocational skills would be assessed and certified
by respective SSCs. It is, essentially, a quality assurance framework which unifies
the National Vocational Qualification Framework (NVQF), developed by the MoLE,
and the National Vocational Education Qualification Framework (NVEQF), devel-
oped by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD). The NVEQF has
been aligned to NSQF and has been introduced in 2035 schools all over India under
the scheme ‘Vocationalisation of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education’.
A review of the project of NVEQF in 40 schools in Haryana (2012–13) by the
MHRD recommended that vocational education and training should be mainstreamed
to increase the number of participants, industry and jobs should drive types of voca-
tional training given, core employability skills should be made essential across sectors
and skill analysis need to be conducted. Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) is a
very important associated function of the NSQF (GoI 2013). Based on the notifica-
tion of NSQF, the NSDA took up pilot projects in select sectors (Agricultural, Capital
Goods, Construction, Domestic Workers, Gems and Jewellery, Health care) for RPL
along with National Institute of Open Schooling and other important stakeholders.
The NSQF curriculum offers courses in 17 sectors, catering to 103 job roles for
Grades IX and X.
316 M. Sedwal

Table 3 Number of schools with enrolment, 2014–15

State/Board Schools Sectors Expected number
Haryana 240 Auto, Healthcare, Retail, Security, IT-ITeS, 23,000
Beauty and Wellness and Sports
Himachal Pradesh 200 Auto, Healthcare, Retail, Security, IT-ITeS, 18,000
Agriculture
Uttarakhand 44 Auto, Healthcare, Retail, IT-ITeS 5000
Madhya Pradesh 50 Auto, IT-ITeS 2500
Punjab 100 Auto, Retail, IT/ITES, Security, B&W and 5000
Healthcare
Rajasthan 70 Automotive, Gems and Jewellery, Healthcare, 3500
Travel & Tourism and Beauty and Wellness
Maharashtra 350 Auto, Healthcare, IT-ITeS, Construction, 15,000
Capital Goods
Nagaland 6 IT-ITeS 300
Karnataka 100 Auto, Healthcare, IT-ITeS, Retail 15,000
Chhattisgarh 30 Automotive, Retail and IT-ITES 2000
Source https://www.msde.gov.in/school-education.html

NSDC in 2014–15 worked with the State Governments of Haryana, Himachal

Pradesh, Karnataka, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Nagaland, Maharashtra,
Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan for implementation of the scheme in their respective
States through its approved and funded Sector Skill Councils (NSDC website). SSCs
maintain the link for Identification of Trades/Occupations, Accrediting curriculum
with PSSCIVE, Recommendation for Appointment of Vocational (Industry) Coor-
dinator, Quality Control of Training, Training of Trainers, Student Assessment and
Certification and Industry Interface. SSCs also conduct assessments and provide
certification aligned to the National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF) along
with the State Education Board (Table 3).
The formation of 40 SSCs was to ensure that the qualifications framework,
approved by the NSDC for different sectors, was reviewed by the government for
preparing the roadmap to develop skills network (GoI 2016).

4 Issues and Challenges

The success of vocational education scheme depends on four major premises:

support from the State, curriculum, teacher or resource persons and inter-
Ministry/Department collaboration. The first premise of State collaboration was
very limited till the Sixth five year plan but, with the formulation of NPE, 1986
and the revision of the scheme with financial support from the Centre, the scheme
was extended/expanded in many States. Currently, vocational education scheme has
Elusive Vocational Education Programme: An Analysis of Trends … 317

been merged with RMSA (now Samagra Shiksha) due to which the supply side
of the scheme was assured but quality aspect is equally critical. The evaluation of
vocational education scheme at various points of time in 1996 and 1998 illustrates
that the States relegated vocational education to the lowest priority, with the scheme
functioning in isolation.
The second premise regarding curriculum needs to be fine tuned with the NVEQF.
It adopted a flexible model for incorporating the vocational education within the
mainstream education. The PSSCIVE, as the nodal institution, developed the courses
in major vocational sectors. Since the curriculum is diversified on demand basis for
specific sectors, it becomes difficult to execute it due to lack of physical and academic
resources. The syllabi of vocational courses are to be competency-based in modular
form with a credit transfer system and provision for multi-point entry/exit, as per the
recommendations. However, in practice, managing such a system is quite challenging
as every course has a different need for executing it along with attendant practice
sessions. The competencies in sync with the NVEQF need to be assessed separately,
and this process is not only time consuming but also requires additional resources.
Thirdly, lack of mechanism for appointing full-time teachers for different voca-
tions, as is the case with curriculum discussed above, makes this vocational educa-
tion scheme less attractive for the States. In spite of the funding from the Centre,
the State governments do not appoint full-time teachers to avoid the risk posed by
non-continuation of the scheme, even though there is a huge requirement of teachers
or resource persons as many courses are offered in various sectors. The issue of
teacher training is also an area of concern as since the courses are practical based,
the uniformity in the process of training or induction schedule is a challenge.
Further, the focus areas for the vocational education schools being in the rural
pockets also, at times, adds to the scarcity of trainers. The selection of schools
needs to ensure that all the districts are covered, with particular emphasis on Special
Focus Districts (SFDs), including districts affected by Left Wing Extremism (LWE)
besides schools located in the Educationally Backward Blocks (EBBs). The selec-
tion of schools and trades should be based on the proximity of schools to industry
and the placement opportunities for students. Each school needs to select two Voca-
tional Trades on the basis of the Skill Gap Analysis, conducted by National Skill
Development Council (NSDC). The share of the disadvantaged groups enrolling
in the vocational education can also be analysed as access to vocational education
is focussed on the less developed regions as per the vocational education scheme
(Tables 4 and 5). Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Jammu and Kashmir
and Punjab had the maximum number of vocational schools. Among the SC enrol-
ment, the highest number of students were from the States of Punjab and Haryana
while, for the ST group, the highest enrolments were in the States of Arunachal
Pradesh and Mizoram.
The UDISE data related to the streams offered by schools in the States for the
years 2015–16 and 2016–17 revealed that in Haryana, the number of schools offering
Beauty and Wellness vocational course increased from 110 to 167, whereas in Punjab,
it dropped from 48 to 40 schools. In so far as agriculture stream was concerned, the
schools offering the related course increased from 75 to 93 in Himachal Pradesh,
 318

Table 4 Enrolment of scheduled castes children in secondary schools (%)

S. No. State Total number of Boys in class IX Girls in class IX Boys in class X Girls in class X
schools
2015–16 2016–17 2015–16 2016–17 2015–16 2016–17 2015–16 2016–17 2015–16 2016–17
1 Assam 59 20 10.66 8.95 10.50 12.68 13.85 5.39 8.11 8.30
2 Chandigarh 10 4 22.76 0.00 19.10 0.00 25.89 0.00 18.28 0.00
3 Chhattisgarh 85 395 16.10 14.75 12.86 15.20 20.30 19.14 18.86 14.79
4 Goa 76 68 3.38 4.58 4.65 3.68 1.94 2.75 4.47 4.31
5 Haryana 490 983 40.95 44.82 39.52 42.18 39.82 38.42 37.40 37.50
6 Himachal Pradesh 503 852 35.41 35.45 34.00 35.19 35.27 34.99 33.16 32.91
7 Jammu And Kashmir 115 324 0.00 5.38 0.00 3.38 0.00 0.00 0.00 2.17
8 Jharkhand 13 0 5.07 0 1.90 0 0.00 0 0.00 0
9 Madhya Pradesh 44 245 21.53 22.80 19.03 17.03 19.73 18.57 14.75 18.31
10 Maharashtra 275 356 16.09 20.53 20.50 22.06 15.46 21.37 16.91 23.43
11 Mizoram 10 11 0.00 5.19 0.00 4.35 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
12 Punjab 403 405 60.48 62.36 62.90 63.46 55.60 58.18 58.18 62.15
13 Sikkim 63 0 7.91 0 8.16 0 6.92 0 6.85 0
14 Uttar Pradesh 5 0 17.89 0 14.18 0 14.16 0 10.77 0
Source Computed from UDISE data
M. Sedwal
Table 5 Enrolment of scheduled tribes children in secondary schools (%)
S. No. State name Total number of Boys in class IX Girls in class IX Boys in class X Girls in class X
schools
2015–16 2016–17 2015–16 2016–17 2015–16 2016–17 2015–16 2016–17 2015–16 2016–17
1 Andaman and Nicobar Islands 5 17 1.35 26.09 3.80 24.20 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
2 Arunachal Pradesh 21 2 82.45 60.00 87.36 84.62 76.92 82.14 75.00 90.91
3 Assam 59 20 9.61 5.00 12.54 12.32 0.00 4.04 6.76 5.28
4 Chhattisgarh 85 395 28.78 33.38 26.58 30.76 24.84 27.94 26.29 24.72
5 Goa 76 68 21.77 20.44 25.04 24.14 22.10 23.65 21.82 24.28
6 Haryana 490 983 0.00 0.13 0.00 0.49 0.00 0.13 0.10 0.45
7 Himachal Pradesh 503 852 5.76 5.73 6.06 6.21 7.07 5.44 8.34 5.90
8 Jammu And Kashmir 115 324 0.00 9.20 0.00 7.03 0.00 27.54 0.00 21.20
9 Jharkhand 13 0 41.06 0 32.38 0 0.00 0 0.00 0
10 Madhya Pradesh 44 245 18.51 25.06 15.92 24.06 16.35 14.63 10.75 11.62
Elusive Vocational Education Programme: An Analysis of Trends …

11 Maharashtra 275 356 46.15 26.73 30.21 28.05 15.46 24.42 37.17 25.96
12 Mizoram 10 11 100.00 93.94 100.00 95.26 0.00 100.00 0.00 100.00
13 Punjab 403 405 0.24 0.01 0.03 0.06 0.00 0.04 0.00 0.05
14 Sikkim 63 0 34.54 0 38.10 0 33.69 0 36.71 0
Source Computed from UDISE data
319
320 M. Sedwal

16 to 46 in Haryana during the same period while, in Punjab, the schools decreased
from 57 to 52. There was a huge jump in the number of schools offering Healthcare
stream in Chhattisgarh from 14 to 168 while, in Haryana, the corresponding increase
for the stream was from 94 to 134 schools. In the same stream in Himachal Pradesh,
the number of schools rose from 100 to 131 but the maximum rise was in Jammu
and Kashmir—from 56 to 124. In IT and IT-Enabled Services, the number of schools
in Chhattisgarh, increased from 55 to 79; in Haryana from 60 to 232; in Himachal
Pradesh, from 38 to 60 and, in Jammu and Kashmir, it increased to 29 from none.
In the Sports stream, the number of schools in Haryana increased from 69 to 116
(UDISE Raw Data, 2018).
Further, due to lack of coordination between different Ministries and departments,
vocational education could not create the expected demand in the education system.
The linkage of secondary education with higher education and industry, from where
the demand is generated for skilled human resources, is quite weak. There is still
a different treatmential with reference to where the stream of programme is under-
taken, namely general or vocational education. It is proposed that vocational courses
should be provided in general schools in active partnership with industry and close
collaboration with the Block-Level Vocational Institutions (BLVI), established in
rural areas. A proposal was also made for charging fees and evolve self-financing
mechanisms for sustaining the scheme.
The lack of cooperation between institution and industry entailed a lack of incen-
tives to attract the private players. To add to it, there was a shortage of skilled
trainers and teachers coupled with a lack of provision for training and continuous
upgradation of teachers in different vocations. Likewise, there was also a lack of
student mobility from one sector to another. As such, in order to address these
issues, it is imperative that the collaboration between NOS and the formal sector
be of a complementary nature to enable having vocational courses that will make
the desired impact while conforming to quality requirements. The National Skill
Development Corporation India (NSDC), as a response to these concerns, was set
up in 2008 as a public–private partnership Company with the primary mandate of
catalysing the skills’ landscape in India. NSDC is a unique model, based on the pillars
of create; fund; and enable, for meeting international standards in collaboration with
the industries. SSCs, set up as autonomous industry-led bodies by NSDC, created the
occupational standards and framework on curriculum aligned to national standards.
NSDA, established in 2013, had an impact on school education as it gave an impetus
to vocational education. Simultaneously, the impact of other programmes like the
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA), launched in 2000, Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha
Abhiyaan (RMSA), launched in 2009, and the Right to Education Act, 2010 (RtE)
also had an impact on the design and implementation of the vocational education
scheme. For instance, it was observed that there was an urgent need to accommodate
all the pass-outs from these schemes in the skill sector so that they could gain the
skills required for leading a self-sustainable life.
Despite many efforts, the vocational education is still quite limited, with only a
few options for upward mobility in the selected skills through advanced courses.
Modular courses, with the integration of technology and incorporating practical
Elusive Vocational Education Programme: An Analysis of Trends … 321

knowledge, with learner-centric approach, is yet far to be achieved. Besides, it needs

to be further strengthened by better linkages with industry and employers, updated
curricula and teacher-training programmes (Mehrotra 2017). The financial support
needed for upgradation of facilities necessary for vocational education to attain world
standards is enormous. The students, opting for vocational education in schools,
are usually from the rural areas and from the disadvantaged groups for whom the
need-based skills will be relevant.

5 Way Forward

While exploring the process of design and implementation of vocational education,

this paper reveals that vocational education had been a part of twists and turns since its
inception. The changing economic and demographic landscape, in the Indian context,
requires a fresh approach towards education planning. The process of development
happens simultaneously with these changes, if addressed at the right time and with
the right approach. The vocational education had always been an integral part of
the education system but had not made any significant demand for the vocational
streams. It was assumed that vocational education would automatically have a greater
demand than higher education, given its orientation towards skill acquisition for
employability.
The analysis of implementation also illustrates that the demand and supply link
had been weak and, thus, it remained quite limited in its ambit and approach. Initially,
the scheme covered higher secondary schools, but later on, it was extended to the
secondary schools. The review of educational policies and committee reports with
reference to vocational education, highlights the increasing demand of skill develop-
ment in nineties due to economic liberalisation. However, the same demand was not
reflected in the vocational education which was designed to provide opportunities
for self-employment through it. The NIOS also provides the vocational education
through the distance mode in different vocations.
Education is the means of reaching the development goals while vocational educa-
tion is the process for attaining it. The dynamics and challenges of the global
economic process can be addressed by NSQF (established in 2013), followed by
the National Policy on Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (in 2015) and, in
2018, by the National Council for Vocational Education and Training (NCVET). It is
expected that the focus on developing vocational education would be instrumental in
attaining the goal of ‘employment for all’ in sync with the Sustainable Development
Goals.

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Missing Middle of Educated
Unemployable: A Critical Perspective
on Secondary Education in India

Bornali Bhandari, Charu Jain, and Ajaya K. Sahu

1 Introduction

1.1 Motivation

Acquisition of secondary education (Grades nine and ten) is the first steps towards
adulthood, acting as a bridge between childhood and young adulthood. “Secondary
education completes the provision of basic education that began at the primary level
and aims at laying the foundations for lifelong learning and human development, by
offering more subject- or skill-oriented instruction using more specialised teachers”.1
Secondary education, ideally, should prepare the 14–15 year old for further higher
education and for the world of work.2
The important thing to remember is that “skills beget skills through a multiplier
process”, (Cunha et al. 2006; page 698 via Hanushek and Woessmann 2012). “Skills
are personal qualities with three key features—(i) productive: using skills at work are
productive of value; (ii) expandable: skills are enhanced by training and development
and; (iii) social: skills are socially determined” (Green 2013). For the purpose of this
paper, the term “skills” include cognitive, socio-emotional, psychomotor, technical
and vocational and job-specific skills. There are three main questions that are explored
in this paper. First, the extent of inequality in secondary education is assessed as per
latest available data in 2014 and whether there has been any improvement or wors-
ening since 2007. Second, whether the secondary education is adequately preparing

1 WDI website.
2 Childrenare in primary school (Grades 1–8) between ages 5 and 13. Therefore, 14 and 15 are the
appropriate ages for children in Grades nine and ten.

B. Bhandari (B) · C. Jain · A. K. Sahu

National Council of Applied Economic Research, Indraprastha Estate, Mahatma Gandhi Road,
New Delhi 110002, India
e-mail: [email protected]

© Council for Social Development 2020 323

J. B. G Tilak (ed.), Universal Secondary Education in India,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5366-0_15
324 B. Bhandari et al.

the youth with appropriate skills which would enable them to acquire further skills
via higher education or work. Third is the policy implication of this analysis on the
universalisation debate on secondary education. These questions are important from
the policy perspective. The goal number four of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development aims to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote
lifelong learning opportunities for all” by 2030.3
While secondary education may include attainment of education through Classes
9–12 (or 14–18 years old), this paper focusses on the first two grades of nine and
ten.4 This is because education till the 8th grade is compulsory in India due to the
implementation of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE)
Act, 2009.5 Therefore, at the end of the 8th grade, they are 14 years old and cannot be
formally employed because they are under-age (15 years is the legal working age).
If drop-out rates are high or transition rates from elementary to secondary schools
are low, these two critically skill formative years are “wasted” for the youth. This is,
especially, challenging for females who may be employed for household chores. It
is essential to plug the leakage of these two years, if any.
Secondary education is important both from the micro- and macro-perspectives.
There is a demand for workers with secondary education. Approximately 12% of the
Indian workforce, aged 15 and above, had secondary education in 2011–2012 (NSSO
2014)6 and close to 20% of the workforce had secondary education in high employ-
ment generating sectors like transport and wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor
vehicles and motorcycles (NSSO 2014). The World Bank (2009) showed that returns
to secondary education had steadily increased in India over time from 1984 to 2000.
The returns to secondary education were highest in the 1980s to early 1990s (Singhari
and Madeshwaran 2016; Rani 2014; Duraisamy 2002; Blaug 1972; Tilak 1987). The
World Bank (2009) showed that the returns to secondary education were lower in
2004–05 versus 2000 but returns to higher secondary and tertiary education kept on
increasing. Besides, marginal returns to secondary education were higher for females
than males throughout the period 1984 to 2004. According to the World Bank (2009),
attainment of secondary education contributes to higher economic growth and lowers
poverty. Further, secondary education has positive externalities on health, gender
equality, ameliorating living conditions while contributing to democratic citizenship
and social cohesion.

3 UNESCO website. https://en.unesco.org/education2030-sdg4.

4 Higher secondary includes Grades 11 and 12.
5 MHRD website. http://mhrd.gov.in/rte.
6 Workers with higher secondary education had lower representation in the workforce of 6.7% in

2011–12, while share of workers with above higher secondary education was 10.3%. The share
of workers with middle level education was 16.5% in 2011–12 and workers with up to primary
level education was 54.7%. Plus, the average wage rate of secondary education in 2011–12 was
Rs. 247 and higher secondary education Rs. 317. However, if the secondary education is combined
with received or receiving vocational education, the average wage rate was Rs. 553. This gap is
consistent across the age profiles from 15 and above. This implies that it makes sense to complete
the secondary education before looking for other educational or work options.
Missing Middle of Educated Unemployable: A Critical Perspective … 325

1.2 Government Policy and Its Achievements

The Government of India had launched the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan
(RMSA) scheme in 20097 with the objective of increasing the enrolment rate to 90%
at secondary stage, by providing a secondary school accessible within a reason-
able distance. It had also aimed to improve the quality of secondary education
by making all secondary schools conform to prescribed norms, removing gender,
socio-economic and disability barriers, and providing universal access to secondary-
level education by 2017. Recently, RMSA scheme had revised its targets to achieve
universal completion of Grade 10 by 2020 and achieving GER of 75% by 2017
(Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) 2016).
The last thick round of household survey in India (NSSO 2014) with education
and employment data revealed that in 2011–12, 10% of youth aged 14–16 years
were working, 1.3% were working and attending educational institutions, 9.9% were
neither attending educational institutions nor working and 78.8% were attending
educational institutions.
The transition rate from elementary to secondary education in 2014–15 was
90.62%.8 Latest available data from 2015 to 16 showed that the gross enrolment
ratio (GER) in secondary education was 80.01, with 79.16 for boys and 80.67 for
girls (NUEPA 2016),9 suggesting that India may meet its revised RMSA targets.
However, the net enrolment ratio was significantly lower at 51.26 for the corre-
sponding year (NUEPA 2016).10 The corresponding number for 2012–13 was 41.9
(NUEPA 2013). The relatively lower NER confirms that many students in secondary
school are overage. Besides, the average annual drop-out rate in secondary education
was 17.06 in 2014–15 (NUEPA 2016).11 Further, the transition rate from secondary
to higher secondary education in 2015–16 was 69.04; annual average repetition rate
was 3.03 in 2014–15 in secondary education; GER in higher secondary education
was 56.16 while NER was 32.3 in 2015–16.

7 RMSA website. http://rmsaindia.gov.in/en.

8 Transition Rate: The number of pupils admitted (new entrants) to the first grade of a higher level
of education in a given year, expressed as a percentage of number of pupils enrolled in the final
grade of the lower level of education (i.e. Grade V) in the previous year.
9 Gross Enrolment Ratio: Total enrolment in primary education (Grades 9–10), regardless of age,

expressed as a percentage of the eligible official primary school-age population (14+ to 15+ years)
in a given school-year (NUEPA 2016).
10 Net Enrolment Ratio: Enrolment in primary education (Grades 9–10) of the official primary school

age group (16+ to 17+) expressed as a percentage of the corresponding population (NUEPA 2016).
11 Average Annual Drop-out Rate: Presents average of grade-specific drop-out rates in Primary

Grades and is calculated by considering grade-wise enrolment in 2013–14 and 2014–15 and grade-
specific number of repeaters in 2014–15 (NUEPA 2016).
326 B. Bhandari et al.

1.3 Contribution to the Literature and Policy Discussions

Issues of educational inequality continue to plague education, in general, but,

more specifically, secondary education (Agrawal 2014; Chakravarty 2016; MHRD
2016).12 This could be across socio-economic backgrounds (caste, gender, incomes,
etc..) and spatially distributed (rural–urban and States). Agrawal (2014) examines
this question for all types of education from primary to graduation and above for the
whole population of the States. The author shows that although educational inequality
has gone down between 1993 and 2009, it remained quite high (all-India Gini coef-
ficient in education in India in 2009 was 0.51).13 Further, there were rural-urban
differences—all-India rural Gini was 0.55 in 2009 and all-India urban Gini was 0.37
in 2009. Plus there were state-wide differences. Delhi had the lowest Gini of 0.29 in
2009 and Bihar the highest at 0.61.
Chakravarty (2016) showed that the Net Attendance Ratio (NAR) varied widely
across expenditure quintile groups in secondary education. The NAR was 38 for
the bottom 20% of the population and 72 for the top-most quintile in 2014. MHRD
(2015) showed that there are gaps in supply and quality of secondary schools. The
“National Achievement Survey (NAS) data shows that at least half of all children
are performing poorly, confirming that many secondary school students would fail to
reach the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) minimum score
levels in core subjects” (MHRD 2016; pp. 15). Last but not the least, anecdotal
evidence informs us that the introduction of vocational education at secondary level
is not able to plug the gap sufficiently because of both supply and demand reasons.14
The Annual Status of Education Report or ASER (2018) also reports that youth are
not learning vocational skills in the 14–18 age group.
The second section of the paper examines the inequities in secondary education
using three key variables—attainment, attendance and expenditure. While MHRD
(2016) has examined the latest available NSSO 71st round data on secondary educa-
tion, the intention in this paper is to partially extend the analysis of Agrawal (2014)
and compute Lorenz curves to examine inequalities in the variables mentioned above.

12 MHRD (2016) states that India will find it difficult to achieve universalisation in secondary
education as “insufficient numbers of students are reaching and graduating from Grade 8; inadequate
levels of achievement of Grade 9 entrants who may then fail to complete Grade 10 successfully;
insufficient access to secondary school places in some areas and oversupply in other areas; poor
attendance of students and absenteeism by teachers; wide variations between schools in staffing,
class size and availability of learning materials; diversion of resources from free public provision
to subsidies for private schools which do not enrol children from poor households; and failure to
ensure adequate financing at State level to universalise access”. Agrawal (2014) discusses about
teacher absenteeism, culture, agrarian distress as possible factors contributing to high inequalities
of educational attainment.
13 Agrawal (2014) computed the Gini coefficient using educational attainment data from the National

Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO).

14 The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) remodelled secondary education by discon-

tinuing the compulsory vocational subject as the sixth subject (CBSE 2017). An yet to be published
evaluation of the Apprenticeship programme showed that employers did not want to hire apprentices
with secondary vocational education as they did not have enough knowledge and vocational skills.
Missing Middle of Educated Unemployable: A Critical Perspective … 327

The qualitative analysis focuses on the change between 2007–08 and 2014, espe-
cially since the RMSA was implemented during this period. Given the spread of
youth currently (2011–12) attending secondary education, this paper looks at the
whole youth population from 5 to 29 years old.15 The authors find that inequality has
reduced between 2007–08 and 2014 for attainment, attendance and expenditure, but
at a slow pace. Further, this paper also pays attention to the state-wide differences,
rural–urban and gender differences for 2014.
The inequities are then linked up with the discussion on poor quality of secondary
education in the third section of this paper. Unlike previous literature, which had
tended to focus on structural issues of education, this paper wants to link the issues
of gaps in secondary education to those of employability. The issues of quality are
directly correlated with the discussion on skills and, therefore, the employability of
the youth. This is done qualitatively using more recent data from ASER (2018), which
suggests that the rural youth have poor functional skills. This implies that the youth
are poorly equipped to enter the world of work, and therefore, their employability is
limited. Since overall the transition to higher secondary education is also limited as
suggested by the Unified District Information System for Education (U-DISE) data,
this poses severe challenges to the policy-makers to turn the demographic opportunity
into a dividend.
The fourth section of the paper discusses the policy implications from the above
quantity and quality of secondary education while the last section presents the conclu-
sions. Two major conclusions that are derived from the analysis in this paper are
that the secondary education up to Class X should be made compulsory. Second, the
secondary education should focus on attainment of cognitive and non-cognitive skills.
Technical and vocational education should be encouraged in the form of compulsory
and graded pre-vocational curricula.

2 Revisiting Inequality in Secondary Education:

Attainment, Attendance and Expenditure

In this section, the primary focus is on measuring the education inequality in

terms of secondary educational attainment, attendance and expenditure patterns.
As mentioned earlier in the introduction, unit-level data from 64th and 71st rounds
have been used (NSSO 2007–08 and 2014) to facilitate comparisons. Further, we are
examining youth in the age range of 5–29 years. This is because Fig. 1 illustrates that
youth attending secondary education can range from 11 to 29 years’ age although the
majority are concentrated in 13–18 years’ group. This happens due to measurement
errors as the definition of secondary education is not uniform across States in India.
Furthermore, the gap between GER and NER of secondary education also suggests
that the youth currently attending secondary education may be either underage or

15 Results would not change significantly if we take a smaller sample of 14–18 years old.
328 B. Bhandari et al.

Fig. 1 Age-wise distribution of currently attending secondary education, 2007–08 and 2014. Note
Secondary and diploma/certificate course (up to secondary) have been combined to form secondary
education for 2014. In 2007–08, these were not reported separately. Source Authors’ computations
from NSSO data rounds 64 and 71 (NSSO 2010 and 2016)

overage. Given the vast heterogeneity of India, covering this age group makes sense.
Results are broadly similar for the age range of 14–18 years.
This section is further divided into three sub-sections. The first sub-section gives
an overview or descriptive statistics of the youth aged 5–29 years on all-India basis.
The second sub-section assesses the inequalities in secondary education attainment,
attendance and expenditure for 2007 and 2014 by expenditure quintiles. The third
sub-section, on its part, examines state-wise data.

2.1 Descriptive Statistics of Youth 5–29 Years Old, 2007–08

and 2014

At the all-India level, the proportion of population in the age group of 5–29 years
was nearly 46% in 2014. The statistics broadly shows that educational attainment
and current attendance levels have gone up between the seven years of 2007–08 and
2014. In 2007–08, 31% of the youth had either attained at least secondary education
or were attending secondary education. This figure went up to 41.9% in 2014. The
interesting fact to note is that average expenditure on secondary education has gone
up barely by 2.6% on an annual basis.
Of the total 5–29 population age group, the proportion of individuals to have
attained formal education at various levels has gone up from 86% in 2007 to 89.5%
in 2014 (Fig. 2). The share of youth population to have attained at least secondary
education has gone up from 18% in 2007–08 to 27% in 2014 (Table 6). The share
Missing Middle of Educated Unemployable: A Critical Perspective … 329

Fig. 2 All-India percentage share of population (5–29 years), attainment and currently attending:
All India (2007–08 and 2014). Notes (1) To make 2007–08 and 2014 data comparable, secondary
and diploma/certificate courses (up to secondary) have been combined to form secondary education
for 2014. (2) Share of educational attainment and current attendance have been calculated from
total MPCE-wise population in the 5–29 years’ age group. (3) The share of attainment of secondary
education has been shown at that level and does not cover those having more than secondary
education. 4. When the percentage of those currently attending secondary education is computed
as a share of the youth population that have not attained secondary education, the share of currently
attending secondary goes up to 7.8 and 11.1% for 2007–08 and 2014, respectively. Source Authors’
computations from NSSO data rounds 64 and 71 (NSSO 2010 and 2016)

of formal secondary educational attainment has also gone up from 9.3% in 2007–08
to 11.9% in 2014. Similarly, the share of those attending secondary education in the
5–29 years’ age group also went up from 6.3% in 2007–08 to 8.1% in 2014 (Table 5).
Figure 3a, b shows that there has been a shift from lower to higher levels of
educational attainment between 2007–08 (NSSO Round 64 or R64) and 2014 (NSSO
Round 71 or R71). The percentage share of individuals with middle- and higher-level
educational attainment also shows improvements between the two rounds, whereas

Fig. 3 Distribution of educational attainment in 5–29 years: All India, 2007–08 and 2014 (%).
Note To make 2007–08 and 2014 data comparable, secondary and diploma/certificate courses
(up to secondary) have been combined to form secondary education for 2014. Likewise, higher
secondary and diploma/certificate courses (up to higher secondary) have been combined to form
higher secondary education. The 2014 prices are used to compare the average expenditure for the
two years. Source Authors’ computations from NSSO data rounds 64 and 71 (NSSO 2010 and
2016)
330 B. Bhandari et al.

Fig. 4 Distribution of currently attending in 5–29 years: All India, 2007–08 and 2014 (%).
Note Secondary and diploma/certificate courses (up to secondary) have been combined to form
secondary education for 2014. Similarly, higher secondary and diploma/certificate course (up to
higher secondary) have been combined to form higher secondary education. In 2007–08, these were
not reported separately. Source Authors’ computations from NSSO data rounds 64 and 71 (NSSO
2010 and 2016)

for primary and below levels, it has declined although in percentage terms, the change
is not very significant.
In the case of those currently attending, significant improvement in the pattern of
distribution is recorded for tertiary level of education, going up from 5.6 to 10.7%,
showing a rise of 5.1 percentage points. However, in cases of secondary and senior
secondary levels, the percentage share has gone up by 2.5 percentage points each in
R71 over R64. This indicates that although progress in secondary level of education
has been registered over the years, the pace of change was quite slow (Fig. 4).
Figure 5 shows that real average education expenditure has gone up for all levels
of education, but growth in expenditure is negatively correlated to the levels of
education. For secondary education, the compound annual growth rate of education
expenditure is 2.6%.

2.2 Inequality in Attainment, Attendance and Expenditure

for 2007–08 and 2014 by Expenditure Quintiles

The attainment in secondary education, current attendance and average expenditure

in secondary education is examined by monthly per-capita expenditure (MPCE)
class-wise for both 2007–08 and 2014 for the 5–29 years’ age population (Table 1).
In 2014, the secondary educational attainment of the top quintile was double that of
the bottom-most quintile. The change in attainment between 2007–08 and 2014 was
relatively slow, but among all quintiles, the highest growth was seen in the middle
quintile, while the least change was experienced in the top-most quintile. Table 6 in
the appendix shows the educational attainment in other levels of education by MPCE
classes for both 2007–08 and 2014.
Missing Middle of Educated Unemployable: A Critical Perspective … 331

Fig. 5 Real average education expenditure by education level, 2007–08 and 2014 and CAGR
(%change between 2007–08 and 2014). Note To make 2007–08 and 2014 data comparable,
secondary and diploma/certificate courses (up to secondary) have been combined to form secondary
education for 2014, while higher secondary and diploma/certificate courses (up to higher secondary)
have been combined to form higher secondary education. The 2014 prices are used to compare the
average expenditure for the two years. Source Authors’ computations from NSSO data rounds 64
and 71

The changes in current attendance in secondary education have been very slow
over the seven years between 2007–08 and 2014. When one looks at current atten-
dance in secondary education by quintiles, the shares of each quintile are broadly
close to each other, with the exception of the bottom-most quintile. Only 6.3% of
the youth, aged 5–29 years in the bottom-most quintile, were attending secondary
education.
However, when we look at the 13–18 year age group, the share of secondary
education was 23% in 2014 for the bottom-most quintile (NSSO R71). The shares
for the other four quintiles, in ascending order, for the age group 13–18 years were
29, 31, 31 and 32% (NSSO R71). Interestingly, 42% in the bottom-most quintile in
the 13–18 years’ age group were not attending school or college at any level (NSSO
R71). The corresponding numbers for the other four quintiles, in ascending order,
were 32%, 25%, 21% and 13%, respectively. Table 7 in the appendix shows the
current education of other education levels by MPCE class.
Last, but not the least, is the average expenditure on secondary education by
MPCE—the average expenditure of the top-most quintile is four times that of the
bottom-most quintile.16 It is even double that of the second quintile. Average expen-
ditures have gone up for all quintiles between 2007–08 and 2014, but it has increased
the most for the top-most quintile (5%) as shown in Table 1. The average expenditure
has experienced the least rise for the bottom-most quintile.

16 Why are the inequities in expenditure a problem? Desai and Vannemann (2015) show that early
learning outcomes are positively linked to subsequent educational attainment. However, if one comes
from a privileged background, one is able to overcome the learning handicaps, while the ones from
less privileged backgrounds are not able to do so. Children from less privileged backgrounds need
more inputs than not and they are the ones who attend poor quality schools.
332 B. Bhandari et al.

Table 1 Secondary educational attainment, current attendance, average expenditure MPCE-wise

of youth (5–29 years), 2007–08 and 2014
MPCE class 2007–08 2014 Percentage point change
Secondary educational attainment in 5–29 years’ population MPCE-wise and percentage
change, 2007–08 and 2014
1 4.8 7.6 2.8
2 7.4 9.8 2.5
3 9.2 12.7 3.5
4 11.6 14.4 2.9
5 14.3 15.7 1.4
All India 9.3 11.9 2.6
Current attendance secondary education in 5–29 years’ population MPCE-wise and percentage
change, 2007–08 and 2014
1 4.0 6.3 2.3
2 5.3 8.1 2.8
3 6.2 8.3 2.1
4 7.6 8.9 1.4
5 9.1 9.3 0.3
All India 6.3 8.1 1.8
Real average expenditure in secondary education in 5–29 years’ population MPCE-wise and
percentage change, 2007–08 and 2014
1 3309 3734 1.7
2 4094 5172 3.4
3 5023 6243 3.2
4 6685 8090 2.8
5 11,210 15,717 4.9
All India 6608 7936 2.6
Notes (1) Share of educational attainment and current attendance calculated from total MPCE-
wise population in 5–29 years’ age. (2) The distribution for each type of education is shown in the
appendix (Tables 5, 6, 7 and 8). This table shows attainment and attendance for that particular level of
education only. (3) To make 2007–08 and 2014 data comparable, secondary and diploma/certificate
courses (up to secondary) have been combined to form secondary education. The 2014 prices are
used to compare the average expenditure between 2007–08 and 2014
Source Authors’ computations from NSSO data rounds 64 and 71 (NSSO 2010 and 2016)

Lorenz curve is a measure of inequality. Here, the Lorenz curves exhibit decline in
inequality across MPCE classes by educational attainment (Fig. 6) and current atten-
dance (Fig. 7) between 2007–08 and 2014 for secondary level of education. Attain-
ment of secondary education has shown only a marginal decline, with maximum
decline seen in third and fourth quintiles. In contrast, current attendance in secondary
education has shown a significant decline between 2007–08 and 2014.
Table 2 shows the break-up of expenditure for those currently attending secondary
education. The significant share is driven by course fees, followed by books,
Missing Middle of Educated Unemployable: A Critical Perspective … 333

Fig. 6 Lorenz curves of secondary educational attainment of youth aged 5–29, 2007–08 and 2014.
Note (1) To make 2007–08 and 2014 data comparable, secondary and diploma/certificate courses
(up to secondary) have been combined to form secondary education for 2014. (2) This graph pertains
to those who have attained secondary level of education only and not anything beyond it. Source
Authors’ computations from NSSO data rounds 64 and 71 (NSSO 2010 and 2016)

Fig. 7 Lorenz curves of secondary education current attendance of youth aged 5–29, 2007–08
and 2014. Note To make 2007–08 and 2014 data comparable, secondary and diploma/certificate
courses (up to secondary) have been combined to form secondary education for 2014. Source
Authors’ computations from NSSO data rounds 64 and 71 (NSSO 2010 and 2016)

stationery and uniform, and then private coaching. Average expenditure (‘) per
student (in current academic session) pursuing general course for secondary educa-
tion is ‘3724 for government schools, ‘9298 for government-aided and ‘15,785 for
private non-aided schools (NSSO R71). The rise in average expenditure can be
explained by the fact that the households in top-most quintile would be sending
their children to private non-aided schools. The reason for preferring private schools
is that they offer a better environment for learning, whereas the quality of government
education is not satisfactory (NSSO R71).
Therefore, this section shows that inequality in secondary education has declined
between 2007–08 and 2014. However, the change in secondary education has been
relatively slow in the seven years. The glaring inequity is the average expendi-
ture on secondary education in the top-most quintile. This is, approximately, twice
that of even the second quintile. Not only does the top-most quintile have more
334 B. Bhandari et al.

Table 2 Percentage share in total expenditure on secondary education, 2007–08 and 2014
MPCE class Course fee Books, Transport Private Other
stationery, coaching expenditure
uniform
71st round 1 32.2 33.0 6.6 23.2 5.0
2 36.2 29.7 6.6 22.9 4.5
3 38.5 26.5 8.5 21.7 4.7
4 43.0 24.0 8.6 19.3 5.2
5 48.3 17.8 9.9 18.5 5.4
Grand total 42.7 23.4 8.7 20.2 5.1
64th round 1 16.5 49.2 4.0 16.8 13.5
2 18.8 44.2 4.4 20.9 11.7
3 23.2 41.1 4.8 18.8 12.1
4 25.8 34.7 5.6 20.6 13.2
5 31.6 28.0 7.6 19.4 13.4
Grand total 26.5 34.7 6.1 19.6 13.0
Note To make 2007–08 and 2014 data comparable, secondary and diploma/certificate courses (up
to secondary) have been combined to form secondary education for 2014
Source Authors’ computations from NSSO data rounds 64 and 71 (NSSO 2010 and 2016)

access to secondary education, it is being reinforced further by the significant gap in

expenditure per student and, consequently, the quality and learning outcomes.

2.3 State-Level Analysis

Table 9 shows the share of youth population (of age 5–29 years) in each State in
2014, the percentage of youth population who have either attained or are attending
secondary education and the average per-capita expenditure on secondary education.
This helps to bring out State-wide differences across rural–urban and gender. There
are States/UTs like Bihar, Chandigarh, Daman and Diu, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh,
Nagaland, Rajasthan, Sikkim and Uttar Pradesh and Union Territories where approx-
imately half the population is young. At the other end of the spectrum, less than 40%
of the population are young in Kerala, Goa and Tamil Nadu. These States are at the
more advanced stage of demographic transition.
The percentage of youth who have attained or are attending secondary education
is 35% in 2014. States which perform below the Indian average are Assam, Bihar,
Chhattisgarh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh and
West Bengal. Chandigarh is the best performer, with 61% of the youth having attained
secondary education or attending it, followed by Kerala. Both Himachal Pradesh and
Nagaland have 55% of the youth who have either attained secondary education or
are attending it.
Missing Middle of Educated Unemployable: A Critical Perspective … 335

Urban–rural gaps are large with percentage of the urban young, who have either
attained secondary education or are attending it, significantly larger than rural. In
Puducherry and Daman and Diu, the rural shares are higher than the urban ones. In
Haryana, there is no rural–urban gap, with 41 and 42% of the relevant population
having either attained or attending secondary education, respectively.
Surprisingly, Table 9 shows no discernible trends in the gaps between male and
female attainment of secondary education and attending it. There are 13 States
wherein the percentage of female attainment in secondary education and currently
attending it are higher than the percentage of males. Delhi and Daman and Diu signif-
icantly stand-out in that respect. Between Nagaland, Meghalaya and Andaman and
Nicobar Islands, there is not much difference. The highest gap between males and
females is in Uttarakhand, Bihar and Manipur.
Additionally, one looked at the percentage of youth population (net of the youth
who have already attained secondary education), who are attending secondary educa-
tion for both the NSSO Rounds 64 and 71. The change is positive between the
two years but there is spatial variation, with Chandigarh and Goa leading the
change (Fig. 8). There are States like Kerala and Himachal Pradesh, which had very
secondary education attendance in 2007–08 itself and, therefore, registered lower
change.

Fig. 8 Percentage of net youth population attending secondary education and percentage points
change, 2007–08 and 2014. Notes (1) To make 2007–08 and 2014 data comparable, secondary and
diploma/certificate courses (up to secondary) have been combined to form secondary education for
2014. (2) The population between 5 and 29 years of age is defined as youth population. The net
youth population is derived by subtracting the youth who have already attained secondary education
from the total youth population. Source Authors’ computations from NSSO data rounds 64 and 71
(NSSO 2010 and 2016)
336 B. Bhandari et al.

2.4 Main Issues

The above sections indicate that India may meet its downwardly revised target of
universalisation of secondary education. The change over the seven years has been
slow. The aggregate, however, hides variations across income class and spatially,
both rural–urban and State-wise. Rural aggregates, on an average, tend to be lower
than urban ones. The good news is that there is no firm trend of male–female gaps,
with the gaps varying from State to State. The most worrisome feature is the jump in
average expenditure in education between the seven years. Significantly, the average
expenditure in education of the top 20% is double that of the second tier in terms of
MPCE. This tends to perpetuate inequalities in education. The policy implication is
that since secondary education is critical for economic growth and development, it
is, perhaps, time to make it compulsory.

3 Quality of Secondary Education: An Outcomes Approach

The pertinent question that one should pose is whether educational attainment, per se,
is enough. Does acquiring secondary education result in children acquiring skills that
help them in future to acquire further skills, whether in higher secondary education
or jobs? Hanushek and Woessmann (2008) and Hanushek (2013) empirically prove
that acquiring education and acquiring skills may not be necessarily equivalent and
the latter has a stronger relation to economic growth. Education happens to be just
one channel of acquiring skills (Pilz and Wilmshöfer 2015).
This, then, ties up directly with the discussions on the quality of secondary
education. There are multiple perspectives on the definition of the term “quality
of education” and many differing traditions to approaching the question of quality
of education (UNESCO 2004). The UNESCO (2004) states that there should be
three-action principle on the quality of education—relevant, equitable access and
outcome and proper observance of individual rights. Essentially, “education should
allow children to reach their fullest potential in terms of cognitive, emotional and
creative capacities” (UNESCO 2004, p. 30). There are five dimensions of quality, viz.
learners, environments, content, processes and outcomes (UNICEF 2000). Based on
students’ survey, Jain and Prasad (2018) have comprehensively assessed the quality
of secondary education and its impact on students attaining distinction. Factors like
cleanliness of school, well-qualified teachers with a positive attitude, quality of school
infrastructure had a positive impact on students obtaining distinctions (above 75%
in their report cards).
In contrast to Jain and Prasad (2018), for tractability purposes, this paper specifi-
cally focusses on the dimension of outcomes in the discussion on the quality of educa-
tion. The outcomes include literacy, numeracy and life skills, creative and emotional
skills, values and social benefits (UNESCO 2004). While numbers on secondary
Missing Middle of Educated Unemployable: A Critical Perspective … 337

educational attainment, attendance and expenditure are available, numbers on the

quality of secondary education are, at best, sparse.
Therefore, we cite two different sources, which have used different measures of
quality to inform us about the quality of secondary education. These include digital
skills from the NSSO (R71) data for youth aged 14–29 years and ASER (2018) which
assesses functional skills of youth aged 14–18. These are:
• Digital Skills from the NSSO 2014 (R71): The Sustainable Development Goals
actually use indicators on ICT and digital literacy skills for measuring skills for
work (UNESCO 2017). The 74th Round of the NSSO had assessed youth on their
digital skills, the reports of which are available in Table 3. Less than 30% of youth
are able to operate a computer and only 16.6% of youth are able to use the internet
for sending e-mails. Considering the huge gap between the GER of secondary and
higher secondary education, indicating high drop-out after secondary education,
the numbers in Table 3 are alarming. The secondary educational system is ill-
equipping secondary education attendees or those who have already attained the
level with poor digital skills. This is a skill that the majority of firms want in their
workers.
Further, the ASER (2018) showed that functional skills varied a lot among the
rural youth aged 14–18 in 2017: 76.6% could read standard two level text, 43.1%
could divide, 58.2% could read a sentence in English, 75.7% could count money,
55.7% could add weights, 82.7% could tell time in hour terms while 59.3% could
tell the time more specifically in terms of hours and minutes, 50.2% could apply
unitary method, 38.6% could calculate time, 53.5% could read at least three out
of four instructions, 63.8% could manage a budget, 64.1% could take a purchase
decision, 37.7% could apply a discount, 15.4% could calculate repayment, 86.3%
could recognise the map of India, 64.1% could name India’s capital, 78.6% could
name their own State and 42% could identify their own State on the map. Further,
while only 17.6% of youth had never used a mobile, 63.7% had never used internet
and 59.7% had never used a computer. Media exposure of the youth varied, with
6.8% of them having never been exposed to television, 35.5% had never used the
radio and 29.1% having never read a newspaper.
In order to assess learning outcomes, there is a third source, which is the National
Achievement Surveys conducted by the National Council of Educational Research
and Training. They were conducted twice—once in 2015 and, thereafter, in 2018—
for secondary education. The survey tools included multiple test booklets for various
subjects, including mathematics, Modern Indian Language, English, sciences and
social sciences. Along with the test items, questionnaires pertaining to students,
teachers and schools were also used. The problem was that the results in the NAS
surveys were reported subject-wise and not “outcome-wise”. The 2015 results indi-
cate that students’ performance was below average, and this was due to a lack of
conceptual clarity and understanding in the subjects/themes tested (NCERT 2015).
As mentioned earlier, vocational secondary education in India is characterised by
uncertain quality. Further, the quality of the pre-vocational curricula leaves much to
be desired while not actually preparing the students for work (Pilz et al. 2016). In
 338

Table 3 Digital skills of youth aged 14–29 who have attained or are attending secondary education, 2014
Percentage of those attained secondary Percentage of those attending secondary
Able to operate a Able to use Able to use Able to use Able to operate a Able to use Able to use Able to use
computer computer for word internet for internet for computer computer for word internet for internet for
processing/typing searching for sending e-mails processing/typing searching for sending e-mails
desired desired
information information
33.6 30.1 28.0 24.3 27.7 24.2 20.4 16.6
Source Authors’ computations from the NSSO data 71st round (2016)
B. Bhandari et al.
Missing Middle of Educated Unemployable: A Critical Perspective … 339

conclusion, whether in terms of content outcomes, skills for work, specifically digital
skills or functional skills, the evidence seems to be a pointer to the poor quality of
secondary education in India.

4 Policy Discussion: A Way Forward

The last two sections have indicated that secondary educational attainment showed
slow improvement between 2007–08 and 2014. Although educational inequality has
declined over time, the average expenditure of the top quintile on education indicates
a perpetuation of inequities. There are spatial variations. Even if people have acquired
secondary education, there is no guarantee of its quality.
In this scenario, it is important that one should make secondary education compul-
sory in India with the nature of education being so unequal. This boils down to the
basic question as to what are the desirable outcomes that we want from secondary
education in India. It is the bridge to adulthood and should prepare the students
for both work and higher education. Besides, as UNESCO (2004) states, secondary
education should also build good citizens. Given that India is a low middle-income
country with limited resources, it is in its comparative advantage to concentrate on
giving “general training” in secondary education (Becker 1962). General training
would prepare students simultaneously to be good citizens while also pursuing
their respective career paths (higher secondary education or jobs). In addition, the
World Bank (2009) shows that the social returns to education are higher than the
private returns to secondary education, while stressing on the need for more public
investment in secondary education.
What should general training involve? Essentially, the secondary education should
give students foundational skills. “Foundational skills are the fundamental and
portable skills that are essential to conveying and receiving information that is crit-
ical to training and workplace success” (ACT website). There are two key words in
the definition—fundamental and portable. The word ‘fundamental’ signifies that it
serves as a foundation for supporting additional operations/tasks and learning (ACT
website). The second key word ‘portable’ signifies that it is not job-specific but can
be applied at some level across a wide variety of occupations.
Using the NCAER (2018) report, there are four types of skills included in
this paper—cognitive, non-cognitive, physical/psychomotor and technical and voca-
tional skills. Cognitive skills are attributes which are used for “thinking activities”
(Green 2013) like reading, writing, etc. Non-cognitive/soft/socio-emotional skills are
personality traits which matter for success at the job market place. One has to use one’s
emotions to get the job done from others (Green 2013). International literature has
identified from the psychology literature that there are Big Five Personality factors
that matter for success in the job market—conscientiousness, openness to experi-
ences, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism/emotional stability that encompass
the idea of soft skills (Heckman and Kautz 2012). Physical or psychomotor skills
cover areas which require strength and dexterity (Green 2013, p. 22) and involves
340 B. Bhandari et al.

manual skills. Occupation-specific or technical and vocational skills are specific

skills that are required to carry out a particular job.
If for the secondary education system, priority is to provide general training which
boosts both students’ employability and ability to get higher education, this is a
supply-side problem. Technical and vocational skills are job-specific and, in many
instances, firm-specific skills. These should be either provided by firms or in partner-
ship with them. It would be impossible for a secondary school to provide the exact
set of skills that a firm would want. However, it can provide pre-vocational skills that
teach attitude to work rather than just “trades” and focus on situation and personality
(Pilz et al. 2016). Teaching of trades and such skills should be done at the higher
secondary level in collaboration with firms.
From this perspective, Indian secondary schools should be concentrating on
foundational cognitive and non-cognitive skills, physical/psychomotor skills and
pre-vocational skills, which concentrate on attitudes to work. Besides, the Indian
secondary schools need to think ahead about the twenty-first century as technological
changes are changing the nature of work and, consequently, the attributes required
from their workers (NCAER 2018). Table 4 lists the foundational skills that would
be required in the Indian context using Scott (2015) and P21 framework. The P21
framework emphasises on the 4Cs for twenty-first century learning: collaboration,
communication, creativity and critical thinking.
As the list in Table 4 shows, the skills needed for twenty-first century are onerous
and the Indian secondary education system in its current form is inadequate to address
the gaps. The processes are simply not in place (Jain and Prasad 2018). Worse is that
if the top quintile is spending four times that of the bottom-most quintile in preparing
them for the twenty-first century, there will again be a small minority of people with
the “right” set of skills, leading in the perpetuation of inequities.

5 Conclusion

The secondary education system in India is characterised by inequities in attain-

ment, attendance and per-capita expenditure. Although inequities in the former two
categories have gone down between 2007 and 2014, the gap between GER and NER
indicates that children in secondary education are lagging behind. This is also evident
in the spread of age in the people who are taking secondary education. Further, sparse
details available on the quality of education in terms of outcomes indicate that India
is lagging behind. These have serious consequences for India in terms of economic
growth and development, especially as GER in secondary higher education is even
lower. This means lots of youth choose to join work after secondary education.
In this scenario, the best suggestion is to make secondary education compulsory.
Further, the secondary education system should be reformed in such a way that it
produces twenty-first century citizens with openness and flexibility to pursue lifelong
learning, work in a cooperative manner, solve problems and respect diversity of
backgrounds and opinions. Further, this has the added advantage that employers
need and desire workers having these kind of attributes.
Missing Middle of Educated Unemployable: A Critical Perspective … 341

Table 4 Foundational skills: Outcomes for the twenty-first century Indian secondary education
S. No. Type of skills Skill Definition
1 Knowledge English, reading or
language arts, World
languages, Modern Indian
languages (other than the
mother tongue), Arts,
mathematics, economics,
science, geography, history
and government and civics
2 Foundational cognitive Reading Not only know how to read
skills fluently but also ability to
process the information
like following instructions
3 Writing Writing to convey the ideas
in a bilingual framework
4 Mathematics Not only know how to add,
subtract, multiply and
divide but also apply it to a
variety of tasks like ASER
(2018)
5 Communication Articulate thoughts and
ideas using a variety of
means and listen
effectively, especially in a
country as diverse as India
6 ICT literacy Use and apply technology
effectively
7 Global awareness Awareness, address global
issues and ability to work
with people around the
world
8 Financial, economic, Make appropriate
business and economic choices, role of
entrepreneurial literacy economy in society and use
of entrepreneurial skills
9 Health literacy Use and interpret
health-related information
10 Environment literacy Use and interpret
environment-related
information
(continued)
342 B. Bhandari et al.

Table 4 (continued)
S. No. Type of skills Skill Definition
11 Active learning Active learning is defined
as a form of learning in
which the learner uses
opportunities to decide
about aspects of the
learning process. A second
definition of active learning
connects it to mental
activity in another sense: it
refers to the extent to
which the learner is
challenged to use his or her
mental abilities while
learning. Thus, active
learning, on the one hand,
has to do with decisions
about learning and, on the
other hand, making active
use of thinking. The first
kind of active learning is
called self-directed
learning and the second
independent work” (Van
Hout-Wolters et al. 2000)
12 Active listening Listening to others in a
concentrated fashion
13 Critical thinking and Reason effectively, use
problem-solving systems thinking, make
judgements and decisions
and solve problems (not
numerical problems but
solve different kinds of
non-familiar problems in
both conventional and
innovative ways and
identify and ask significant
questions that clarify
various points of view
which lead to better
solutions)
14 Creativity and innovation Think creatively
(brainstorming) and work
creatively with others;
applying innovations
(continued)
Missing Middle of Educated Unemployable: A Critical Perspective … 343

Table 4 (continued)
S. No. Type of skills Skill Definition
15 Communication and Ability to work with others
collaboration effectively and
respectfully; exercise
flexibility and willingness
16 Foundational non-cognitive Civic and digital citizenship Civic citizenship involves
skills exercising rights and
obligations of citizenship at
local, State, national and
global levels and basically
staying involved. Digital
citizenship involves doing
all the above using digital
modes
17 Seek and value diversity Gender, socio-economic
diversity
18 Physical/psychomotor skills Flexibility and confidence,
especially for Indian
females which gives them
the ability to deal with a
variety of situations
19 Technical and vocational Pre-vocational curricula Attitudes to work,
skills creativity and
collaboration,
problem-solving at work,
agreeing to disagree at
work, anger management
etc.
Sources Scott (2015) and P21 website

Of course, one recognises that this is easier said than done in a resource-
constrained country like India. It will also require major changes in the current
education system. However, the long-term costs are immense versus “business-as-
usual”.

Appendix

See Tables 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9.

 344

Table 5 Percentage share of population (5–29 years), attainments and currently attending: All India MPCE -wise
MPCE class NSS round 64 (2007–08): % sharea NSS round 71 (2014), % sharea
Youth Formal Attainment Currently Currently Youth Formal Attainment Currently Currently
(5–29) in educational of secondary attending attending (5–29) in educational of secondary attending attending
total pop attainment education secondary total pop attainment education secondary
1 50.0 77.4 4.8 47.4 4.0 50.0 82.6 7.6 49.6 6.3
2 49.0 83.3 7.4 49.2 5.3 47.8 87.0 9.8 52.6 8.1
3 47.3 86.2 9.2 50.5 6.2 45.7 90.9 12.7 53.5 8.3
4 46.2 89.8 11.6 52.6 7.6 44.1 92.3 14.4 56.2 8.9
5 42.2 94.2 14.3 55.6 9.1 41.0 96.3 15.7 59.7 9.3
All India 46.9 85.9 9.3 50.9 6.3 45.7 89.5 11.9 54.1 8.1
Notes a Share of educational attainment and current attendance calculated from total MPCE -wise population in 5–29 years. To make 2007–08 and 2014 data
comparable, secondary and diploma/certificate course (up to secondary) have been combined to form secondary education for 2014. And higher secondary
and diploma/certificate course (up to higher secondary) have been combined to form higher secondary education. 2014 prices are used to compare the average
expenditure for the two years
Source Authors’ computations from NSSO data rounds 64 and 71 (NSSO 2010 and 2016)
B. Bhandari et al.
Table 6 Percentage Share of Educational Attainment in 5–29 years population MPCE–wise, 2007–08 and 2014
MPCE class NSS round 64 NSS round 71
Primary Middle Secondary Higher secondary Above higher Primary Middle Secondary Higher secondary Above higher
secondary secondary
1 22.6 10.8 4.8 2.0 0.8 20.2 15.5 7.6 4.0 1.5
2 23.9 13.9 7.4 3.3 1.5 20.2 17.6 9.8 6.0 2.5
3 24.1 15.1 9.2 4.6 2.5 20.1 17.5 12.7 9.2 4.7
4 23.3 16.9 11.6 6.5 4.3 18.2 16.6 14.4 11.7 6.9
5 19.9 17.2 14.3 12.0 10.2 14.6 15.3 15.7 17.5 13.8
All India 22.8 14.7 9.3 5.5 3.7 18.8 16.5 11.9 9.4 5.6
Notes a Shareof educational attainment and current attendance calculated from total MPCE -wise population in 5–29 years. To make 2007–08 and 2014 data
comparable, secondary and diploma/certificate course (up to secondary) have been combined to form secondary education for 2014. And higher secondary
and diploma/certificate course (up to higher secondary) have been combined to form higher secondary education. 2014 prices are used to compare the average
Missing Middle of Educated Unemployable: A Critical Perspective …

expenditure for the two years

Source Authors’ computations from NSSO data rounds 64 and 71 (NSSO 2010 and 2016)
345
 346

Table 7 Percentage share of currently attending in 5–29 years population MPCE-wise, 2007–08 and 2014
MPCE class NSS round 64 NSS round 71
Primary Middle Secondary Higher secondary Above higher Primary Middle Secondary Higher secondary Above higher
secondary secondary
1 29.4 11.5 4.0 1.8 0.7 27.1 11.3 6.3 3.1 1.8
2 27.6 12.4 5.3 2.6 1.3 24.9 12.3 8.1 4.4 2.9
3 25.7 12.6 6.2 3.9 2.1 22.4 12.3 8.3 5.6 5.0
4 23.0 13.2 7.6 5.5 3.3 20.9 11.7 8.9 7.2 7.4
5 17.9 12.7 9.1 8.3 7.7 17.0 10.4 9.3 9.9 13.2
All India 25.0 12.5 6.3 4.3 2.9 22.7 11.6 8.1 5.9 5.8
Notes a Share of educational attainment and current attendance calculated from total MPCE-wise population in 5–29 years. To make 2007–08 and 2014 data
comparable, secondary and diploma/certificate course (up to secondary) have been combined to form secondary education for 2014. And higher secondary
and diploma/certificate course (up to higher secondary) have been combined to form higher secondary education. 2014 prices are used to compare the average
expenditure for the two years
Source Authors’ computations from NSSO data rounds 64 and 71 (NSSO 2010 and 2016)
B. Bhandari et al.
Table 8 Average expenditure on education in age group of 5–29 years MPCE-wise, 2007–08 and 2014
NSS round 64 NSS round 71
MPCE class Primary Middle Secondary Higher secondary Above higher Primary Middle Secondary Higher secondary Above higher
secondary secondary
1 1042 1828 3309 7041 9395 1666 1978 3734 6730 11,878
2 1583 2414 4094 7539 11,556 2834 3125 5172 8812 14,722
3 2229 3208 5023 9692 18,091 4139 4424 6243 11,681 19,070
4 3385 4334 6685 12,124 19,814 5994 6138 8090 14,026 23,511
5 7663 8514 11,210 20,804 39,605 12,253 13,418 15,717 23,907 47,596
All India 2693 3975 6608 13,672 27,846 4610 5387 7936 14,892 30,888
Notes a Share of educational attainment and current attendance calculated from total MPCE-wise population in 5–29 years. To make 2007–08 and 2014 data
comparable, secondary and diploma/certificate course (up to secondary) have been combined to form secondary education for 2014. And higher secondary
and diploma/certificate course (up to higher secondary) have been combined to form higher secondary education. 2014 prices are used to compare the average
Missing Middle of Educated Unemployable: A Critical Perspective …

expenditure for the two years

Source Authors’ computations from NSSO data rounds 64 and 71 (NSSO 2010 and 2016)
347
Table 9 State analysis, 2014
348

S. No. State Share of youth population (5–29) Percentage of youth of 5–29 Average per-capita expenditure on secondary
as a percentage of their relevant relevant Population who have education
all-population groups attained or are attending
secondary education
R U M F T R U M F T R U M F T
1 A & N Islands 41 43 40 44 42 47 59 54 54 52 6229 12,789 12,431 4703 9376
2 Andhra Pradesh 42 43 45 40 43 38 49 44 40 42 5274 14,237 8413 6990 8173
3 Arunachal Pradesh 49 44 47 49 48 38 56 43 39 41 7657 11,530 6767 9393 8260
4 Assam 43 40 43 41 42 29 46 32 30 31 3968 12,837 5550 4298 4992
5 Bihar 50 51 51 50 50 22 36 27 21 24 4954 11,399 5688 5728 5708
6 Chandigarh – – 49 52 50 – – 60 69 61 – – 23,835 16,390 20,610
7 Chhattisgarh 46 44 48 44 46 28 36 32 29 29 1978 10,978 3736 2403 3163
8 D & N Haveli 49 44 48 46 47 13 56 35 42 31 3202 9694 4110 12,702 7627
9 Daman & Diu 49 60 62 52 58 47 38 28 55 39 10,419 15,176 20,824 7401 12,265
10 Delhi – – 47 43 45 – – 45 60 47 – – 17,302 18,335 18,161
11 Goa 36 40 40 37 38 51 56 58 64 54 6514 13,957 15,024 9807 11,679
12 Gujarat 44 42 44 42 43 29 43 39 33 34 6626 15,807 10,721 7506 10,229
13 Haryana 47 45 48 45 47 41 42 42 43 42 9685 21,132 17,578 7364 12,345
14 Himachal Pradesh 42 43 44 41 42 55 61 56 56 55 7320 19,127 7714 8389 8312
(continued)
B. Bhandari et al.
Table 9 (continued)
S. No. State Share of youth population (5–29) Percentage of youth of 5–29 Average per-capita expenditure on secondary
as a percentage of their relevant relevant Population who have education
all-population groups attained or are attending
secondary education
R U M F T R U M F T R U M F T
15 Jammu & Kashmir 46 42 48 43 45 37 43 38 39 38 6443 12,260 7434 6439 7230
16 Jharkhand 50 51 51 50 50 26 41 32 28 29 4235 12,064 7089 4940 6042
17 Karnataka 42 43 43 42 42 38 52 45 43 43 4333 13,624 7877 7721 7799
18 Kerala 39 37 38 38 38 57 59 57 54 58 8614 10,785 9188 9648 9493
19 Lakshadweep 47 46 47 45 46 51 47 47 56 48 485 2285 2354 1303 1725
20 Madhya Pradesh 49 48 49 48 49 23 43 31 26 28 3729 11,289 6839 4864 6028
21 Maharashtra 43 42 44 41 43 38 51 44 46 44 5651 19,284 11,248 10,884 11,344
22 Manipur 43 42 44 41 42 43 49 48 42 45 11,051 16,975 13,461 10,507 13,249
23 Meghalaya 52 50 51 51 51 27 51 31 31 31 6536 15,413 6950 9788 8094
24 Mizoram 49 47 48 48 48 26 45 36 34 35 10,456 13,703 11,738 12,373 11,915
25 Nagaland 49 49 47 52 49 53 59 54 54 55 9615 15,199 10,440 11,420 10,694
26 Odisha 45 44 45 44 45 30 47 35 33 33 4168 14,642 6207 5219 5768
Missing Middle of Educated Unemployable: A Critical Perspective …

27 Puducherry 48 43 49 40 45 54 49 47 51 51 2647 12,059 8582 5827 8701

28 Punjab 44 44 46 41 44 40 55 46 49 45 11,628 17,989 16,301 9338 13,966
29 Rajasthan 50 48 51 48 50 27 38 34 28 30 6884 12,062 9156 6066 8002
30 Sikkim 49 49 47 50 49 32 49 33 41 36 4735 21,680 8573 6269 7259
(continued)
349
Table 9 (continued)
350

S. No. State Share of youth population (5–29) Percentage of youth of 5–29 Average per-capita expenditure on secondary
as a percentage of their relevant relevant Population who have education
all-population groups attained or are attending
secondary education
R U M F T R U M F T R U M F T
31 Tamil Nadu 39 39 40 38 39 46 52 49 46 49 6600 11,470 9564 7466 8796
32 Tripura 43 42 44 41 43 25 36 30 24 27 7241 12,961 7807 10,210 8376
33 Uttar Pradesh 51 50 52 49 51 27 37 30 29 29 5067 12,345 7598 5270 6716
34 Uttaranchal 45 45 46 44 45 40 48 44 37 42 5176 13,530 7140 5274 6653
35 West Bengal 45 39 43 44 44 26 43 30 31 31 6170 14,856 9165 8288 8684
India 47 44 47 45 46 31 46 36 34 35 5525 14,102 8502 6934 7936
Notes R stands for rural; U for urban; M for male; F for female and T for total. To make 2007–08 and 2014 data comparable, secondary and diploma/certificate
course (up to secondary) have been combined to form secondary education for 2014. Likewise, higher secondary and diploma/certificate course (up to higher
secondary) have been combined to form higher secondary education. 2014 prices are used to compare the average expenditure for the two years
Source Authors’ computations from NSSO Round 71st (2016)
B. Bhandari et al.
Missing Middle of Educated Unemployable: A Critical Perspective … 351

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Shared Prosperity and Universalisation
of Secondary Education

Arup Mitra

1 Growth, Productivity and Skill

The central role of the manufacturing sector in the context of rapid economic growth
and catching up of the Indian economy has been debated in relation to the surge of the
service sector. Some authors have argued that non-traditional ICT-intensive services,
which are characterised by a growing tradability, increasing technological sophisti-
cation and low transport costs, are on the forefront of a third industrial revolution
(see Ghani 2010 in the case of India). Others such as Aghion et al. (2008) and Stiglitz
et al. (2013) still think that manufacturing remains the only realistic path towards
sustained growth for low-income, low-skill and labour-abundant countries such as
India.1 However, India has come to realise that both manufacturing and services
sectors will have to grow simultaneously while agriculture’s role in proving food
security to all is pertinent. This implies that productivity growth and employment
generation will have to be addressed simultaneously. Rapid productivity growth can
raise the wage rates adequately and, hence, generate ‘decent employment’. Turning
to the determinants of productivity growth, social infrastructure (including health
and education) is seen to be the most important factor (Mitra et al. 2002). Across
all the sectors, new technology which is highly skill-intensive is instrumental in
driving rapid productivity growth. Hence, for the new technology to be successful,
the employability of the existing labour force will have to improve significantly.

1 In this new literature, however, industrial policy is more selective than in the past and committed to

boost competitive firms in industries with comparative advantages only (see also Mitra and Tsujita
2016 for some elements on the literature on the New Industrial Policy).

A. Mitra (B)
Faculty of Economics, South Asian University, Akbar Bhawan Room No. 231, Chankyapuri,
New Delhi 110021, India
e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi, India

© Council for Social Development 2020 355

J. B. G Tilak (ed.), Universal Secondary Education in India,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5366-0_16
356 A. Mitra

An important feature of the manufacturing policy is its financial and development

incentives to the small and medium enterprises. On the whole, the policy promises to
increase the share of manufacturing sector to the country’s gross domestic product
from the existing 16–25%. However, the national manufacturing policy’s objective of
raising the industrial employment to an unprecedented level may not be realised due
to the poor physical and social infrastructure base in many parts of the country. It may
be useful to consider the employment potential of the unorganised manufacturing
sector as well and tap the potential to create quality employment in this sector. For
this again, quality education and skill will play an instrumental role.
Export liberalisation may constitute another means of boosting the productivity
and efficiency of the industries, justifying the export-led growth strategy adopted in
India after the 1991 balance of payment crisis. Despite the doubts about its success in
the future, in the face of the slowdown in the international demand (Mitra and Tsujita
2016) and an overwhelming view to shift to exports of services (Ghani 2010), the
export of manufacturing could help the country reduce large-scale underemployment
and release the low-skilled labour force presently engaged in low productivity and
subsistence activities. But, for them to be employed in the productive activities,
employability has to improve.
Issues relating to infrastructure shortage, energy supply constraints, sluggish
exports growth, poor performance of labour-intensive exportable goods sector and
lack of innovations required for developing appropriate technology and bureaucratic
and administrative rigidities in areas where they tend to hamper growth and employ-
ment or attract foreign investment, are, undoubtedly, important. There is a need
for improvement in the governance structure. The political stability and support, in
creating a conducive environment, is essential for private and foreign investment to
shoot up. Bureaucratic delays for clearing the projects have to be removed. Though
in the reform period, such delays have declined substantially, there is a need for
streamlining the process. The intensity of crime and corruption has to decline. The
rural non-farm sector has to open up new opportunities, particularly for a massive
workforce which needs to be shifted from the agriculture sector. Many of them cannot
afford to migrate to cities, and for them, the rural non-farm sector is one of the most
important outlets. Generating productive activities in this sector, utilising the local
resources, is an important challenge. The services sector will have to grow along-
side manufacturing as the complementary relationship between both the sectors is
prevalent. Besides, manufacturing alone will not be adequate to absorb the growing
labour force. The services sector follows a bimodal distribution, with both a high
productivity and a low productivity segment. And the major challenge will be to shift
the labour from this residual variety to the demand-induced component.
As growth is becoming increasingly skill-intensive, it is pertinent that the available
labour supply meets the challenges of getting absorbed. The quality of education
in institutions which are available for the low-income households has to improve
steadily. Otherwise, the new sectors, which are expanding significantly, and the new
technology, which demands high levels of skill, cannot benefit the vast sections of
the population in sharing the outcomes of growth. Studies in the past have shown
interconnections between growth, health and poverty. Effective health measures are
Shared Prosperity and Universalisation of Secondary Education 357

able to contribute to labour productivity growth which, in turn, reduces poverty

and enhances economic growth simultaneously. Public spending on infrastructure,
health, education and vocational training, therefore, has to increase substantially,
particularly keeping in view the low-income households and their low accessibility to
such facilities. The public infrastructure, education and health support need not have
to remain subsidised for all economic categories. User charges from the high-income
households can be raised to cross-subsidise the have-nots.
In order to reduce the wage inequality among different types of employees, wage
determination has to be linked to productivity growth. We have observed that only
one-fifth of the productivity gets transferred to the wage earners at the floor level in
the organised manufacturing sector. There are several other activities, particularly
in the informal sector, which do not get adequate compensation for price rise. The
most important determinant of wage inequality is again instrumental to the quality
of education and training. On the whole, from equity, shared prosperity and social
justice points of view, access to education is pertinent. Elementary education is not
enough to enable labour to face the labour market challenges. Nor it is adequate
to develop rational thinking, particularly when it comes to mitigating corruption
and enhancing efficiency. During the formative years, access to greater knowledge
is instrumental to personality- building, and often, it is observed that elementary
education can fill in the gaps in learning. For citizenship formation, intellectual,
moral, social qualities and dignity will have to be nurtured. Particularly, in the context
of globalisation, with frontiers of knowledge being constantly pushed to higher levels
and a huge spectrum of information flowing in continuously, it is important that
necessary churning is carried out while keeping pace with modernisation, for which
again secondary education serves as the minimum threshold limit.

2 Returns to Education

Skill formation is an indispensable prerequisite for labour productivity as well as total

factor productivity growth. Even if jobs can be generated in the process of growth,
they may require certain skills and knowledge, which the available labour may not
provide. Hajela (2012) argues that a shortage of skills is making more people unem-
ployable in India. Froumin et al. (2007) urged that only 16% of Indian manufacturing
firms offer in-service training, compared with 92% in China and 42% in the Republic
of Korea. Without a skill, which has greater applicability across a number of sectors,
the bargaining power of the workers and, consequently, occupational mobility tend
to change sluggishly. Mitra and Tsujita (2016) argue that skill formation is not just a
supply-side issue; it is just as much a function of work tasks and work organisation
on the demand side. Policies on skill formation have to take into account both supply
and demand.
Education levels to determine skills is a fairly blunt instrument and, more so,
given that the notion of ‘skill’ is socially constructed. Based on the evidence in Asia
358 A. Mitra

and the Pacific countries, Tilak (2003) observed significant effects of higher educa-
tion on development. In terms of NSS data, Mehrotra et al. (2013) used educational
(general, technical and vocational) attainments to understand the skill levels of the
existing workforce. The authors estimated the skilling requirements, sector-wise,
under different scenarios to arrive at a realistic and desirable target and find that
the challenge of skill development—both in quantitative and qualitative terms—is
enormous and requires a careful policy stance. Mitra (2009) noted that imported
technology, which is capital-intensive in nature, tends to reduce technical efficiency
in the manufacturing sector in developing countries, which could be due to the
unavailability of skilled labour.
The weekly wage function, estimated on the basis of the NSS unit-level data
from the 66th round (Mitra 2013), shows that education dummies (both general
and technical) tend to enhance earnings. Those who had acquired secondary level
education could raise their income in comparison with those who were illiterates or
those who were literates without formal schooling.
Stark (1995) while comparing two societies with two different health outcomes—
low and high life expectancy—argued that the former would mean inter-generational
transfer of resources taking place at a younger age. As a result, the recipient, in the
absence of higher educational attainments, is likely to utilise the inherited resources
in productive channels which, in turn, would lead to sluggish economic growth. On
the other hand, in societies with higher life expectancy, the recipient inherits at a later
age, and the waiting period is spent on acquiring higher levels of education. This
would mean that inherited resources are utilised in terms of productive investment,
resulting in higher levels of economic growth. Also, it has been noted that higher
educational attainments are creating greater awareness and better health seeking
behaviour which is raising the productivity and contributing to economic growth.
Based on the cross-country data, the interconnections between economic growth,
health and poverty are brought out distinctly (Kumar and Mitra 2009). Economic
growth enhances health, measured in terms of life expectancy, which, in turn,
contributes to economic growth positively. Though both higher growth and improved
health are expected to reduce poverty, the effect of economic growth on poverty
appears to be statistically insignificant. This is understandable because unless growth
is accompanied by rapid employment growth for the poor, its effect would rather be
unequal. In fact, the adverse effect of capital-intensive technology which slows down
the employment growth, particularly for the semi-skilled and unskilled workers, and
tends to aggravate poverty is well documented. Access to improved water, education
and better health facility at the time of birth all show positive effect on life expectancy,
which, in turn, reduces the consumption poverty. The close nexus between health
and poverty suggests that better health enhances the capability to work, which, in
turn, enhances productivity and income. The policy implication of the study relates
to investment in basic amenities and improvement in educational attainment from
primary to secondary level and health facility.
Shared Prosperity and Universalisation of Secondary Education 359

3 Job Market and Education: Low-Income Households

The informal sector workers form their own strategies to cope with poverty and
overcome uncertainties relating to employment, consumption, health and housing.
Informal institutions and networks have been developed, over the decades, to access
information pertaining to the job market, enhance earnings and help experience
upward occupational mobility over time. Banerjee’s work (1986), on urban labour
market and migrant households in Delhi, brings out the importance of rural-based
search for urban jobs through contacts. These contacts operate through relatives,
friends, members of own caste groups and covillagers. About half of his sample
of migrants seem to have migrated only after pre-arranging a job or after receiving
assurance of employment from an urban-based contact. As job expectations were
guided by information received from urban-based contacts, migrants were, in general,
successful in obtaining their desired employment in the first instance. And informal
non-wage workers were no more likely than formal sector entrants to keep searching
for jobs (Banerjee and Bucci 1994). It is interesting to note that migrants, whose
contact persons were engaged in unskilled manual occupations, were informed about
the same job more frequently than those whose contacts worked in non-manual
and in skilled manual occupations (Banerjee 1986). Another major feature of these
studies on labour market is that caste, income from the first job, land ownership and
sector of ownership are quite important in explaining the job search by rural migrants
though, among urban migrants, they are not so important (Banerjee and Bucci 1994).
Scheduled Caste migrants displayed a greater propensity than non-Scheduled Caste
migrants for on-the-job search in the formal sector but not in the informal sector.
This is primarily due to the reservation policy applicable to the Scheduled Castes in
the formal sector. On the whole, the assumptions of the probabilistic models, that job
search is entirely an urban-based activity and that employment in free-entry activities
is a means of financing the search for high-income or high-productivity jobs, have
been challenged. This has highlighted the importance of contact variables in rural–
urban migration and rural-based search for urban jobs, which could be largely in the
informal sector also, instead of being confined to the formal sector alone.
On the whole, it is, by now, widely acknowledged that rural migrants access
information on the urban labour market through various informal channels and tend
to experience upward income mobility by migrating to the urban areas. Besides,
the segmented nature of the urban labour market, due to specialisation of activities
in different areas within a city, is important. Hence, occupational choice is greatly
determined by the narrow spectrum of jobs available within the geographic area where
the migrants reside rather than by what they are capable of pursuing. Contact-based
migration tends to end up providing jobs in close neighbourhoods of the contact’s
residence. Thus, the early settlers help their relatives, friends, members of same caste
groups and covillagers to migrate to the city, by providing information on job and
habitation space, which is often in the same gamut of space and activities that they
themselves have access to.
360 A. Mitra

In relation to the importance of informal contacts for accessing means of liveli-

hood, particularly among low-income households, Elliott (1999) noted that workers
from high-poverty neighbourhoods were substantially more likely to use informal
job-search methods than those from low-poverty neighbourhoods. Through the
informal networks, mutual benefits are ensured (Stark 1995; Mitra 2004). Job-search
theory, as Mortensen (1986) writes, portrays the decision-makers’ acquisition and
use of information to take rational action in an environment that is ever-changing
and uncertain. The ‘social capital’ concept supplies this link between the decision-
makers’ willingness to pursue rational action and the information required to do
so.
The other dimension of a social network relates to its variations across activities.
Even within a set of informal networks, differences across activities can be located:
depending upon the kind of network that one has, his/her occupational choice gets
determined accordingly. Networks, which operate through purely familial ties, are
less likely to provide skilled jobs (Ioannides and Datcher Loury 2004). Elliott (1999)
noted that, for less educated workers, the use of informal contacts results in signif-
icantly lower wages. The paper by Kono (2006) demonstrates that hiring workers
through employee referrals reduces the new applicants’ pay, while a diversifica-
tion of networks can raise their pay. In a market with information asymmetry, the
‘lemon effect’—that is, the decrease in the market equilibrium wage, induced by the
increase in network density (Montgomery 1991)—is caused by network extension
or pursuance of similar networks, while network diversification raises referral wages
through a bargaining effect (Kono 2006). Empirically, Munshi and Rosenzweig
(2006) noted that male ‘working-class/lower-caste networks’ in Bombay continue
to channelise boys into local language schools that lead to traditional occupations
although returns to non-traditional white-collar occupations rose substantially in
the 1990s. On the whole, the benefits of the network come with social obligations
(Munshi 2003) and, thus, may result in sluggish or no upward mobility of both
the contact persons and the new entrants. Munshi (2003) observed that there is an
externality associated with the individual’s migration decision: the members of the
Mexican migrant group in the USA face a strong pressure to remain in the low-skill
jobs that have traditionally been chosen to maintain the stability of the network.
In other words, stability of the network has implications in terms of low levels of
education and low-skill occupations. On the whole, the debate in the area of social
capital and urban job market accessibility relates, on the one hand, to the importance
of networks in seeking a livelihood and, on the other, to the negative role of social
capital in experiencing upward mobility.
The findings tend to suggest that those with above primary level education are
more likely to diversify their network and experience upward mobility subsequently
(Mitra 2010). Those who remain confined to the informal networks are not able to
experience any rise in real income over time. On the other hand, those who shift from
networks which operate along the caste-kinship bonds to new networks at the place
of destination via colleagues, neighbours, employer in the previous job, etc., gain
sizeably. And the ability to diversify depends entirely on the level of education, which
determines the first job at the place of destination. With secondary level education,
Shared Prosperity and Universalisation of Secondary Education 361

not only the job at the entry level is better but also the probability to widen the ambit
of network formation increases which, in turn, contributes to higher pace of upward
mobility. Even within the informal sector, upward mobility is seen to be occurring
ostensibly through the graduation from the informal to the formal sector.
Based on the household panel data from Delhi slum clusters, Mitra and Tsujita
(2016) reflected on the determinants of income mobility in terms of a probit regres-
sion. Several of the variables/dummies turn out to be significant. The education
dummies suggest that those with higher secondary qualification were more likely to
undergo a rise in income. Males showed a higher probability of experiencing upward
mobility compared to the females. Among the caste-cum-religion dummies, OBCs
seemed to have a higher probability in relation to the reference category. Accessing
a public sector job resulted in income increase due to pay hike in recent years. The
occurrence of any kind of crisis/exigency (capturing the individual health effect)
seemed to have a negative impact on mobility.
With secondary level education as the threshold limit, individuals are seen to
form better labour market strategies which reduce risk and uncertainties relating
to incomes. The possibility to take recourse to multiple sources of livelihood is
explored if one source is highly inadequate to meet the consumption requirements
of the households. Inter-temporally, the households are able to change swiftly from
one occupation to another. Even at a given point in time, the workers are able to
pursue a number of activities simultaneously if they have relatively higher levels of
education.

4 Quality of Education and Training

Improving the quality of education and training and integrating the general educa-
tion with vocational courses are instrumental in improving the employability of
the workforce. In many households, children are usually withdrawn from schools
after the completion of the primary level education as they are required to join the
job market. Instead of spending further time in the school on secondary education,
informal arrangements are made to create future livelihood options. For example,
many informal sector activities, such as automobile repair services, need certain
training which can be obtained only when a child joins a motor garage. Hence, parents
view secondary level education as waste of time. On the other hand, poor quality
of secondary education in schools meant for low-income households does not offer
any alternative job possibility. However, if secondary education can be combined
with vocational training, it may motivate many low-income households to send their
children to schools rather than withdrawing them. Since the return to the prevailing
pattern of education is low and the low-income households cannot afford to send
their children to quality schools, such withdrawal symptoms are widely prevalent.
Unless schooling can be linked with job market participation, secondary education
will continue to be viewed as a waste of time.
362 A. Mitra

At the secondary level, the education system must recognise multiple intelligence
and the differences in aptitude. Linguistic and verbal intelligence, logical and math-
ematical intelligence, spatial intelligence, interest in sports and music tend to vary
across children. Hence, introduction of specialised courses for different children
rather than offering a commonly designed course can be more beneficial from the
practical point of view.
Fields (2000)2 describes five basic approaches to conceiving income mobility:
time dependence measures the extent of change in one’s current position determined
by the past position; positional movement gauges changes to an individual’s position
in the income distribution; share movement captures changes in the share of income;
symmetric income movement identifies the magnitude but not the direction of move-
ments and directional income movement weighs fraction of upward and downward
movers and the change in the average amount of the gainers and losers. Baulch and
Hoddinott (2002) present studies using household longitudinal data, ranging from
18 months to 18 years, to examine poverty dynamics and economic mobility. In
studying such movements, households, which move in and out of poverty over time,
can be identified and so also their vulnerability changes, in relation to changes in their
endowments and the returns to those assets. Educational attainments tend to reduce
the probability of returning to poverty. Particularly, with secondary level education,
workers are quick enough to explore newer opportunities before the existing ones
are about to shrink.
Children of nowhere are quite large in number. Ban of child labour does not permit
children to participate in the labour market explicitly. At the same time, poor quality
education with no return does not motivate them enough to attend schools. In such
situations, job-oriented secondary education can be profitable and contribute to their
mental growth significantly. Access to information on marketing, entrepreneurship
development and tastes and preferences for different products in various geographical
areas can form the building blocks of the new secondary education system in the
country. For example, Chinese entrepreneurs are able to visualise the nature of tourist
demand in European cities, and thus, mementoes manufactured in China are sold in
European cities. The role of ICT in opening new horizons has to be realised, and the
teaching methods will have to be developed accordingly.
How finances will have to be mobilised to make secondary education free is a
key question. Imparting of quality education, with ICT-base and with an orientation
towards livelihood development, would demand knowledgeable teachers and instruc-
tors who will have to be paid adequately. Creation of proper infrastructure in schools
is another prerequisite. If the gaps between different types of schools have to be
reduced and efforts pursued to develop a uniform education system at the secondary
level, it would entail huge investment. How both government and the corporate world
can be engaged in this area would pose a major challenge. What incentives can be
provided to the corporate bodies for channelisation of resources is another impor-
tant question. There is also scope to involve the NGO sector so as to enhance the
efficiency of the system. However, the inefficiency of the NGO sector has also been

2 As summarised by Narayan and Petesch (2012).

Shared Prosperity and Universalisation of Secondary Education 363

noted significantly in certain areas, which led to the dominance of contractors in so

far as business sub-contracting in the informal sector is concerned (Kumar and Mitra
2009). Marginal involvement of the NGO sector or eventual shift towards profit-
making ventures can hamper the basic purpose of engaging this sector in delivering
effective services towards development. A vigilant role of the NGO sector, in so far
as the government-run schools are concerned, as well as sufficient control over the
players will be some of the steps necessary for improving secondary education in
India. Social auditing will have to assume a much more intensive role if secondary
education has to be made compulsory, job-oriented and quality-enriching.

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Financing Secondary Education
Public Provisioning for Secondary
Education in India: A Situation
Assessment

Praveen Jha and Satadru Sikdar

1 Introduction

It is often well-acknowledged that public policies and provisioning for secondary

education in India have been inadequate. As the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) aimed to achieve Universalisation of Elementary Education (UEE), and
India also focussed on it, there was indeed an improvement in the enrolment at
elementary level. As is well known, the so-called Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs), adopted in 2015, targets ‘that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and
quality primary and secondary education’ by 2030. In 2011 census, India had almost
10 crores (9.96 crores) population between 15 and 18 years’ age group. According
to National Sample Survey (NSS) 71st round (2014), almost 26% of children in this
age group were not enrolled in secondary education and 21.52% of enrolled children
dropped out for various reasons. These numbers are powerful reminders of deficits, at
present, and underline the urgency for improvising public policies and provisioning
towards secondary education. However, given that secondary education is largely
a State subject, there are significant differences in policies and performance across
States. As such, it is imperative that both the Union and State governments focus on
this jointly to facilitate universalisation of secondary education of good quality. This
paper seeks to investigate and analyse some of the major issues relating to financing
for secondary education in contemporary India, along with a brief overview of the
relevant policy challenges.
After the introductory section, we briefly discus our adopted methodology and
the relevant data sources, in Sect. 2. Section 3 presents an overview of the sources of

P. Jha (B)
Professor of Economics, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning,
School of Social Sciences - II, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 110067, India
e-mail: [email protected]
S. Sikdar
Assistant Professor, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi, India

© Council for Social Development 2020 367

J. B. G Tilak (ed.), Universal Secondary Education in India,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5366-0_17
368 P. Jha and S. Sikdar

financing and the expenditure patterns and trends by States and the Union government
for secondary education, including under the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan
(RMSA), and a brief snapshot of ‘out-of-pocket expenditure’. Section 4 provides
a glimpse of recent initiatives to increase support for public provisioning and to
contextualise the contemporary situation. Section 5 summarises and concludes the
paper.

2 Methodology and Data Considerations

This paper is largely based on the available relevant literature and databases related
to secondary education in India. Government expenditure data are largely drawn
from the States’ Finance Accounts databases, published by Comptroller and Auditor
General of India (CAG) and Centre’s Finance Account databases, published by
Controller General of Accounts (CGA). We have also drawn on other sources such
as Budget documents, Educational Statistics at a Glance (ESG), Economic Survey of
India etc. However, as it happens, information on expenditure culled from different
sources often show significant variations, mainly on account of their differences in
coverage of departments and heads.
Information on public expenditures on education is available in many different
documents published by GoI. However, there are important differences in their
methodologies. For instance, MHRD’s ‘Analysis of Budgeted Expenditure on Educa-
tion’ sometimes double count grants by Union government to State government,
while reporting total expenditure on education. Besides, Indian Public Finance Statis-
tics, published by Ministry of Finance, sometimes does not add expenditure on
education by departments other than education. These issues have been analysed
in some detail by Jha et al. (2008); as suggested there, it may be better to use Finance
Accounts data by CAG to analyse expenditure patterns on education by States and
Union Governments.
As we know, information available from Finance Accounts is based on functional
classification by the selected expenditure heads. For expenditure analysis, we have
considered both secondary and higher secondary as secondary education expendi-
ture, as the budget heads provide the combined information for expenditure from
Classes 9 to 12. We have collected expenditure on secondary education as revenue
expenditure (budget head 2202–02) and capital expenditure (budget head 4402–102)
from 1991–92 to 2015–16 from State Finance Accounts. However, as mentioned
earlier, this does not give us the complete story as some of the relevant expenditure
happens through other major heads; for instance, a substantial portion of adminis-
trative expenditure is incurred under the head 2251 (Secretariat of Social Services),
and partly the construction of school buildings is covered under the major head 2059
(Public Works). We may also note that some scholarships and incentive programmes
for children from SC/ST and minorities groups are captured under the major head
2225 (Welfare of SCs/STs/OBCs). However, on the whole, the share of expenditure
Public Provisioning for Secondary Education … 369

outside the revenue and capital budget heads tend to be relatively small and, hence,
in our analysis we have focussed on these heads (i.e. 2202–02 and 4202–202).
Further, given that the finance accounts and budgets provide information in terms
of current (nominal) prices, for inter-temporal comparison, these need to be adjusted
through appropriate deflator to arrive at the relevant expenditure at constant (real)
prices (Tilak 2008). The information for Net State Domestic Product (NSDP) for
different years has been collected from Central Statistical Organisation (CSO), GoI
and 2011–12 prices have been used as the base year to construct the deflator, which
has been applied for inter-temporal comparison of revenue and capital expenditure on
secondary education. For some States, there were gaps in data availability in NSDP
figures for particular years; in all such cases, proximate values were arrived at by
using the information available for growth rates for the adjacent years.1 Obviously,
there are some limitations in any such statistical exercise and, one may argue that the
sectoral deflators are likely to be different from overall NSDP deflators. However,
it may be suggested that such differences may not influence the overall expenditure
trends in any significant manner, for the period under consideration.
As mentioned at the outset, apart from the trends in public provisioning, this
paper also examines the recent situation regarding out-of-pocket expenditure, based
on the National Sample Survey (NSS) data (Social Consumption: Education) 71st
round, which was conducted between January and June, 2014. This data set provides
information on enrolment, current level of education, distance of schools, along
with out-of-pocket expenditure on different heads, such as course fee, purchase of
books, stationery, uniform, transport, private coaching and others. It may be noted
that there are some challenges in using this source without due qualification. For
instance, some of the observations for current attendance at secondary or higher
secondary level report age as less than 14 years or above 19 years; to be precise,
9.82 and 3.07% of total children reported to be currently attending secondary level
are below 14 or above 19 years respectively. Although the standard age group for
enrolment at secondary level should be 15–18 years’, in view of the above-noted
figures, we have decided to consider 14–19 age band, thus accommodating one-year
grace on both sides, as appropriate for secondary education to arrive at our out-of-
pocket expenditure estimates. In case of students currently enrolled for diploma and
certificate course also, for out-of-pocket expenditure, we have used the age-band
14 years or more in our calculation.
At the most basic level, it is absolutely critical to have adequate and reliable data
to assess the progress, identify gaps, etc., to provide support to education institu-
tions, devise appropriate policies and so on. The recent technological improvements
in data availability have improved access to many variables related to the overall
education system in the country, but significant limitations and problems continue
to plague our large-scale data systems. For instance, information on enrolment is

1 Forinstance, NSDP at constant prices (2011–12 base) for Tripura in 2015–16 has been calculated
by applying the 2014–15 growth rate. Similarly, for Uttar Pradesh for 1999–2000, and Sikkim for
1992–93 and 1993–94. Also, in West Bengal, NSDP at 2011–12 prices are not available. Thus, we
have applied the average ratio of NSDP 2011–12 at 2004–05 and 2011–12 base among all other
States and two UTs to get the deflator at 2011–12 prices.
370 P. Jha and S. Sikdar

available from different data sources, but we do not know enough regarding child
attendance, students’ ability and performances, teacher’s teaching skills, education
quality, concept realisation by students, knowledge and ability of teachers, language
skills, etc. As is well known, information on even most basic indicators, like the
GER, NER, school infrastructure etc., from different sources, such as the ESG of the
MHRD (GoI), NSSO, District Information System for Education (DISE), ASER etc.,
show significant variations. We may also note that for the same variable, information
emerging from school-based surveys and household-based surveys tend to vary quite
a lot. Some of these discrepancies are understandable and one has to be careful as
regards the use of relevant statistics. It should be evident from the above-noted brief
remarks, that we are not in a comfort zone with regard to our data on education and
quite a lot needs to be done.

3 Financing for Secondary Education: Issues

and Challenges

As is well-known, post-elementary school education in most States of India is often

separated between two segments, viz. secondary and higher secondary, the former
consisting of IX and X and the latter of XI and XII respectively. As mentioned
earlier, given India’s federal system, education is largely a responsibility of State
governments and, hence, there are significant inter-State differences at all levels
(elementary, secondary, tertiary, etc.) with respect to structure and administration of
education.
We may note that the importance of adequate financing for education, including
at the secondary level, has been emphasised frequently in policy documents for a
very long time. In fact, one may go back to the famous ‘Wood’s Despatch’ of 1854,
when the then Secretary of State, Sir Charles Wood recommended some changes in
the structure of secondary education, along with additional financial support. Subse-
quently, important recommendations were made through a number of commissions,
both before and after Independence, which often stressed the importance of public
provisioning. In relatively recent times, it may be recalled that the National Policy
on Education (NPE), 1986, strongly recommended access of secondary education to
all children across various socio-economic sections of the country. Some important
recommendations of the NPE 1986 were improvement of computer literacy and other
required skills through vocational education, setting up residential schools like Navo-
daya Vidyalayas to encourage talented children from different parts of the country
attain quality education and fulfil the reach of secondary education with the objective
of equity and social justice, etc.
In 2005, with the aim of ‘Universalisation of Secondary Education’, a committee
was set up under the chairmanship of Ghanshyam Tiwari by the Central Advisory
Board of Education (CABE). Its major recommendations included a significant
enhancement in expenditure towards elementary and secondary education, along
Public Provisioning for Secondary Education … 371

with adoption of ‘norm of schooling’, with common national parameters for each
State, and decentralised planning. That apart, in the mid-term review of 10th Five
Year Plan as well as in 11th Five year Plan, the need for substantial investment on
secondary and higher secondary education was again highlighted.2
Unfortunately, however, the public provisioning of secondary education, by any
meaningful yardstick, has continued to suffer serious neglect. As is well known,
important sources of financing for education at different levels of education in India
happen through both ‘external’ and ‘internal’ sources (Varghese and Tilak 1991).
The ‘domestic’ or the ‘internal’ includes public (mostly government) and private
sources, includes ‘out-of-pocket’ or households’ funding. During the last 25 years,
there have been some significant changes in the overall financial architecture on
education.3 Some of the relevant issues relating to secondary sector in India have been
discussed in the following. It may be noted that in this paper, we have considered both
‘secondary’ and ‘higher secondary’ together as constituting secondary education, in
line with the accounting practice of the Finance Accounts, CAG, GoI.

3.1 Patterns and Trends Relating to Government Financing

Before we come to the details regarding the trends and structure of allocations on
secondary education, it may be useful to recall the current comparative picture of
public expenditure at different levels, which is captured in Table 1. As is evident
from the Table, the share of public provisioning on secondary education has been
roughly constant in recent years, covering below one per cent and approximately half
of the expenditure on elementary education. Although the enrolments in elementary
education are substantially higher than at the secondary education level, it is impor-
tant to keep in mind that the technical and physical infrastructure requirements are
relatively more cost-intensive.
Table 2 provides State-wise comparison of expenditure on secondary education
during 2011–12 to 2015–16. As may be seen, north-eastern and hilly States are
spending relatively more, as a proportion of their GSDP, compared to other States
(which may be partly on account of relatively larger contribution from the Union
government for the States). For instance, Tripura and Nagaland have a higher share
of expenditure on secondary education, in spite of their lower levels of GSDP. On
the whole, the picture across States is quite uneven, and a major concern, along

2 “The norm will be to provide a secondary school within 5 km and a higher secondary school
within 7–8 km of every habitation.”, Eleventh Five Year Plan (2007–12), vol. 2, page. 17. However,
report of the ‘Working Group on Secondary and Vocational Education for 11th Five Year Plan’,
also pointed to a requirement of 2.39 lakh new classrooms and 3.58 lakh new teachers, with the
projected enrolment in Class IX–X till 2012.
3 For instance, as a relatively recent addition, the corporate business houses, which have net worth

of Rs. 500 crore, or have turnover more than Rs. 1000 crores or net profit of Rs. 5 crore or more
in a financial year, are required to create a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Committee and
spend on different social development sectors like education etc.
372 P. Jha and S. Sikdar

Table 1 Share of expenditure as % of GDP (Union and State Government combined) at different
levels
Elementary Secondary University Adult Technical Total
education education and higher education education (education)
education
2011–12 State/UTs 1.30 0.86 0.40 0.00 0.27 2.84
Centre 0.41 0.12 0.22 0.01 0.23 0.99
Total 1.71 0.98 0.62 0.01 0.51 3.82
2012–13 State/UTs 1.22 0.81 0.44 0.00 0.33 2.8
Centre 0.39 0.10 0.19 0.010 0.22 0.90
Total 1.61 0.91 0.62 0.01 0.51 3.70
2013–14 State/UTs 1.25 0.86 0.49 0.01 0.36 2.97
(RE) Centre 0.38 0.10 0.20 0.00 0.22 0.90
Total 1.63 0.96 0.69 0.01 0.58 3.87
2014–15 State/UTs 1.42 0.87 0.44 0.01 0.32 3.06
(BE) Centre 0.40 0.11 0.22 0.00 0.25 0.98
Total 1.82 0.98 0.66 0.01 0.57 4.04
Source Education Statistics Glance, 2016, Table 17(D) and 2018, Table 24(A), 24(B) and 24(C),
MHRD, GoI

with low levels of spending, in general, is the fact of a decline in the recent years
in several States, including those whose levels of spending was on the lower side
(e.g. in Karnataka, Bihar, Haryana, Gujarat and Punjab) and near stagnation in many
other States.
Table 3 provides the average annual growth rate of total expenditure by States
on secondary education since the early 1990s (during1991–92 to 2015–16), for the
period as a whole, and for five-year sub-periods within this. As should be evident
from Table 3, some of the backward States like Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand
reported much higher increment rate on secondary education expenditure. Among
the major States, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and
Himachal Pradesh have reported considerable increment during the last 25 years.
However, major States like Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Punjab, Gujarat and Bihar
have reported substantial low increment during 1991–92 to 2015–16. However, the
long 25 years’ period has also witnessed some fluctuations in terms of expenditure
growth.
Columns 2–6 in Table 3 are representing the five years’ average growth of State-
wise expenditure on secondary education at constant prices. As may be seen, between
1991–92 and 1995–96 and between 2001–02 and 2005–06, the AAGR of expenditure
on secondary education was very low and even negative for many States, and between
2006–07 and 2010–11 showed a better performance in this regard. For the latest
quinquennium in our Table, i.e. from 2010–11 to 2015–16, again the story tends to
worsen compared to the preceding quinquennium. For most States in the country,
the picture appears to be worrisome on the whole.
Public Provisioning for Secondary Education … 373

Table 2 Recent State-wise public expenditure on secondary education (revenue+capital) as

compared to GSDP (at 2011–12 current prices)
2011–12 2012–13 2013–14 2014–15 2015–16
Andhra Pradesh (Including Telangana) 0.73 0.79 0.78 0.61 0.89
Arunachal Pradesh 1.22 1.18 1.22 0.97 1.31
Assam 1.25 1.41 1.58 1.53 1.34
Bihar 0.90 0.69 0.88 0.73 0.82
Chhattisgarh 0.79 0.74 1.11 1.40 1.44
Goa 1.01 1.34 1.60 1.26 1.20
Gujarat 0.53 0.49 0.47 0.44 0.44
Haryana 0.63 0.40 0.40 0.49 0.54
Himachal Pradesh 1.33 1.36 1.30 1.35 1.32
Jammu and Kashmir 1.59 1.52 1.56 1.49 1.73
Jharkhand 0.32 0.28 0.32 0.30 0.45
Karnataka 0.61 0.62 0.56 0.61 0.53
Kerala 0.98 1.00 0.94 0.96 0.98
Madhya Pradesh 0.73 0.71 0.76 0.85 0.85
Maharashtra 0.90 0.87 0.87 0.84 0.80
Manipur 1.66 1.67 1.40 1.68 1.42
Meghalaya 1.04 0.96 1.03 0.98 1.00
Mizoram 2.18 2.23 2.12 1.81 1.72
Nagaland 2.04 2.16 2.10 2.00 2.42
Odisha 0.72 0.71 0.70 0.82 0.83
Punjab 1.31 1.32 1.30 1.28 1.22
Rajasthan 0.86 0.83 0.96 1.02 1.28
Sikkim 2.13 2.01 2.01 1.98 1.88
Tamil Nadu 0.84 0.81 0.86 0.88 0.91
Tripura 2.60 2.34 2.43 2.37 2.36
Uttarakhand 1.40 1.37 1.27 1.31 1.23
Uttar Pradesh 0.93 0.92 0.95 0.63 0.61
West Bengala NA NA NA NA NA
Source Calculated by authors from finance accounts and MOSPI data
Note a In case of West Bengal, the expenditure data is available, but GSDP at 2011–12 series are
not available

However, the comparison for public provisioning across the State may be captured
in a better fashion by ‘per child’ and ‘per student’ expenditure. By ‘per child’ expen-
diture, we mean here the overall expenditure for secondary education divided by total
population between 15 and 18 years’ age groups, whereas in estimating ‘per student’
expenditure, we have considered only children enrolled in government schools.
Further, for government schools, we have considered schools managed by State
374 P. Jha and S. Sikdar

Table 3 Annual average growth rate (AAGR) of expenditure on secondary education (constant
2011–12 prices)
AAGR AAGR AAGR AAGR AAGR AAGR
1991–92 1991–92 1996–97 2001–02 2006–07 2010–11
to to to to to to
2015–16 1995–96 2000–01 2005–06 2010–11 2015–16
(0) (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
Andhra Pradesh 8.64 1.76 9.17 3.30 14.51 14.44
(including
Telangana)
Arunachal Pradesh 8.32 4.28 11.62 2.55 11.39 11.75
Assam 6.82 5.91 7.48 0.87 14.03 5.80
Bihar 5.85 −0.81 7.56 −0.84 9.95 13.42
Chhattisgarh 19.53 – – 11.90 21.00 24.18
Goa 4.66 −2.42 5.15 1.78 15.88 2.93
Gujarat 5.78 6.08 7.54 −0.98 12.71 3.55
Haryana 6.90 3.11 10.98 4.85 11.39 4.18
Himachal Pradesh 7.44 5.31 10.67 6.85 7.37 7.01
Jammu and Kashmir 7.21 4.74 7.97 1.88 13.92 7.54
Jharkhand 9.01 – – −0.66 12.59 13.17
Karnataka 6.83 7.22 8.65 1.24 11.09 5.95
Kerala 6.81 2.21 8.71 4.58 9.27 9.25
Madhya Pradesh 7.63 3.06 2.21 −3.92 25.03 11.78
Maharashtra 8.21 5.21 16.97 1.84 13.01 4.02
Manipur 5.15 4.33 6.95 −0.23 11.41 3.28
Meghalaya 5.55 0.53 6.22 2.08 17.79 1.15
Mizoram 8.05 – 10.70 4.77 14.76 4.10
Nagaland 13.44 14.75 −0.66 14.18 29.73 9.22
Odisha 6.82 2.54 9.36 4.18 10.48 7.53
Punjab 5.76 0.75 12.14 2.99 5.37 7.51
Rajasthan 8.23 5.62 8.08 4.21 9.11 14.13
Sikkim 7.70 −6.04 14.23 15.33 14.33 0.64
Tamil Nadu 6.69 1.01 9.20 1.27 13.23 8.75
Tripura 6.69 0.22 6.69 3.46 16.74 6.33
Uttarakhand 9.49 – – 10.16 13.21 5.22
Uttar Pradesh 4.29 3.32 6.51 3.26 9.78 −1.42
West Bengal 5.47 1.25 12.49 −0.23 13.52 0.34
Source Calculated by authors
Public Provisioning for Secondary Education … 375

government, local bodies and government-aided schools. The population figures

between 15 and 18 years by States are available in Census for 1991, 2001 and 2011.
Using the figures for these years, we have applied the exponential growth rate to
project population for other years.
As one may expect, figures for per child expenditure are quite low, but we need
to factor in the fact that more than half of the population in the relevant age group is
either not enrolled or may be enrolled in private schools. However, it is our considered
view that education at every level must be responsibility of the government. It is also
because of poor public provisioning that sections of children either stay away from
the school or opt for the private sector. Hence, it is important to check the trends of
per child secondary education expenditure during the last 25 years by each State.
Table 4 reports the trends relating to per child expenditure on secondary education,
by different States, at the 2011–12 constant prices for selected years. As may be
seen, Goa, Kerala and Himachal Pradesh are consistently performing better than all
the other States. On the other hand, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya
Pradesh are among the poorest performing States in this respect. It may also be noted
that many of the poor-performing States are relatively populous with relatively lower
enrolment at the secondary level. If we compare Bihar with Goa, per child expenditure
on secondary education in the latter case is 35 times more than the former in 2015–
16. It is also worth noting that the gap, in this respect, between economically better
and backwards States has been, by and large, growing, although the overall picture
is complex.
The figures for per student expenditure may be compiled from two different
sources: (i) different rounds NSS surveys on participation of education, i.e. 52nd
(1995–96), 64th (2007–08) and 71st (2014) rounds, which also provide the types
of schools reported by the household members, and (ii) ‘Secondary Education in
India: Flash Statistics’, based on U-DISE data. U-DISE data provide information for
secondary level from 2010–11 onwards. However, we have used the latter source for
our compilation as it provides more recent and continuous data; number of children
enrolled in State governments’ schools under different departments, as well as run by
local bodies, and government-aided schools are taken into account while arriving at
the above-noted estimate. However, in this exercise, we have not included Kendriya
Vidyalaya, Navodaya Vidyalayas, etc. (i.e. schools under the management of Union
Government) as we are interested in inter-State comparison.
Figure 1 represents a comparative picture of per student and per child State govern-
ments’ total (revenue and capital) expenditure on secondary education at 2011–12
constant prices. Huge differences between these two clearly indicate the poor enrol-
ment of children in government schools at the secondary education level. However,
per student expenditure on secondary education of States, with regard to per student
indicator, also happens to be very uneven; for instance, for 2015–16, Goa spends 12
times more than what Bihar does.
Average growth rates of per child and per student expenditures on secondary
education by States are presented in Table 5. As mentioned earlier, we are able to
calculate per child expenditure for a longer period, whereas per student expendi-
tures are calculated for the most recent years for which the information is available
376 P. Jha and S. Sikdar

Table 4 Per child secondary revenue and capital expenditure by States (in rupees) (constant at
2011–12 prices)
1991–92 1995–96 2000–2001 2005–2006 2010–2011 2015–16
Andhra Pradesh 909.25 922.17 1353.25 1643.76 3369.13 6261.61
(including Telangana)
Arunachal Pradesh 2058.86 2239.16 2972.24 2962.13 3884.60 5919.04
Assam 1195.68 1237.42 1616.05 1620.76 2979.08 3843.03
Bihar 441.10 478.33 591.09 489.65 570.83 821.40
Chhattisgarh 193.57 818.65 1946.23 5060.65
Goa 8679.26 8864.11 11,429.73 12,568.37 24,667.22 28,766.79
Gujarat 1232.93 1485.72 1930.66 1764.61 3043.49 3500.33
Haryana 1422.80 1481.91 2002.96 2454.99 4225.32 4649.15
Himachal Pradesh 2245.52 2593.06 4115.05 5806.09 8398.82 12,205.14
Jammu and Kashmir 1675.72 1660.96 2376.22 2531.81 4623.74 6329.45
Jharkhand 150.13 394.54 599.33 1016.86
Karnataka 993.32 1255.32 1792.36 1937.52 3367.95 4641.23
Kerala 1589.58 2013.68 3051.69 3780.31 5939.55 9243.39
Madhya Pradesh 545.63 616.51 601.87 464.77 1314.36 2212.67
Maharashtra 1555.55 1766.49 2951.06 3214.86 5899.86 7332.73
Manipur 2570.79 2481.38 2864.72 2589.13 4222.22 4575.13
Meghalaya 1584.92 1382.58 1514.11 1509.21 3014.56 2910.94
Mizoram 3812.91 4415.88 8249.16 9515.77
Nagaland 1556.96 2272.09 1358.07 2172.66 5133.35 8389.62
Odisha 751.18 866.70 1235.94 1430.06 2177.00 3117.01
Punjab 2556.07 2478.96 3944.67 4676.69 6361.25 9517.19
Rajasthan 1080.31 1272.92 1597.14 1826.28 2616.94 4698.91
Sikkim 4632.97 3945.10 6041.27 12,205.96 24,238.50 25,682.07
Tamil Nadu 1575.04 1762.45 2746.65 2905.59 5359.76 8065.19
Tripura 1925.82 2057.94 2669.76 3274.23 7278.16 10,402.50
Uttarakhand 4175.99 7442.13 9462.53
Uttar Pradesh 796.88 766.89 893.56 951.62 1390.21 1156.29
West Bengal 1356.58 1459.62 2260.51 2279.48 4211.29 4459.97
Source Calculated by authors

from U-DISE (2012–13 to 2015–16). As is evident from our calculation, among the
major States, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh and Madhya
Pradesh seem to be doing better, with AAGR above seven per cent, between 1992–
93 and 2015–16. Over the same period, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Bihar and Assam
tend to do much worse, with lowest AAGR, compared to other States. Column 6 in
Table 5 provides information for the AAGR pertaining to per student expenditure
Public Provisioning for Secondary Education … 377

Fig. 1 Per student and per child State Government expenditures in 2015–16 (at 2011–12 prices)
(in Rs.) (Figures for enrolled children in government schools in most of the North Eastern States
(except Assam), appeared to be huge outliers, and, hence, we have not included estimates for these
in the above figure). Source Calculated by authors

between 2012–13 and 2015–16; and the variation across States is dramatically huge.
It may be reiterated that the quantum of government expenditure as well as number
of enrolments in State government-funded schools determine the above-noted figure
and the factors impacting on both these variables need to be analysed carefully.
As we have already seen in Table 1, the share of Union government expenditure on
secondary education tends to be much lower than the share of the State governments.
However, it may be useful to have a brief discussion here of the various programmes
on secondary education, on which Union government is spending. The following are
among the important programmes on secondary education by the Union government:
‘National Means-cum-Merit Scholarship Scheme’, ‘National Scheme for Incentive
to Girl Child for Secondary Education’, ‘Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS)’,
‘Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti (NVS)’, ‘National Council of Educational Research and
Training (NCERT)’, ‘Central Tibetan School Administration (CTSA)’ and RMSA’.
However, KVS, NVS, NCERT and CTSA cover both elementary and secondary
education, and as these four are autonomous bodies, they have been spending
according to their own vision and planning. Among all other schemes, RMSA is
a flagship programme, launched in March 2009, with an aim of improving the access
to good quality secondary education. Later in 2013–14, some of the ongoing centrally
378 P. Jha and S. Sikdar

Table 5 Annual average growth rate (AAGR) of per child and per student expenditur eon secondary
education (constant 2011–12 prices)
In % Per child expenditure Per student
expenditure
AAGR AAGR AAGR AAGR AAGR AAGR
1992–93 1996–97 2001–02 2006–07 2011–12 between
to to to to to 2012–13 to
2015–16 2000–01 2005–06 2010–11 2015–16 2015–16
(0) (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
Andhra Pradesh 9.29 8.14 4.19 15.98 15.92 36.1
(including
Telangana)
Arunachal Pradesh 6.17 7.43 0.55 9.72 10.08 23.8
Assam 5.48 5.63 0.40 13.87 5.64 6.3
Bihar 5.11 6.69 −2.67 7.71 11.11 −3.7
Chhattisgarh – – 46.10 20.01 23.17 36.2
Goa 5.97 5.83 2.32 16.46 3.45 −20.8
Gujarat 4.87 6.22 −1.71 12.01 2.90 −3.8
Haryana 6.22 8.23 4.51 11.67 4.44 46.5
Himachal Pradesh 7.56 9.80 7.36 8.19 7.82 33.7
Jammu and 6.15 7.51 1.43 13.43 7.08 18.5
Kashmir
Jharkhand – – 37.18 11.39 11.97 7.7
Karnataka 6.90 7.54 1.70 12.03 6.85 −8.1
Kerala 8.07 9.51 4.93 9.54 9.52 −8.9
Madhya Pradesh 7.42 2.27 −4.44 24.20 11.04 2.7
Maharashtra 7.82 15.10 1.88 13.49 4.45 0.8
Manipur 3.48 5.17 −1.09 10.62 2.55 15.7
Meghalaya 3.33 2.12 −0.01 15.93 −0.44 −20.0
Mizoram – – 3.50 13.68 3.12 21.3
Nagaland 13.32 −6.54 13.82 31.38 10.61 47.7
Odisha 6.93 7.96 4.07 10.61 7.65 −0.7
Punjab 5.90 10.23 3.49 6.46 8.62 14.2
Rajasthan 6.87 4.96 2.95 8.27 13.24 52.4
Sikkim 8.53 11.28 15.62 15.35 1.54 −25.6
Tamil Nadu 7.28 9.72 1.25 13.07 8.60 27.0
Tripura 7.82 5.49 4.29 18.23 7.69 19.8
Uttarakhand – – – 12.97 4.99 17.3
Uttar Pradesh 2.86 3.41 1.99 8.79 −2.31 −8.4
West Bengal 5.96 11.11 0.19 14.48 1.19 −4.5
Source Calculated by authors
Public Provisioning for Secondary Education … 379

Table 6 RMSA expenditure by Union Government

Rs. in billion % Share of RMSA expenditure out of total expenditure on
secondary education by Union Government (including NCERT,
KV and NV)
2009–10 5.49 9.6
2010–11 14.82 22.1
2011–12 25.00 28.5
2012–13 31.72 34.3
2013–14 26.79 26.6
2014–15 33.98 34.5
2015–16 35.63 36.8
2016–17 36.98 34.6
2017–18 (RE) 39.15 31.4
2018–19 (BE) 42.13 34.2
Source Compiled from Demand for Grants for Department of School Education and Literacy, Union
Government Budgets

sponsored schemes were merged with RMSA, such as ‘Information and Communica-
tion Technology (ICT) in schools’, ‘Girls’ Hostel, Inclusive Education for Disabled
at Secondary Stage’ (IEDSS) and ‘Vocational Education’.
In recent years, RMSA has become the largest expenditure head of Union govern-
ment for secondary education compared to the other relevant programme heads. Also,
RMSA expenditures are transferred to the State governments on the basis of 75:25
ratio, where the States have to incur 25% of the designated expenditure; for the north-
eastern region (NER), the sharing between Union and State governments is 90:10.4
As may be seen from Table 6, in the recent years, the share of RMSA, in total govern-
ment funding for secondary education, has been more than 30%. However, it is worth
emphasising that the distribution of support from Union government under RMSA,
across States and UTs, has been uneven, as may be seen from Table 7. In 2015–
16, more than 60% ofRMSA grants were distributed among only eight States, viz.
Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Telangana, Odisha, Madhya
Pradesh and Maharashtra. Further, the variation in the amount received by particular
States seems inexplicable; for instance, Bihar received Rs. 144 crore in 2014–15,
whereas it got only Rs. 36 crores in 2015–16. Sure enough, allocation under RMSA,
depends on many factors, such as, population size, expenditure capacities, submis-
sion of bills, etc. Yet, allocation patterns and trends across States, as hinted above,
appear to be areas of concern. This, in fact, emerges in an even starker fashion if
we look at per student allocation under the RMSA, figures for which are reported in
Table 8. As may be seen, for Bihar, Meghalaya and West Bengal, per student grants

4 Press Information Bureau, 2nd May, 2013, 20:40; ‘Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA)

- revision of certain norms and subsuming of other centrally sponsored schemes of secondary
education under RMSA’.
380 P. Jha and S. Sikdar

Table 7 Central share released to the States/UTs under RMSA programmes from 2012–13 to
2015–16 (Rs. in million)
State/UT 2012–13 2013–14 2014–15 2015–16 2016–17 (As on
06.12.2016)
Andaman and 6.70 0.00 6.50 15.81 32.89
Nicobar Islands
Andhra Pradesh 3546.50 1986.90 867.10 2718.28 489.53
Arunachal 243.70 0.00 13.76 212.64 16.90
Pradesh
Assam 1283.20 706.20 1598.11 1187.70 1450.67
Bihar 1376.50 688.49 1448.45 360.10 1849.64
Chandigarh 7.00 2.20 18.12 29.10 26.78
Chhattisgarh 3089.80 1869.34 1901.87 1803.96 1877.71
Dadra and Nagar 4.50 3.60 4.98 15.27 6.73
Haveli
Daman and Diu 5.50 18.01 5.14 4.56 9.83
Delhi 0.00 44.34 211.41 195.30 134.51
Goa 0.00 10.43 32.32 13.55 33.50
Gujarat 820.50 0.00 960.08 1223.83 1359.84
Haryana 1011.20 720.43 1501.88 751.97 1369.81
Himachal Pradesh 203.60 1124.41 360.94 950.85 1820.50
Jammu and 1093.60 1357.80 1154.42 961.44
Kashmir
Jharkhand 0.00 1188.30 1112.03 620.38 1271.31
Karnataka 564.20 1288.30 3035.13 2096.88 514.92
Kerala 152.70 171.90 399.13 1019.34 95.85
Lakshadweep 0.00 0.00 0.21 0.98 0.42
Madhya Pradesh 4612.30 5245.54 2101.08 1880.33 2417.56
Maharashtra 98.50 76.81 2345.19 1816.75 898.49
Manipur 430.10 392.90 624.24 173.30 171.02
Meghalaya 16.00 34.09 5.86 4.01
Mizoram 639.20 394.50 280.27 136.81 191.59
Nagaland 166.20 50.65 36.39 532.64 250.96
Odisha 2154.30 2655.36 2010.03 1987.10 1005.85
Pondicherry 7.20 71.66 7.54 15.26 21.76
Punjab 2584.40 926.04 993.86 390.72 685.21
Rajasthan 870.40 2671.40 3442.13 3712.99 2876.30
Sikkim 2.50 86.22 111.88 115.83 73.66
Tamil Nadu 2761.40 3593.64 3336.45 3147.18 1445.81
Telangana NA NA 828.91 2000.81 235.95
(continued)
Public Provisioning for Secondary Education … 381

Table 7 (continued)
State/UT 2012–13 2013–14 2014–15 2015–16 2016–17 (As on
06.12.2016)
Tripura 701.80 236.56 59.90 68.33 138.39
Uttar Pradesh 2208.70 968.00 1422.81 1254.38 1728.74
Uttarakhand 966.40 757.16 582.58 351.39 1086.76
West Bengal 0.00 7.65 1074.37 290.94 102.95
Total 31,628.60 29,348.84 33,895.03 32,060.71 25,692.33
Source In response to Rajya Sabha session - 237 unstarred question NO.556 and
2015–16 data from Rajya Sabha session - 238 unstarred question NO. 206; 2016–17
data from https://community.data.gov.in/stateut-wise-central-share-of-fund-released-under-rashtr
iya-madhyamik-shiksha-abhiyan-from-2014–15-to-2016–17/
NA Not Available

are in the range of approximately Rs. 100 or less, whereas the same was more than
Rs. 2500 for Telangana and Himachal Pradesh in 2015–16.
As noted above, State governments tend to take greater expenditure responsibil-
ities for school education. Given that there are huge differences across States with
regard to per child and per student expenditure, value of intervention by the Union
government may lie, at least in part, in facilitating bridging the gaps and help in the
access to good quality education. Unfortunately, as noted above, the RMSA does
not seem to address these issues as some of the poorest spenders are receiving much
lower grant through RMSA for different reasons.

3.2 Households’ Out-of-Pocket Expenditure

Private, or ‘out-of-pocket’, expenditure on education, particularly at the level of

elementary and secondary education, must be viewed as a matter of serious concern.
Unfortunately, in India, the problem has tended to aggravate, particularly in the
so-called economic reform era, at all levels of education. Data clearly indicates a
substantial participation in private institutions in the recent years, as may be seen
from Fig. 2. It is prominently clear that larger sections of children are enrolled in
government institutes for general education, more than 50% for school education
and more than 40% for higher education. However, it is important to note that, for
several reasons, the distribution of students between public and private institutions
across different social groups, as also rural and urban areas differ a great deal.
As reported in Table 23 of Educational Statistics at a Glance (ESAG) 2018,
MHRD, GoI, the average private expenditure per student at primary, upper primary,
secondary and upper secondary levels in 2014 wa Rs. 4610, Rs. 5386, Rs. 7459
and Rs. 12,619, respectively. We have calculated the weighted average out-of-pocket
expenditure per student at different levels of education, and by types of institutions,
382 P. Jha and S. Sikdar

Table 8 Per student central share released to the States/UTs under RMSA (in Rs.)
State/UT 2012–13 2013–14 2014–15 2015–16
Andaman and Nicobar Islands 289.0 0.0 282.3 703.4
Andhra Pradesh 1457.8 1143.7 477.7 2515.7
Arunachal Pradesh 4003.0 0.0 185.4 2825.6
Assam 947.5 696.6 1485.2 1093.2
Bihar 674.5 266.2 501.8 102.8
Chandigarh 180.1 45.2 351.1 560.0
Chhattisgarh 3540.8 1769.9 1605.3 1503.8
Dadra and Nagar Haveli 457.4 253.9 356.2 1050.0
Daman and Diu 976.7 2183.8 635.5 751.9
Delhi 0.0 51.3 243.2 236.4
Goa 0.0 159.3 432.3 269.6
Gujarat 2852.9 0.0 510.6 701.9
Haryana 1483.9 998.2 2029.9 1031.5
Himachal Pradesh 559.8 2761.5 917.9 2544.2
Jammu and Kashmir 2695.5 3863.9 2888.5 2345.9
Jharkhand 0.0 1563.6 1019.2 614.9
Karnataka 543.9 909.8 2115.9 1269.8
Kerala 195.9 140.2 259.9 665.2
Lakshadweep 0.0 0.0 43.5 203.7
Madhya Pradesh 2740.4 2894.7 873.0 785.6
Maharashtra 264.0 16.6 491.0 359.9
Manipur 8909.7 9537.2 15,487.6 4632.9
Meghalaya 2035.4 435.4 67.3 38.5
Mizoram 16,938.3 9806.9 6825.7 3277.1
Nagaland 7160.7 2074.6 1528.9 22,680.5
Odisha 2198.5 2562.0 1931.9 1849.8
Pondicherry 127.2 1436.5 156.7 328.6
Punjab 4093.5 958.3 983.6 406.8
Rajasthan 487.2 1679.1 2013.8 2255.7
Sikkim 106.2 3035.6 3382.2 3166.0
Tamil Nadu 1436.2 1223.9 1154.7 1088.7
Telangana – – – 2653.8
Tripura 4462.3 1343.7 314.6 356.7
Uttar Pradesh 10,122.4 239.2 362.8 318.6
Uttarakhand 2420.0 1607.7 1222.3 744.1
West Bengal 0.0 2.1 280.8 73.8
Total 1329.1 827.1 890.2 822.7
Source Calculated by authors
Public Provisioning for Secondary Education … 383

Fig. 2 Estimated share of students among different types of institutions by different levels of
education, 2014. Source Estimated by authors from NSS 71st round

in Table 9; as may be seen, there are huge differences across both these axes of
classification.
In general, students enrolled in government institutions have to incur relatively
less as ‘out-of-pocket’ expenditure compared to the students falling in other cate-
gories, although there are significant increases as one moves from elementary to
higher stages across all categories. The incidence of ‘out-of-pocket’ expenditures
for the secondary education is almost two to three times higher in private institu-
tions compared to government schools. Figure 3 presents the range of out-of-pocket
expenditure on different levels of education. As may be seen, the value reported as
lowest ‘out-of-pocket’ expenditure across all types of institutes for general educa-
tion are approximately within a narrow band and quite low; however, there are large
variation at the upper end.
To get a better sense of the dispersion of ‘out-of-pocket’ expenditure, we have
plotted the percentile distribution of average per student expenditure, at secondary

Table 9 Weighted average of households’ out-of-pocket expenditure in 2014 (in Rs.)

Level of Type of Government Private-aided Private-unaided Not known
education institutions
Elementary (primary and 1375.29 9243.31 11,631.01 7602.05
upper primary/middle)
Secondary (secondary and 4872.80 11,871.34 18,413.98 14,689.16
higher secondary)
Diploma/certificate course 20,927.09 42,420.62 50,404.28 93,090.76
(secondary and higher
secondary)
Graduation, 13,777.15 26,807.09 49,643.58 52,522.91
post-graduation and above
Source Estimated by authors from NSS 71st round
384 P. Jha and S. Sikdar

Fig. 3 Range of per student out-of-pocket expenditure (in Rs.) at different levels of education, by
institute. Source Calculated by authors from NSS 71st round (2014), unit level data

level of education and different types of institutions in Fig. 4. It clearly emerges that
at the secondary level, the ‘out-of-pocket’ expenditures, borne by the students in
private-unaided schools, are much higher than students enrolled in government- or
private-aided schools. However, the expenditure range and averages across the 25th,
50th, 75th and 90th percentile of government school students at secondary level are
almost similar to the 10th, 25th, 50th and 75th percentile, respectively, of students
in private-aided schools. Almost similar comparison holds for students enrolled in
private-aided and unaided schools. However, the expenditure range and mean for
the 50th, 75th and 90th percentile of students in government schools at secondary

Fig. 4 Percentile distribution per student total out-of-pocket expenditure (in Rs.) at different types
of institutes at secondary level of education. Source Calculated by authors from NSS 71st round
(2014), unit level data
Public Provisioning for Secondary Education … 385

level are slightly lower than the 10th, 25th and 50th percentile of students in private-
unaided schools. Of course, at the lower ends of the range, the values of ‘out-of-
pocket’ expenditure for students in government schools are obviously considerably
less than private-aided and unaided schools as may be seen from Fig. 4. Nonetheless,
the point worth stressing is that due to substantial increase in private tuition expenses,
etc., the out-of-pocket expenditure for a substantial section of students enrolled in
government schools has tended to increase sharply.
To highlight some of the important numbers: for students at secondary level and
enrolled in government schools, the average expenditure for the lowest 10th percentile
was Rs. 591 in 2014, compared to Rs. 9413 in the 90th percentile groups; in private-
aided schools, the average expenditure were Rs. 1538 and Rs. 22,939 for the 10th and
90th percentile groups, respectively; in case of private-unaided schools, the average
out-of-pocket expenditure was Rs. 2736 to Rs. 33,298 for 10th and 90th percentiles.
These figures clearly reflect substantial differences across private-aided and unaided
institutes, in terms of fees and other expenditures need to be borne by the students.
Table 10 provides information relating to ‘out-of-pocket’ expenditure for students
for rural and urban areas and by gender. Again, we may note that there are substantial
variations across different types of schools by regions. In rural areas, average ‘out-
of-pocket’ expenditure on secondary education in government schools is Rs. 4229
and Rs. 7488 in rural and urban areas, respectively, and the comparable figures

Table 10 Secondary education: average out-of-pocket expenditure and participation share among
differently managed institutions
Rural Urban All Boys Girls
Weighted average expenditure (in Rs.)
Government 4229 7488 4873 5007 4719
Private aided 8327 17,031 11,871 12,610 10,908
Private unaided 12,783 26,389 18,414 18,923 17,657
Not known 13,037 16,668 14,689 15,380 14,170
Distributions of estimated students
Government 80.25 19.75 100.00 53.38 46.62
Private aided 59.28 40.72 100.00 56.58 43.42
Private unaided 58.61 41.39 100.00 59.77 40.23
Not known 54.50 45.50 100.00 42.89 57.11
Share of estimated students
Government 63.4 37.9 55.9 53.8 58.7
Private aided 15.8 26.4 18.9 19.3 18.5
Private unaided 20.6 35.3 24.9 26.7 22.5
Not known 0.2 0.5 0.3 0.2 0.4
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
Source Estimated by authors from NSS 71st round (2014)
386 P. Jha and S. Sikdar

for private-unaided schools are three to four times higher. However, there are no
significant differences in the reported out-of-pocket expenditure at the secondary
level for boys and girls enrolled in the same type of institutions.
It is worth noting, as shown in Table 10, 63.4% of all children enrolled in secondary
education, in rural areas, are in government schools, whereas the story in the urban
areas is almost the mirror opposite of it, with 37.9% in government schools and the
remaining 62.1% in private schools. As regards the total enrolment at the secondary
level for the country as a whole, the government schools account for 55.9% and the
balance by the private sector. The trend towards growing privatisation and increasing
out-of-pocket expenditure, across the entire school system, has extremely serious
implications for issues of equity, universal access to quality etc., which we are not
dwelling on in this paper.

4 Recent Policy Initiatives to Increase the Budget

and Other Possible Solutions

In the preceding section, some of the important aspects relating to trends and patterns
of expenditure, with respect to secondary education, were presented. One of the major
concerns we have highlighted relates to the inadequate public provisioning, a point
often acknowledged even by various official committees of the Union and State
governments. As is well known since the days of the famous Kothari Commission,
expenditure target of six per cent of GDP on education has been frequently flagged
both in official discourses and outside; however, for the last several decades, there
has been a significant shortfall with respect to the above-noted benchmark target.
Simultaneously, there has been a sharp and rising trend in ‘out-of-pocket’ expenditure
associated with several heads such as transportation, books, private coaching, etc.
As we know from the NSS 71st round data, of the total ‘out-of-pocket’ expenditure,
the average incidence of coaching fees for students enrolled in government schools
amounts to 35.70% per the student in secondary level. Clearly, it reflects very poorly
on the state of public provisioning. We may also note, using the same data source,
that the weighted sum of ‘out-of-pocket’ expenditure for all levels of education, taken
together, works out to 1.94% to GDP!
As is well known, economically developed / industrialised countries (e.g. OECD
countries) have continued to prioritise their expenditure on social sectors, including
education and health, in spite of the fact that the basic requirements with respect
to these had been met long ago. However, to maintain and ensure good quality
provisioning in these areas, almost all these countries have continued with reasonably
high levels of spending, whether as a proportion of GDP or in per capita terms. In
fact, it is worth noting that even in their early stages of economic development,
there was considerable fiscal attention to the social sector expenditures in these
countries. As reported in the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) database, figures
for government expenditure on education as a proportion of GDP, in 2013, were 5.62,
Public Provisioning for Secondary Education … 387

5.22 and 3.84%, respectively, for UK, USA and India. Comparable figures in most
BRICS and many other developing countries happened to be better than India (see
Jha et al. 2016). In terms of taking US$ in PPP terms, per student expenditure in
India in 2010 happened to be 422, 225 and 224, respectively, at the secondary, lower
secondary and primary levels. For the same year, USA and UK spent approximately
25 times more than India.
Unfortunately, India has shied away from adequate public provisioning for educa-
tion, hiding behind the excuse of not having enough resources.5 Furthermore, it is
also quite clear that the era of so-called economic reforms has certainly not helped
matters and it is amply clear that we have been seriously floundering. In fact, even
in regimes of market-driven macro-economic reforms, which essentially amounts to
an overall compression of the role of the State, a few countries have tended to keep
at least some focus on public provisioning for education, by finding and creating
appropriate fiscal space. For instance, one may recall Chile’s attempt to finance free
education at all levels, through corporation tax in 2014. Likewise, a series of measures
pushed for by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil resulted in significant
expansion in some aspects of public provisioning for education.
There is no reason why India cannot make significant headway with provisioning
for the needs of its social sector through some changes in overall fiscal and finan-
cial architecture. For instance, an issue which has been flagged frequently in recent
discussions, including by Finance Ministers of India’s Union Governments in the last
decade or so, relates to that of exemptions to the better-off sections of the society.
Information given in Table 11 is quite instructive in this regard.
During the last decade or so, the revenue foregone has been in the range 2.5–7.4%
to GDP, which is a huge amount by any reckoning! Of course, there are several
arguments and justifications put forward with regard to such exemptions made in
the Union government tax system; for instance, it is claimed that exemptions can be
powerful incentive for investment which would enhance the capacity of the economy
and promote higher growth rates, etc. Although many of these claims are on slippery
grounds, we are not making a blanket argument for and against exemptions and
revenues foregone. The point we are stressing here is that when it comes to needs of
the social sector, one needs to take a call on the provisioning for the same vis-a-vis a
whole range of exemptions granted to the corporate sector as also the other economic
actors. Tax exemptions need to be minimised, carefully designed and justified with
sound social and economic reasons.

5 Infact one may even argue that India has been a major failure in addressing its public policy
challenges vis-a-vis education and health. As Prof. Amartya Sen voiced his concern in a recent
interview: ‘India is the only country in the world which is trying to become a global economic
power with an uneducated and unhealthy labour force. It’s never been done before, and never will
be done in the future either. There is a reason why Europe went for universal education, and so did
America. Japan, after the Meiji restoration in 1868, wanted to get fully literate in 40 years and they
did. So did South Korea after the war, and Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and China’, LSE Blog,
Nov 19, 2015; http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/southasia/2015/11/19/india-is-the-only-country-in-the-world-
trying-to-become-a-global-economic-power-with-an-uneducated-and-unhealthy-labour-force-ama
rtya-sen/.
 388

Table 11 Amount of revenue foregone/revenue impact of tax incentives in Central Government budgets (In Rs. billion)
S. No. Items 2007–08 2008–09 2009–10 2010–11 2011–12 2012–13 2013–14 2014–15 2015–16
1 Corporate income tax 621.99 669.01 728.81 882.63 617.65 687.20 577.93 650.67 768.58
2 Personal income tax 380.57 375.70 451.42 506.58 393.75 335.36 352.54 535.26 618.00
3 Excise duty 874.68 1282.93 1691.21 1982.91 1955.90 2099.40 1962.23 1967.89 791.83
4 Customs duty 1535.93 2257.52 1952.88a 1744.18a 2368.52 2540.39 2607.14 2389.67 692.59
5 Gross total (1 + 2 + 3 + 4) 3413.17 4585.16 4824.32 5116.30 5335.83 5662.35 5499.84 5543.49 2871.00
Revenue forgone as % to GDPb 6.84 8.14 7.45 6.57 6.11 5.69 4.90 4.45 2.09
Source Compiled from the Union Budget, Statement of Revenue Foregone, Various Years
Note a Custom duty foregone less export credit
b For 2007–08 to 2010–11, we have considered GDP at current prices with 2004–05 base, and for 2011–12 to 2015–16, we have considered GDP at current

prices with 2011–12 base

P. Jha and S. Sikdar
Public Provisioning for Secondary Education … 389

We may also note here that one of the major problems of India’s public finance
has been relatively low tax-GDP ratio, not only in comparison to advanced countries
(which may be understandable), but also several comparable ones like the so-called
emerging and developing countries, such as the BRICS cohort or several East Asian
countries. It is also worth noting that the era of neo-liberal economic reforms, which
has witnessed some acceleration in the average GDP growth rate, has not created
any significant additional fiscal space. For more than a decade and a half, since the
late 1980s, there was, in fact, a downward pressure on the tax-GDP ratio, when it fell
from 15.42 (three-year average for 1987–90) to 13.99 (three-year average for 2001–
04). However, since 2004–05, there has been a small uptick in it, and the three-year
average between 2004–05 and 2006–07 was 16.10, which improved marginally to
17.25 between 2014–17.6 It is worth emphasising here that India’s current tax-GDP
ratio is approximately half of the comparable figures for Brazil or South Africa. In
other words, fiscal space continues to be a huge challenge for India’s policy-makers,
which needs to be addressed. Without stepping up the country’s tax-GDP ratio, it
would not be possible for the government to provide adequate support for budgetary
spending on crucial entitlements for people. There have been several suggestions
from academic and policy experts in this regard, and we may flag a couple of these.7
For instance:
• Property and wealth tax
– India’s total property tax revenue is 0.08% to GDP only, which is lowest among
the G20 countries.
– Other BRICS nations perform much better in terms of contribution of property
tax in total tax revenue: relevant figures for Brazil, Russia, China and South
Africa are 4.4, 4.1, 10.3 and 4.7%, respectively, whereas for India this is only
0.4%.
– ‘Wealth tax’ used to be levied upon the wealth of the taxpayer according to
Wealth Tax Act, 1957. During 2015–16, the amount of wealth tax was Rs. 10.79
billion. Instead of making use of this important resource base, the government
abolished it with effect from 1 April 2016.
– Inheritance tax and estate duty does not exist in India; it was abolished in 1985.
• Gift tax and securities transaction tax can be explored as important options for
resource mobilisation. Currently, securities transaction tax is barely 0.1%.
• The potential for taxing financial and capital transactions remains under-utilised.
• Plugging loopholes in international taxation, e.g. GAAR, it could raise resources
through taxation on financial transactions, (whether national or international); it
could consider expansion of tax net to cover luxury services, in particular.
The above-noted options for resource mobilisation have often been emphasised
by several researchers; in addition to these, there are other possibilities as well.
However, we do not wish to get into a detailed discussion on this issue here. Our

6 Indian Public Finance Statistics, 2016–17, Ministry of Finance, GoI.

7 See, Jha and Acharya (2013) and Jha et al. (2013).
390 P. Jha and S. Sikdar

basic motivation in highlighting some of these resource mobilisation options is to

question those who keep repeating that India has no or few options to expand its
fiscal space. Finally, we would also like to emphasise that the entire administration
of tax compliance has been a huge area of challenge.
Coming back, specifically, to government’s measures to find additional resources
for education, essentially it has relied on the ‘cess route’ in the recent year.8 The
Union Government of India introduced education cess on corporation tax, income
other than corporation tax, import duties and service tax at a rate of 2% for funding
elementary education in the fiscal year 2004–05, and in the fiscal year 2007–08
additional one per cent education cess was imposed to finance secondary and higher
education. In the 2018–19 budget, the Union government decided to merge cess for
education at different levels, while also introducing cess to support a provisioning
for health; all these have been clubbed together as ‘health and education cess’ at the
rate of four per cent chargeable on personal income and corporation taxes.
Tables 12 and 13 provide the extent of support through the above-noted cess
provisions for the recent years. As is evident from Table 12, in 2018–19 (BE), more
than 60% of Union government’s proposed expenditure (including transfer to States
and UTs) for SSA and MDM are through education cess. In Table 13, we have
presented the actual and estimated expenditure figures on SSA and MDM and their
funding from PSK for 2016–17 (actual), 2017–18 (revised estimates) and 2018–19
(BE), which shows that well above 60% of funding for the above-noted schemes are
coming through cess. In case of secondary and higher education, more than 80% of
allocated amounts for six programmes were proposed to be funded from MUSK in
2018–19 (BE). It seems to us, as has often been flagged, such high level of dependence
on the cess route raises serious questions, which also impinge on the Centre–State
relations, as the collections through cess do not get into ‘divisible pool’ for sharing
between Centre and States.
With the launch of Samgra Shiksha Abhiyan (SMSA) in April, 2018 (which was
promised in the Union Budget 2018–19), and the merging of SSA and RMSA, there
is lack of clarity as regards distribution of allocation for different heads, and at
different levels, which is, clearly, a matter of concern. As we know, allocations at
the elementary level were supposed to be in a ‘rights’ perspective (through RTE);
merging of different levels may well mean the dilution of such a perspective even at
the elementary level and may not provide any substantial resource enhancement at
the secondary level.
On the whole, it may be noted in passing that the recently launched SMSA raises
more questions than provides answers to several vexed issues relating to our overall
school education. For instance, to flag a couple of issues: through the promise of
creating ‘composite/integrated school system from pre-school to higher secondary
level’, the distance norms may get modified; as we know, as per the RTE, it is a right

8 Although, there has been some talk of supplementary resources through CSR, it may be noted
that fund flow through this route has been quite limited. As reported in newspapers, in Fiscal Year
2016, “920 National Stock Exchange-listed companies together spent Rs. 2042 crore on education,
up from Rs. 1570 crore in Fiscal Year 2015” (Manku, Mint 21 January, 2017). However, most of
the amount was spent on construction of toilets for promotion of education.
Public Provisioning for Secondary Education … 391

Table 12 Amount allocated from education cess under different programmes

2018-19 BE (Rs. in billion) Share of cess in total budgetary
allocation (%)
Support from Prarambhik Shiksha Kosh (PSK)
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan 166.00 63.53
National Programme of 70.63 67.27
Mid-Day Meal in Schools
Total amount met from 236.63
Prarambhik Shiksha Kosh
Support from Madhyamik and Uchhatar Shiksha Kosh (MUSK)
Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha 36.48 86.6
Abhiyan
Interest Subsidy and 21.20 98.6
contribution for Guarantee
Funds
Scholarship for College and 3.00 88.2
University students
Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya 1.00 83.3
National Mission on Teachers
and Teaching
All India Council for Technical 4.20 86.6
Education (AICTE)
Grants to Central Universities 9.00 14.0
(CUs)
Support to Indian Institutes of 8.50 15.1
Technology
Support to National Institutes 1.00 3.3
of Technology
Support to University Grants 17.01 36.0
Commission (UGC)
Support to Rashtriya Uchhatar 12.00 85.7
Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA)
Total amount met from 113.39
Madhyamik and Uchhatar
Shiksha Kosh
Source Union Budget, 2018–19

of a child to have a school within one kilometre and three kilometre radius of each
habitation for primary and upper primary schools, respectively. Further, through the
proposed merging, there may be undesirable modification in teacher–pupil ratios and
closure of substantial number of schools (which, in any case, started happening even
before the announcement of SMSA in several States).
392 P. Jha and S. Sikdar

Table 13 Amount allocated from PSK under SSA and MDM

Total Amount met from Share of PSK out of
PSK total expenditure (%)
Rs. in billion
Sarva Shiksha 2016-17 216.85 133.45 61.54
Abhiyan 2017–18 (RE) 235.00 131.75 56.06
2018–19 (BE) 261.29 166.00 63.53
National programme 2016–17 94.75 54.73 57.76
of mid-day meal in 2017–18 (RE) 100.00 59.65 59.65
schools
2018–19 (BE) 105.00 70.63 67.27
Source Compiled from demand No. 57, Union Budget, 2018–19

5 Conclusion

As should be evident from our foregoing discussion, there is a strong case for scaling
up the allocation of public expenditure on education, including secondary education,
which has suffered from disproportionate neglect. In the recent official discourses,
there is greater attention to this segment and the Government of India has professed
universalisation of secondary education, in line with SDGs.
We may also note that there has been significant increase in access and partici-
pation with respect to secondary education during the last 25 years. However, the
average growth of expenditure, at constant prices, both as a proportion of GSDP and
with respect to the population within the 15–18 years age group, has been, on the
whole, low and fluctuating, as discussed in Sect. 3 of this paper. A particularly worri-
some finding has been absolute decline in real terms in expenditure on secondary
education for some States, during particular years, for the period under review.
Further, as discussed, the trends and patterns relating to ‘per-child’ and ‘per-student’
expenditure for the period under review are also major areas of concern.
Given that RMSA is the major flagship programme for secondary education,
initiated by the Union government in 2011, this paper has examined some of its
financial dimensions and highlighted a number of major challenges, including the
fact that the distribution of resources across States is very uneven, if not arbitrary, and
only eight States count for 60% of the grants under this programme. It almost defies
any reasoning that ‘per-student’ grants under RMSA, in 2015–16, happened to be as
little as Rs. 100 in Meghalaya, West Bengal and Bihar compared to approximately
Rs. 2500 for Telangana and Himachal Pradesh.
This paper has also explored some issues relating to out-of-pocket expenditure,
using the latest available data from the NSSO (71st round, 2014). The quantum and
growth of out-of-pocket expenditure (even in government schools) as well as growing
dependence on private institutions at the secondary level are indeed critical areas of
concern as they connect with several important issues such as access, equity and
quality. There is substantial research to support the claim that public expenditure on
Public Provisioning for Secondary Education … 393

education has strong positive impacts on equity, school access, infrastructure, and
basic indictors of quality, for well-known reasons. In fact, in our earlier research on
elementary education for different States in India, we have repeatedly found signifi-
cant positive relationship between learning indicators and per child expenditure. The
common sense judgement often links public expenditure on education to economic
betterment through higher prospects of earning, which is a kind of limited ‘instru-
mental’ yardstick; however, it is worth emphasising that there is lot more to it, both
in ‘instrumental’ and ‘intrinsic’ ways, connecting adequate public provisioning with
the lives of individuals and society at large (see Jha et al. 2016).
Obviously, for assessing issues regarding ‘adequate’ expenditure, we need to
engage seriously with concept of ‘Unit Cost’. Different committees and research
studies have implicitly or explicitly relied on a range of unit costs, and we would
only like to note, given the heterogeneity across States, due to structural and other
factors, that any pan-Indian notion of unit cost has obvious flaws. Nonetheless, as a
thumb-rule marker, our preference is to consider per student allocation in Kendriya
Vidyalayas (KVs) as the benchmark for non-residential schools. In 2015–16, per
student government expenditure in KVs was approximately Rs. 32,000. Finally, as
discussed in the paper, the Union government has relied substantially on the cess
route for its spending on school education, which is a controversial, if not undesirable,
option. We are strongly of the view that the government needs to expand its overall
fiscal space for spending on social sectors, including education, through more robust
strategies and mechanisms.

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Declining Public Funding and Increasing
Private Expenditure in Neo-Liberal
Regime: Challenges Ahead
for Universalisation of Secondary
Education

Narender Thakur

1 Context

The recent agenda of the Central Government of India, to universalise secondary

education in the coming years, has been viewed with great hopes but with certain
uncertainties stemming from no increase in the share of public expenditure on
education in GDP. As stated in the Ministry of Human Resource Development
(MHRD) document ‘Universalising secondary education. Rashtriya Madhyamik
Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) is an initiative of the Central government, in partner-
ship with State governments, which seeks to universalise enrolment in Grades 9 and
10 across the country’ (IIE 2016). The government of India reiterates its plan to have
universalisation of secondary education under Samagara Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), in
the light of Sustainable Development Goal 4, to ensure inclusive quality education
for all.
‘This (SSA) would help in instilling allocative efficiency and optimal utilization
of budgetary and human resources’ (MHRD 2018: 6). It defines market efficiency to
achieve the social goals of equity and efficiency and attain sustainable development
goals, especially SDG 4, to ensure inclusive and qualitative education for all by
2030. Here, it would be pertinent to acknowledge that public funding, however,
cannot ensure market efficiency parameters but can ensure a much longer lasting
human efficiency with equity and social justice by using the capability approach
(Sen 1982).
Social goals cannot be achieved through market principles, as market logic ignores
the equity and social justice issues to achieve profit (Thakur 2016a; Thakur and
Pathania 2018). The interventions of the private sector in the universalisation of
elementary education, in the form of Economically Weaker Section (EWS) reserva-
tion in private schools, has revealed a number of cases of these schools indulging in

N. Thakur (B)
Bhimarao Ambedkar College, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India
e-mail: [email protected]

© Council for Social Development 2020 395

J. B. G Tilak (ed.), Universal Secondary Education in India,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5366-0_18
396 N. Thakur

corrupt practices. In some of the affluent Delhi schools, the 25% quota for EWS cate-
gory students in private schools was surreptitiously given to upper sections of Indian
society (TOI 2018a, b). These challenges show the market failures for providing
public good or service, like education, including asymmetric information, externali-
ties, moral hazard, and adverse selection etc. These challenges need to be considered
during the implementation of SSA and universalisation of secondary education in
India. The other challenge is to match up to the older SSA’s (Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan)
comprehensiveness covering elementary education with thought-out specific details
related to budget and resource allocation. Samagra, thus needs, to clearly distinguish
itself from stating that though it intends to facilitate school education from pre-school
to Grade XII for every child, it has currently undertaken the three stated compo-
nents under its plan of action—Universalisation of elementary education, Rashtriya
Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan and Teacher Education. Looking at the wide coverage
of SSA, i.e. Universalisation of Elementary Education (UEE), Rashtriya Madhyamik
Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) and Teacher Education (TE) policies and programmes
at the States’ and all-India levels, the author finds it an over-ambitious goal. The
author here critically examines three challenges for universalisation of secondary
education in the context of SSA and SDG 4. These challenges are declining public
funding, increasing private expenditure in the education sector and the sustenance
of socio-economic inequalities in Indian education. This is done by using empir-
ical data from NSSO and MHRD. The chapter is divided into five sections: (i) the
context, (ii) declining public funding and increasing private expenditure in educa-
tion sector, mainly secondary education, (iii) existing socio-economic inequalities
in Indian education (iv) economic class in education sector, including secondary
education and (v) concluding remarks and policy implications.

2 Declining Public Expenditure and Increasing Private

Expenditure in Indian Education Sector

In the neo-liberal policies, the Central government spending on education, as a share

of the Central government’s total budgeted expenditure, has been falling for the
past three years under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government for
the period 2014–2019 (Table 1). In 2014–15, the share of education budget in the
Central government budget was 6.15%, which declined to 5.44% in 2015–16, 4.68%
in 2016–17 and 3.71% in 2017–18 (Table 1). The share of education budget in
Gross National Income (GNI) has also declined from 1.06% in 2014–15 to 0.86% in
2015–16 and 0.77% in 2016–17 and it has further fallen to 0.62% in 2017–18. With
declining share of public funding, it would be interesting to see how the ambitious
goal of universalising secondary education can be achieved through meagre funding.
It would be a big challenge, especially in times of increasing private expenditure in
education for a hierarchal society, not only economically but socially as well and
Declining Public Funding and Increasing Private Expenditure … 397

Table 1 Declining public spending on education sector

Year MHRD budget Total Central Gross national Share of Share of
(Rs. billion) budget (Rs. income (GNI) education education
Billion) (Rs. Billion) budget in GNI budget in
Central budget
2014–15 1104 17,949 104,123 1.06 6.15
2015–16 967 17,775 112,463 0.86 5.44
2016–17 927 19,781 120,347 0.77 4.68
2017–18 797 21,467 128,350 0.62 3.71
Source BS (2018)

that too in the context of a more regressive way of having upper and lower caste
associations.

3 Average Expenditure in Education: A Social Divide

and Advantage for Upper Caste Students in Cut-Throat
Competition for Marks

In the context of the neo-liberal policies, the share of private expenditure has been
increasing in education wherein secondary education is also adversely affected.
Secondary statistics of access of education at all the levels project an advantage
for upper caste population, thus re-establishing the social gap. Tables 2 and 3 show
share and absolute average private expenditure per student pursuing general educa-
tion in schools, colleges and universities; by social groups: SCs, STs, OBCs and
others (upper castes or non-SCs/STs/OBCs) in rural and urban areas of India. The
per student expenditure in rural India has increased (Table 2) from lower primary (Rs.
2.8 thousand) and upper primary (Rs. 3.2 thousand) to lower secondary (Rs. 5.1 thou-
sand) and higher secondary (Rs. 9 thousand) and even at the higher education levels
of graduate (Rs. 11.5 thousand) and post-graduate and above (Rs. 14.5 thousand).
The shares of per student expenditure of SCs, STs and OBCs are lower in compar-
ison to the expenditure of upper castes (Others), except post-graduates and above
of OBCs. The shares of SCs and STs to per student expenditure by “Others” in
lower secondary levels are 62% and 53% while their respective shares at the higher
secondary levels are 67% and 61%. The shares of the expenditure by SCs and STs
to the expenditure of “Others” at the lower primary level are 42% and 35% and 50%
and 46%, respectively, at the upper primary level. Likewise, the shares of graduate
SCs and STs are 75% and 82% while their respective shares in post-graduate and
above are 80% and 83%. Thus, higher expenditure incurred by upper caste students
in comparison to that by SC and ST students are significantly lower, especially at
the primary and secondary levels, showing a social divide in rural India. The higher
398 N. Thakur

Table 2 Average expenditure per student on general education by social group (SC/ST/OBC) in
rural India (January–June, 2014) (in Rs.)
Social Level of education
group Lower Upper Lower Higher Graduate Post-graduate Diploma
primary primary secondary secondary and above
ST 1531 2104 3572 6635 10,246 11,959 12,139
ST:% of 35 46 53 61 82 83 66
Others
SC 1791 2283 4149 7377 9367 11,603 12,187
SC:% of 42 50 62 67 75 80 66
Others
OBC 2968 3372 5101 9065 12,044 16,540 12,272
OBC:% 69 74 76 83 97 115 66
of
Others
Others 4314 4564 6725 10946 12,462 14,423 18,456
All 2811 3242 5100 9031 11,527 14,604 13,422
Source NSSO (2016)

Table 3 Average expenditure per student pursuing general education social group (SC/ST/OBC)
in urban India (January–June, 2014) (in Rs.)
Social Level of education
group Lower Upper Lower Higher Graduate Post-graduate Diploma
primary primary secondary secondary and above
ST 6324 8377 11,801 18,027 14,611 15,862 16,271
ST:% of 44 51 62 66 71 75 56
others
SC 6245 6199 8213 12,610 13,936 11,812 14,182
SC:% of 44 38 43 46 68 56 49
others
OBC 8572 9415 10,951 15,513 14093 14,952 17,219
OBC:% 60 57 57 57 68 71 59
of
Others
Others 14,270 16,485 19,121 27,166 20,601 21,064 28,958
All 10,083 11,446 13,547 20,179 16,771 17,744 21,947
Source NSSO (2016)

expenditure incurred by upper caste students at the time of increasing privatisa-

tion has multiplied the cost of education by favouring upper caste social category
students, especially at the primary and secondary levels of education. However, per
student expenditure of OBCs is higher than those of SCs and STs but these are lower
Declining Public Funding and Increasing Private Expenditure … 399

than those of Others/Upper Caste students, at all levels of education (except post-
graduates and above). Probably the OBCs have higher land holding in rural areas
which may facilitate their higher spending in post-graduation and above. The average
expenditures at all levels of education in urban India are higher than those of rural
India (Tables 2 and 3).
The average expenditures are: in lower primary (Rs. 10 thousand), upper primary
(Rs. 11.5 thousand); lower secondary (Rs. 13.5 thousand) higher secondary (Rs. 20.2
thousand), graduate level (Rs. 16.8 thousand) and post-graduate and above level of
education (Rs. 17.8 thousand). As professional education is not included in general
education; therefore, the expenditure at graduate and post-graduate and above levels
are lower than that at the higher secondary level of education. The\age shares of SC,
ST and OBC students to that of others at the lower secondary level of education
are 43%, 62% and 57%, respectively, while their corresponding shares at the higher
secondary level are 46%, 66% and 57%. This is reflective of a social divide in
secondary education in terms of lower shares of expenditures by the disadvantaged
groups, as in the case at the lower and upper primary levels, thereby keeping the
disadvantaged groups laggards in education and employment in Indian economy
(Thakur 2016b).

4 Socio-Economic Inequalities in Education Including

Secondary Education

Indian society is enmeshed in socio-economic inequalities in terms of class, caste,

gender and regional divide (Thakur 2016b). This section examines the existing social
exclusions by using Survey Office/Organisation (NSSO) data for the year 2014.
Due to these social-economic inequalities, the exclusions of the disadvantaged
sections also impinge on the education sector, viz., secondary education. These
exclusions in school education are examined below by using data of National Sample
Survey Office (NSSO).

GARs in Lower and Upper Primary Levels of Education

Table 4 shows that gross attendance ratio (GAR) in lower primary level of educa-
tion (I–V standards) was 101% in rural India by all social categories. This shows
universalisation of elementary education at primary level of education, which can be
attributed to implementation by the Central government of the Fundamental Right
to Education Act, 2009 in 2010. In urban India, the GAR in lower primary education
level of all the social categories was 102%. However, the ratio of the Scheduled
Tribe (ST) male and Scheduled Castes (SC) female was slightly lower than 102%,
at 94% and 97%, respectively, reflecting exclusion on the basis of gender, caste and
tribe (Table 5). The GAR at the upper primary level of education (VI–VIII Stan-
dards) of rural India declined for SCs, STs, Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and
“Others” (non-SC/ST/OBC), in comparison to their GAR at lower primary levels.
The caste deprivations are also reflected in the larger declines noticed in the GARs
400 N. Thakur

Table 4 Gross attendance ratio in school education, by social group (SC/ST/OBC) and by sex in
rural India (January–June 2014)
Social group Lower Upper primary Lower Higher Above higher
primary secondary secondary secondary
Male
ST 100 93 75 51 7
SC 102 90 81 53 10
OBC 103 90 87 64 13
Others 102 95 98 78 16
All 102 91 86 63 12
Female
ST 101 85 78 45 5
SC 102 80 88 54 7
OBC 100 88 82 58 9
Others 99 97 90 70 14
All 100 88 84 58 9
Person
ST 100 89 76 48 6
SC 102 85 84 54 9
OBC 101 89 85 61 11
Others 101 96 94 74 15
All 101 90 85 61 11
Source NSSO (2016)

of the SCs, STs and OBCs at the upper primary level, in comparison to those of the
“Others”—upper caste population.
Declining Public Funding and Increasing Private Expenditure … 401

Table 5 Gross attendance ratio in school education by social group (SC/ST/OBC) and by sex in
urban India (January to June 2014)
Social group Lower Upper primary Lower Higher Above higher
primary secondary secondary secondary
Male
ST 94 97 112 87 16
SC 100 96 87 56 13
OBC 103 89 83 66 18
Others 104 94 98 87 22
All 102 93 90 73 18
Female
ST 101 86 92 75 15
SC 97 85 106 65 14
OBC 104 82 89 71 16
Others 101 100 96 82 22
All 102 88 94 75 18
Person
ST 97 92 102 81 15
SC 98 91 95 59 13
OBC 103 86 86 69 17
Others 103 97 97 85 22
All 102 91 92 74 18
Source NSSO (2016)

GAR of all the social categories in rural India declined from 101% at the lower
level to 90% at the upper primary level (Table 4). The GAR in urban India declined
from 102% to 91% (Table 5). The declining attendance ratios were slightly over
10% in rural and urban India, reflecting challenges for universalisation of elemen-
tary education. This implies that completion of elementary education is a structural
and systematic challenge in the Indian school system.1 In rural India, GARs at the
upper primary level of SCs (85%), STs (89%), and OBCs (89%) are lesser than that
of the “Others” (96%). The corresponding ratios in urban India are 91%, 92%, 86%
and 97%, replicating caste deprivation phenomenon in elementary level of educa-
tion. This caste deprivation, with lower GARs for SCs, STs and OBCs, coincides
with gender-deprivation. The GARs of females at the upper primary level of educa-
tion belonging to SCs, STs, OBCs and others in rural India were 80%, 85%, 88%
and 97%, respectively. The respective ratios in the context of urban India were 85%,
86%, 82% and 101%. Thus, lower ratios of SC, ST and OBC females, in comparison

1 There have been issues of accurate data on attendance and enrolment captured by the investigators

and data supplied by the school officials while assessing RTE in universalising elementary educa-
tion, resulting in overestimation of data on attendance, enrolment and completion by students in
elementary education.
402 N. Thakur

to their counterpart males and the females of the “others”-upper castes, reflect the
incidence of double deprivation for females due to caste and gender.

GARs in Lower and Higher Secondary Levels of Education

With regard to rural India, the GAR in the lower secondary level of education (IX–
X) of all social categories has declined from 97 to 85% at the elementary level,
showing a decline by 12%. The GAR at the higher secondary level (XI–XII) has
further declined to 61%, implying a decline by 21% from lower secondary and by
36% from elementary education (Table 4). This significant decline of GARs in lower
and higher secondary levels of education explains the problems of higher drop-outs,
lower transition and retention rates in school education. These problems are more
critical at the higher education level as the GAR in the above higher secondary level
of education in rural India is only 11%, indicating the highest decline of 50%; from
61% GAR in higher secondary level. The GAR of all social categories in urban
India is 18%, indicative of rural-urban divide in access to higher education which
is also linked to the drop-outs after school education. These declining attendance
ratios across levels of education, from lower primary to above higher secondary,
depict wastage of human potential due to incidence of higher drop-out and lower
retention rates. It can be further proved that declining GARs is also entangled with
the socio-economic inequalities in rural India. The GARs of persons of SCs, STs,
OBCs and others at lower secondary level in rural India are 84%, 76%, 85% and
94%, respectively, (Table 4). The corresponding ratios for urban persons in India
are 95%, 102%, 86% and 97% (Table 5). Likewise, the respective GARs in lower
secondary level of education of rural females are 88%, 78%, 82% and 90% while the
corresponding GARs of these social categories for urban females are 106%, 92%,
89% and 96%. The real social conditions of SCs, STs and OBCs could be judged
by their social conditions in rural India, as the GARs (males and females) of these
three social categories are lower than those of the upper caste ‘others’ (males and
females).

GARs in Higher Secondary Levels of Education

At higher secondary level, the GARs of persons of SCs, STs, OBCs and Others in
rural India are 54%, 48%, 61% and 74% while the corresponding GARs for urban
India are 59%, 81%, 69% and 85%. Likewise, the GARs of rural females at the
higher secondary level are 54%, 45%, 58% and 70 and the respective ratios for
urban females are 65%, 75%, 71% and 82%. The rural Indian conditions of SCs,
STs and OBCs are adverse compared to those of upper castes (Others), showing
caste and gender-biased Indian society, with the data depicting lower attendance
of these disadvantaged populations. Thus, educational access may still remain a
challenge for the universalisation of secondary education after the implementation
of universalisation of elementary education.
There are other issues that can act as guiding force or determinants for effective
implementation of the new SSA. For instance, class issue is also a challenge for
access, equity and quality in education sector, and this aspect is examined in the
Declining Public Funding and Increasing Private Expenditure … 403

subsequent section by using data on GAR by Usual Monthly Per Capita Consumer
Expenditure (UMPCE).

5 Economic Class in Secondary Education Sector:

Common School System Is the Only Alternative
to Achieve SDG 4

There are higher aspirations of education among the parents and their children.
The disadvantaged sections of society, lower economic classes have only one way
of improving their economic status by acquiring more education and training and
increasing their chances of getting jobs. This would enable them to break the shackles
of the vicious circles of poverty in a developing country, like India. It is natural for
people of developing societies to have lower base of socio-economic endowments,
so that they have to work hard to build human capital and capability in the future to
move up in socio-economic terms. The higher aspirations could be proved by the data
given in Table 6 as the GARs of all economic categories at the lower primary level
is nearly 100%. However, in the next levels of education, a larger section of society
drop-out, especially in higher education, as explained in the earlier section of this
paper that GARs in the above higher secondary level of rural and urban India were
only 11% and 18%, respectively. (Tables 4 and 5; see also last columns of Tables 6
and 7). Table 3 depicts that GARs for all economic categories of rural India, at lower
and upper primary levels, are 101% and 90%, respectively. The GARs for lower
and higher secondary levels have declined to 85% and 61%, respectively. For the
five economic classes (usual monthly per-capita consumption expenditure-UMPCE)
of lowest (Rs. 0–786), lower (Rs. 786–1000), middle (Rs. 1000–1286), higher (Rs.
1287–1667) and highest (Rs. 1667 and above), the GARs for lower primary level
in rural India are close to 100%, showing higher aspirations for their better future
though higher education. But, the GARs have declined with the increase in level of
education and the rate of decline of GARs is greater for the disadvantaged economic
sections, viz., lowest, lower, middle and even higher in comparison to the highest
economic strata
The GAR of persons of the lowest economic class in rural India has declined
from 99% in lower primary to 91% in the upper primary level and then to 67%
in the lower secondary level, before falling to 38% in higher secondary level and
finally to a mere four per cent beyond the higher secondary level. However, the
same attendance ratio of the highest economic class has declined from 107% at
primary level to 91% in upper primary, going up to 105% in lower secondary level
of education before declining to 89% at the higher secondary level and further to
21% at the above higher secondary level of education in rural India. Thus, at the
secondary level in rural India, economic class influences the GARs between lowest
and highest economic class as the difference in GAR at lower secondary level is 38%
and the corresponding difference at the higher secondary level is higher by 51%.
404 N. Thakur

Table 6 Gross attendance ratio in school education by Usual Monthly Per Capita Consumer
Expenditure (UMPCE) by sex in rural India (January–June, 2014)
Particular UMPCE (Rs.) All
(0–786) (786–1000) (1000–1286) (1287–1667) (1667 &
Above)
Male
Lower primary 100 98 102 104 109 102
Upper primary 83 94 96 92 94 91
secondary 68 83 85 93 105 86
Higher 42 48 58 72 90 63
secondary
Above higher 4 6 10 15 22 12
secondary
Female
Lower primary 96 99 100 103 106 100
Upper primary 79 87 91 96 88 88
Lower 66 79 87 89 106 84
secondary
Higher 34 48 57 67 87 58
secondary
Above higher 3 5 7 10 19 9
secondary
Person
Lower primary 99 99 101 103 107 101
Upper primary 81 91 94 94 91 90
Lower 67 81 86 91 105 85
secondary
Higher 38 48 57 70 89 61
secondary
Above higher 4 5 9 12 21 11
secondary
Source NSSO (2016)

In urban India, the GAR in lower primary education of the lowest economic
class persons is 100% which declined to 82% in upper primary. In lower and higher
secondary levels, the respective GARs are 67% and 41%, and it is six per cent in the
above secondary level of education (Table 7). However, the respective GARs in the
five levels of education of the highest economic class persons are 101%, 94%, 111%,
99% and 33%, respectively. The respective differences between the two economic
Declining Public Funding and Increasing Private Expenditure … 405

Table 7 Gross attendance ratio in school education by UMPCE by sex in urban India (January–June,
2014)
Particular UMPCE (Rs.) All
(0–1200) (1200–1667) (1667–2250) (2250–3333) (3333 and
Above)
Male
Lower 100 102 105 106 101 102
Primary
Upper primary 88 89 100 93 96 93
Lower 63 88 97 104 111 90
secondary
Higher 39 66 74 91 100 73
secondary
Above higher 6 11 15 24 33 18
secondary
Female
Lower primary 101 101 105 102 102 102
Upper primary 77 89 94 100 91 88
Lower 72 95 104 102 111 94
secondary
Higher 43 64 83 92 98 75
secondary
Above higher 7 10 16 24 34 18
secondary
Person
Lower primary 100 101 105 105 101 102
Upper primary 82 89 97 96 94 91
Lower 67 92 100 103 111 92
secondary
Higher 41 65 78 92 99 74
secondary
Above higher 6 10 16 24 33 18
secondary
Source NSSO (2016)

class persons in lower and upper primary education are 1% and 12%, which increased
to 44% and 58%, respectively, in lower and higher secondary levels of education.

Gender and Economic Class in Secondary Education: Rural and Urban India
Along with economic class, the gender-issue is also prevalent in Indian secondary
education. The GARs of rural females belonging to the lowest economic classes in
lower primary level of education is 96%, declining to 79% in upper primary level
and further to 66% in lower secondary education and 34% in higher secondary level
406 N. Thakur

of education and to a mere three per cent in the above higher secondary level of
education (Table 6).
However, the GARs in lower primary education level of the highest economic class
female in rural India is 106%, declines to 88% at upper primary level, rises to 106%
at lower secondary education, before dropping to 87% at higher secondary level, and
further to 19% at the above higher secondary level (Table 6). It will be noticed that
there is a significantly higher GARs of the highest economic class females in rural
India than their counterpart females belonging to the lowest economic classes. The
difference between the GARs of the lowest and highest economic class females at
the lower primary level in rural India is 10%, which declines slightly to nine per cent
in upper primary, rises to 50% in lower secondary level and further to 53% in higher
secondary level.
The GARs of urban females of the lowest economic classes in lower and upper
primary levels are 101% and 77%, which declines to 72% at lower secondary level
and 43% at the higher secondary level and further to seven per cent at the above higher
secondary level of education (Table 7). The GARs of urban females from highest
economic classes in lower and upper primary levels of education are 102% and
88%, while the GAR is 94% and 75% at the lower secondary and higher secondary
levels, respectively, and 34% at the above higher secondary level of education. The
difference between GARs of urban females of highest and lowest economic classes at
the lower and upper primary levels are one per cent and 11%, respectively, while their
respective differences at lower and higher secondary levels of education increase to
22% and 32%, indicating a combination of economic class in gender.

6 Conclusion and Policy Implications

The neo-liberal interventions in Indian education policies have sustained the issue
of access and equity for the deprived sections of the society, especially education
beyond elementary education. Apart from other inequities, the economic class is also
influencing the access and equity to/in secondary education and beyond. In order to
address this issue, Indian education system needs to revisit the two recommendations
of the Kothari commission, which are for having common school system and also
increasing the public funding by at least six per cent of the GDP. Introducing the
common school system (CSS) with uniform quality of schools to all students in
their neighbourhood, irrespective of socio-economic background of the students was
also advocated by National Education Policy, 1986 and 1992 of the government
of India. Relying on temporary arrangements like the Economic Weaker Section
(EWS)’s quota of 25% seats to be filled by private schools under Right to Education
Act, 2009, which is a case of public–private partnership (PPP) model, will hardly
be able to address the problem of equity. During the implementation of the PPP in
education, schools were reported to be indulging in rent-seeking behaviour or corrupt
practices in selling the EWS seats to the rich sections of Indian society. This shows
that it is difficult or well nigh impossible for the private sector to provide fair and
Declining Public Funding and Increasing Private Expenditure … 407

judicial supply of public services (TOI 2018a, b) as it contradicts the law of nature of
production or provision of public good in Public Economics. Some private schools
were reportedly not filling up full quota of EWS seats while some were shifting the
burden of costs to the EWS students in the schools (TOI 2018a, b; FE 2018).
There are also other examples of market failures in the production and provision
of local of global public goods like education (Tilak 1997, 2018). Thus, at the times of
existing higher socio-economic inequalities in the Indian education sector, including
secondary education, there are two policy implications on the basis of challenges
critically examined above: (i) introduction of CSS is necessary for ensuring inclusive
and quality education to all, including universalisation of secondary education and
(ii) increasing of public funding to finance the public good, viz., secondary education
in a welfare state by the Central and state governments.

Acknowledgment The author is thankful to Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR)
for giving Post Doctoral Fellowship. This chapter is a part of the ICSSR- PDF.

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Financing and Management
of Secondary Education in Uttar Pradesh

Mohd. Muzammil

Secondary education system of Uttar Pradesh (UP) is one of the largest in India,
viewed in terms of the number of students, teachers and (various types of) educational
institutions imparting secondary education. It involves education in Classes IX and
X (high school) and in Classes XI and XII (intermediate), popularly known as higher
secondary education. The UP Board of High School and Intermediate Education
performs the great task of regulating and conducting the high school and intermediate
(Board) examinations in the State of UP. Two earlier studies conducted at NIEPA,
New Delhi, published in book forms, have focussed on financing of secondary educa-
tion and management of secondary education. The first was led by Prof. Jandhyala
B. G. Tilak (2008) while the study on management of secondary education in some
States was carried by Sujatha and Rani (2011).
Despite being one of the largest at this level of education and having several firsts
to its credit, the secondary education system in the State of UP also has the dubious
distinction of having the largest number of drop-outs as the exams begin under
strict vigil along with intense teacher politics and fluctuating results. The drop-outs
in Board examinations have been so large that the news became top headlines in
national newspapers in 2018 as the exams were held under CCTV camera vigilance.
‘After Crackdown 5 lakh Students drop out of UP Board Exam’ wrote The Times
of India in its top headline dated February 8, 2018 (other sources reported drop- out
of ten lakh students!). The situation is no better in many other Boards from several
considerations. The case of Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) is in
point when angry high school students went out on the streets to protest against the
leaked question papers in the 2018 Board examinations of Classes 10 and 12.
Educational reforms, with a view to streamline financing and improve manage-
ment, have been attempted by the State Government but have often been resisted

Mohd. Muzammil (B)

Ex Vice Chancellor, Dr B R Ambedkar University, Agra, F-2260 Rajajipuram, Lucknow, Uttar
Pradesh 226017, India
e-mail: [email protected]

© Council for Social Development 2020 409

J. B. G Tilak (ed.), Universal Secondary Education in India,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5366-0_19
410 Mohd. Muzammil

by teachers and employees’ unions, cartels and other vested interests (Nayak 2018).
This resulted in lowering merits and quality of education and, sometimes, became
the reason for financial crunch and managerial inefficiency. The system continues
to suffer from general degeneration and slow progress, due to lack of an effec-
tive mechanism of surveillance and governance. Governmental-appointed educa-
tional commissions and committees often recommended that government should
assume direct responsibility for contemplated reorganisation of secondary education
as frequently as required. Recognition to school should be given on clearly defined
conditions that would ensure their proper running and the maintenance of standards.
The Government of UP is now cracking down on unrecognised schools in the city
of Lucknow.
The system of secondary education is very poorly managed at the institution level,
the district level and in the State as a whole. While Government Inter College (GIC)
is an iconic symbol of higher secondary education in all district headquarters, and
situated at the most prime location in the heart of the town, but its present condition is
indeed deplorable. The college premises are largely encroached upon, staff reduced,
teaching positions are vacant, infra-structure is in shambles and enrolments have
plummeted to almost zero in many cases.
The management of all the three types of secondary institutions is, generally, weak
and leaves much to be desired. We have highlighted this point very prominently in our
earlier researches and whenever we visit the institutions from time to time, the same
sorry state of affairs greets us again and again. In all the three types of secondary insti-
tutions in the State of UP—the government schools (inter colleges), aided schools
and unaided private schools—efficient management is virtually absent in almost all
cases. The reason seems to be threefold: non-committed teachers, demotivating envi-
ronment and disenchanted students, in general. But all is not murky. Wherever the
teacher commitment is there and the management has created a conducive environ-
ment, with PTAs too playing an active role in encouraging students to learn, good
results are obtained.
The centrally sponsored Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan has not yet been
able to achieve the goals that the Government of India set for all the States to achieve
in a stipulated time frame. It is focussing on making available quality education
for all children at the secondary level, particularly those from the underprivileged
sections of society. These groups comprise mainly of SC/ST, economically weaker
sections and the minorities. The Government in UP is still trying to have a secondary
school within a distance of five kilometres and a higher secondary school within
five to seven kilometres for all the students in the secondary education age group.
The map of distribution of secondary schools in the State indicates that they are
not evenly distributed. Economically backward regions do have lesser number of
schools and much less good quality schools (which are mostly concentrated in urban
agglomerations). The gross enrolment ratio (GER) in secondary education is to be
raised to universal level but it is far below the desired goal. Universal retention of
students in secondary education is also to be achieved by 2020 but the State is far
from this goal too.
Financing and Management of Secondary Education in Uttar Pradesh 411

The system of secondary education in UP depends on a multi-source mechanism of

educational finance. These are coming forth both from internal and external sources
in the form of public grants and private contribution which, in turn, is both voluntary
in nature and also obligatory as tuition fees of the students. The relative significance
of these sources of finance to secondary education differs widely in the case of
three types of differently managed secondary schools in UP—Government schools,
private-aided schools and private-unaided schools as mentioned above. Government
secondary schools form the oldest type and it would be instructive to find out, in
detail, their present relative significance and how it has changed over time.
It is also interesting to note that the ratio of government schools and aided schools
to the total number of secondary schools has dwindled rapidly. There are several
reasons for this relative decline. The State government stopped opening government
secondary schools long back and also put curbs on taking (since mid-1980s) more
schools on the grants-in-aid list at the secondary level of education. On the other
hand, the demand for secondary education has been rising gradually and the same
is increasingly being met by unaided private schools. One of the reasons for the
decline in private voluntary financial assistance to secondary schools has been the
failure of educational leadership to prevail upon the possible dispensers of funds.
The money-mindedness of the affluent class and the political leadership added to
establish private schools even without government grants and often with high fee
rates. Within this general scenario, there are institutions of secondary education in
the UP with big success stories that need to be emulated by other private-unaided
schools. But these are rare and have become distinguished because of their noble
legacy of high quality education.
When we look at the proliferation of unaided secondary schools in the State along
with its implications, we are overwhelmed with mixed emotions of love and hate for
them (Kingdon 2018). Many are, very often, aptly labelled in the media as teaching
shops established for minting money and alongside them are the coaching institutions,
which have developed as a subsidiary market for secondary education of various
types. Both these have earned a bad name in the sector of secondary education in the
State of UP. Despite this dark scenario, new schemes are providing rays of hope and
optimism. The implementation of the RMSA is in progress in the State but the rate of
implementation is too slow. The projects of communication and mass communication
technology are under implementation. Government secondary schools have adopted
various courses of vocational trades of different types. Construction of girls’ hostels
and integrated education for the differently abled students are few schemes, worth
mentioning, that are underway. The government (as manager) has also risen to the
occasion for reconstructing the dilapidated buildings of centuries’ old GICs and
undertaking general renovation on select basis.
The system of public financing of secondary education in the State needs to
be discussed in detail, especially with reference to the reforms attempted by the
government in recent decades. A long-term analysis shows that the share of secondary
education in total public funding of education in UP had gradually increased in earlier
decades (Muzammil 1980), and, then, declined subsequently. The State government
stopped taking additional private schools on the grants-in-aid list since the decade of
412 Mohd. Muzammil

1980s. It also had to compete with primary education which enjoys the mandate of
the Constitution of India having the status of nothing less than a Directive Principle
of State Policy. As a result, gradually the share of primary education has increased.
This is mainly because of more centrally sponsored schemes that are being run at the
primary level in the State of UP. The decade of 1990s in the State has been remarkable
from the viewpoint of the positive impact of central educational schemes in UP.
The public funding for secondary education in UP comes largely in the form of
grants-in-aid to privately managed secondary educational institutions. The system
of grants-in-aid is essentially what was inherited from British India. The objective
criteria, suggested from time to time, have been incorporated but, in essence, the
system remains virtually unchanged (Muzammil 2009). Politicisation of secondary
education is most intense and deep in UP as compared to other levels of education in
the State itself as well as other States of India at the secondary education level. The
pressure of teacher unions has stalled the process of reforms on many occasions and
reduced the extent of teacher accountability in teaching work. Political influence on
management and governance has often vitiated the teaching environment in schools
and in the State during prolonged agitations by teachers’ unions not only in UP or in
other States in India but across the world (Tara et al. 2017). Administrative reforms
have also been resisted strongly by teachers’ unions. Consequently, due to weak
administration and governance, the quality of teaching could not improve (Kingdon
and Muzammil 2003).
An analysis of budgetary data of the State government shows that there is an
increasing trend in growth of public expenditure on secondary education. The main
reason for this increase is the incremental obligatory payment of increased teachers’
salaries over successive years. The analysis of composition of public expenditure
reveals that heads like direction and administration and inspection receive very small
ratios of expenditure. Same is the case with heads like equipment and maintenance of
buildings, teacher service and teachers training, non-formal education. Grants to non-
government secondary schools are the largest head of expenditure in the secondary
education budget, followed by Government secondary schools. Examinations and
scholarships are other heads of expenditure worth mentioning. However, the conduct
of the former and the reimbursement of the latter leave much to be desired.
While the system seems to be largely based on government grants to schools but,
in effect, the contribution of students (households) in the form of fees and other
charges is rising rapidly, having important implications for parents and the learning
outcomes. It also needs to be analysed separately as to why the system of grants-in-
aid, as evolved in the British period, has remained virtually the same over decades and
how the RMSA has influenced the financing and management of secondary education
so as to develop it as the terminal stage of education. Its impact in improving financial
viability and quality of teaching in schools also needs to be assessed in its own right,
afresh.
The economics of fee at the secondary level, as at other levels of education, is very
important. We have enquired, in detail, into the prescribed (tuition) fee rates, and fee
as a technique of financing the entire cost of education at the secondary school level,
Financing and Management of Secondary Education in Uttar Pradesh 413

in our earlier research on secondary education. Now two issues are important for a
relook.
(A) The issue of reimbursement of fees by State government to schools, where
reserved category students are enrolled, is a new topic on the agenda in all its
dimensions. A comparative study of data with other States shows that UP is
giving lowest reimbursement to schools as compared to other States under the
Right to Education (RTE) Act. This has put many good schools under financial
distress (Kingdon and Muzammil 2018).
(B) The Government of UP has brought out an Ordinance in April 2018, known
as Ordinance for Self-Financed Independent Schools (Regulation of Fees) Bill
2018 (UP Act No 6 of 2018), to tighten the noose around the schools charging
staggering fees. It applies to all levels of school education in the State. The
law restricts private schools from raising fees beyond 8% annually. The Bill
requires that private schools must consult the Panel, headed by the Divisional
Commissioner (in which parents and school managements are also represented),
on fee hikes. The panels will decide the quantum of fee hike, keeping in mind
consumer price index and increase in staff salaries.
On the lines of the Government of UP, the Central Government is also thinking in
terms of a legislation regulating school fees. The Times of India reported on June 8,
2018 ‘Centre mulls law to curb arbitrary school-fee hikes–will be based on similar
UP Legislation’.
The implications of these two (A) and (B) above will be far reaching in the days
to come as the system of secondary education in UP will be increasingly depending
on independent private schools.
Management of secondary schools is related with rational utilisation of resources
(financial, physical and human), with a view to maximise output in the form of
learning outcomes. We have endeavoured to identify the reasons behind the appar-
ently pitiable management of schools, in general, and teacher effort and account-
ability, in particular. We have also examined, in detail, the role of the State govern-
ment as a facilitator by providing adequate funding and a better management environ-
ment for secondary education development and how innovatively it has helped in its
advancement for the benefit of the students and the society (Kingdon and Muzammil
2013).
Emphasis is gradually shifting on good governance in secondary education in the
State. There are instances in the administration of secondary education in the State
of UP that the officers had to take strict action to ensure the attendance of teachers
who had been skipping their duties of taking classes regularly. In one such instance,
the District Inspector of Schools (DIOS), Lucknow, had to instruct the principals
of government secondary schools and aided colleges in the district of Lucknow, the
capital of UP, to ensure regular attendance of teachers in their school premises.
This was a consequence of poor results in government and aided institutions of
secondary education in the district of Lucknow. The DIOS pulled up the teachers
for poor results in Classes X and XII of their schools. There are 48 government
414 Mohd. Muzammil

schools and 109 government-aided schools in Lucknow district. The DIOS asked the
principals to monitor the attendance of teachers in three ways:
(A) By having Biometric Attendance: Schools should use biometric attendance
system for teachers/ employees. It was noted that despite government’s order,
only 10% schools have the biometric system of attendance in place.
(B) By using Attendance Register: Teachers should mark their attendance in
Attendance Registers of the school.
(C) By using Movement Register: If a teacher needs to leave during school hours,
he/she should make an entry in the Movement Register that would then be
approved by the principal.
The DIOS impressed upon the teachers that they would be held responsible during
school hours. School principals were also asked to install CCTV camera in their
schools. The DIOS of Lucknow district said that he wanted the toppers in the UP
Board Examination of Class X and XII to come from Lucknow schools and not from
other districts. He exhorted the principals for achieving it. He said that teachers must
regularly go to schools and take classes (Sunday Times of India, Lucknow—9 July
2017).
Likewise, in Delhi, in a move to improve examination evaluation governance,
the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has sought the suspension of
six teachers for blunders committed in evaluation of Class XII Board examination
scripts. The regional centres of CBSE are also likely to adopt similar measures to
improve evaluation and curb faulty evaluation. According to a Times of India report,
the CBSE was spurred into action on erring evaluation by margins of at least 50
marks. The Board has sought action from the State government concerned for action
against the erring teachers (The Times of India, 28 June 2018).
All in all, secondary education sector remains problem-ridden from the viewpoint
of efficient management and good governance. All out efforts will be needed to
improve the quality by improving the management and teacher efforts through good
governance of the system. The beginning seems to have been ushered in.

References

Kingdon, G. (2018). When ideology overcame sense. The Times of India, New Delhi, March 13,
2018.
Kingdon. G., & Muzammil, M. (2003). A political economy of education in India. New Delhi:
Oxford University Press (Second Impression 2015).
Kingdon, G., & Muzammil, M. (2013, February). School governance environment in Uttar Pradesh
India: Implications for teacher accountability and effort. Journal of Development Studies, 49(2).
Kingdon, G., & Muzammil, M. (2018, April). Government school per pupil expenditure in Uttar
Pradesh: Implications for the reimbursement of private schools under RTE act.
Muzammil, M. (1980). An enquiry into the public expenditure on education in Uttar Pradesh—
1949–50 to 1977–78. The Indian Journal of Economics. (July). Annual Number.
Financing and Management of Secondary Education in Uttar Pradesh 415

Muzammil, M. (2009). Teacher union, teacher politics and school governance in Uttar Pradesh,
India. Paper presented in the 10th UKFIET International Conference on Education and Develop-
ment organized by the UK Forum for International Education and Training (UKFIET) at Oxford
UK, September 15–17.
Nayak, A. (2018). India’s failing education system. The Times of India, New Delhi, April 3, 2018.
Sujatha, K., & Rani, P. G. (2011) Secondary education in India. Management of secondary education
in India. New Delhi: Shipra Publications.
Tara, B., Kingdon, G., & Muzammil, M. (2017). Teachers union in India: Diverse, powerful and
coercive, India chapter. In T. M. Moe, & S. Wiborg (Eds.), The comparative politics of education:
Teacher unions and education systems across the world. UK: Cambridge University Press.
Tilak, J. B. G. (Ed.) (2008). Financing of secondary education: Grants-in-aid principles and
practice. New Delhi: Shipra Publications/National University of Educational Planning and
Administration.
Questions and Debates
Universalisation of Secondary Education:
Questions for Discussion and Debate

Rounaq Jahan

My perspective is shaped by my own experiences in Bangladesh where we face many

challenges similar to those of India. In some areas, we have undertaken innovative
initiatives which have addressed specific obstacles and yielded positive results, such
as the introduction of stipends for girls which resulted in rapid expansion of girls’
enrolment in secondary schools. The enrolment of girls increased from 442,000 in
1994 to over one million by 2001 (Bhatnagar et al. 2018). As a result, Bangladesh
achieved gender parity in enrolment in secondary schools. In fact, there are now more
girls than boys enrolled in secondary schools. The ratio of girls to boys changed from
approximately 45:55 in 1994 to 55:45 in 2001 (Tilak 2013).
But expanding school enrolment, with quality education, remains a big chal-
lenge for us, as is the case in India. We, too, have seen the gradual development
of disparity between public schools delivering poor quality education to children
from low income households, and private schools providing better quality educa-
tion to children from upper income households. We also have the divide between
the vernacular medium schools, and the English medium schools, which are now
attracting students, not simply from upper middle income households, but from
middle and lower income households. We have the added challenge of rapid expan-
sion of madrassa education, where children from extremely poor households go
because they can get free room and board. We face similar challenges of gover-
nance—lack of monitoring and accountability. Absenteeism of teachers, despite
increase in salary, is a persistent problem. Professional bodies such as teachers’
associations are preoccupied with demands for increasing teachers’ salaries and do
not pay much attention to issues concerning improvement of quality of education.
However, despite our past experiences of being disappointed with the inadequacies
of public policy responses, we still look forward to policies and actions from the

R. Jahan (B)
Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), House: 6/2 Block F, Kazi Nazrul Islam road, Lamatia, Dhaka
1207, Bangladesh
e-mail: [email protected]

© Council for Social Development 2020 419

J. B. G Tilak (ed.), Universal Secondary Education in India,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5366-0_20
420 R. Jahan

state to address the myriad problems we face in the education sector. After all, in
a democracy such as India and Bangladesh, citizens should be able to reasonably
expect that public policies and actions will be geared towards improving the quality
of education of the majority of the electorate. So some of the recent initiatives of
the government of India such as the Right to Education Act, Rashtriya Madhyamik
Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA), integration of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) with RMSA
and Teacher Training and Integrated Scheme for School Education are very welcome
news indeed. I look forward to learning more about the efficacy of these initiatives
from your deliberations.
After India passed the Right to Education Act in 2009, the Centre for Policy
Dialogue (CPD) organised a seminar in Bangladesh and invited some of the Indian
experts, including Professor Govinda, in order to create an opportunity for them to
share Indian experiences with Bangladeshi experts and our own minister of education
in the hope that we can learn some lessons from India. In that spirit, I am participating
in this seminar in Delhi today and hope to carry back some lessons about what to do
and what not to do in Bangladesh.
When I read the concept note of the seminar and looked at the programme of
various sessions, several very broad questions came to my mind. I would like to
share them with you and I hope very much that you will find some time to address
these questions in the seminar.

1 Political Will and Social Commitment

My first question is: How adequate is the level of political will and social commit-
ment to universalise secondary education? In Bangladesh, I often feel frustrated
when we end a seminar with a statement that policy X or action Y could not be
implemented because of lack of political will and social commitment. Political will
often becomes a “catch all” phrase to shift responsibility or explain away all deficits.
If political will and social commitment are the critical ingredients for the success of
any public policy or public action, then, should we not first assess what is the level of
our political will and social commitment before we embark on any public policy or
programme initiative? If we think the level of political will and social commitment
is inadequate, then, can we not devise some strategies to create that additional level
of political will and social commitment?
I raise this question of political will and social commitment because in an excellent
paper, Professor Tilak (2001) has written on the experiences of East Asia titled
Building Human Capital in East Asia: What Others Can Learn, a key lesson he
highlights is the importance of political will and social commitment. He states the
following:
political will and social commitment to education is one particular feature that explains the
growth of the education system in East Asian economies …. In every country … education
was an item of national obsession; it is regarded as the most important means of achieving
social status, occupational mobility and economic advancement – individually and as a
Universalisation of Secondary Education: Questions … 421

society …. Investment in human capital has been regarded as the conerstone of nation-
building and the key factor of economic development in East Asia. This realisation is critically
important. (CPD 2018)

I hope in this seminar you will be able to ponder on this lesson drawn by Professor
Tilak (2001) and ask: has education now finally become a “national obsession” in
India more than 70 years after Independence? Do the national and state govern-
ments regard investment in human capital as the “cornerstone” of nation-building
and economic development? If the answers to both questions are “yes”, then, of
course, this seminar does not need to spend much time deliberating on them. But if
the answers are “no” or “not yet”, then we need to think how we can make education
a “national obsession” and a “cornerstone” of our development policies.

2 Policy Design and Implementation

My second question for the deliberation of this seminar is: How realistic and imple-
mentable are the designs of these recent initiatives announced by the government
of India?
I often read policy and programme documents, which are full of good inten-
tions but their targets and timeframe are unrealistic; they lack specific instruments
to address specific constraints; and insufficient resources are allocated to achieve
the policy and programme objectives. Our persistent record of gaps between policy
design and policy implementation create serious credibility and trust gaps between
government and citizens. But these credibility and trust deficits appear not to be
taken seriously by our policy-makers. Our policies and programs are rarely scruti-
nised from the perspective of feasibility of their implementation. Often policy imple-
menters, mostly bureaucrats, go along with unrealistic and ambitious policies and
programs because they know that policy-makers are more concerned with policy
pronouncements rather than policy implementation.
In Bangladesh, we have often noticed wide gaps between policy and programme
adoption and their implementation. Sometimes, a much heralded policy or initiative
of one government gets neglected when there is a change in government. Sometimes,
ministries fail to spend allocated resources because of slow rate of implementation.
For example, a recent budget analysis found that 13% of the allocated budget of the
education sector and 40% of budget of the health sector were not spent though these
sectors were allocated only a small portion of the annual budget (approximately 5%)
(UNESCO 2016).
I note from the concept note of the seminar that the objectives of India’s new Inte-
grated Scheme for School Education are ‘to improve school effectiveness measured
in terms of equal opportunities for schooling and equitable learning outcomes’ and
raise ‘allocative efficiency and optimal utilisation of budgetary and human resources’.
Providing equal opportunities and attaining equitable outcomes are challenging
422 R. Jahan

enough objectives! Combining them with ‘allocative efficiency’ and ‘optimal utili-
sation of resources’ make the achievement of all these goals even more challenging.
The goals of achieving equality and efficiency may not always go together as effi-
ciency is often interpreted as cost-cutting. When policy implementers are given the
tasks of ensuring both equality and efficiency, they may not be able to deliver on
either of them.
A report highlighting some of the challenges of universalisation of secondary
education in India notes that most States will not succeed to achieve the targeted
secondary level gross enrolment ratios by 2017 and they will find it difficult to do so
even by 2020 (UNESCO 2016). The report further notes that with the current level of
financing and availability of trained teachers and facilities, expanding opportunities
for groups and areas that are so far left behind to meet the stated targets will be a
near impossible task for many States (Dreze and Sen 2013). I hope the seminar will
find time to deliberate on the prospects of realising some of the goals and targets of
these initiatives.
We need to also discuss the problems associated with setting up quantitative
targets. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) with their quantitative targets,
pushed countries to focus on increasing the number of student enrolment rather than
the quality of their education. Increasing number of students is important but we
should not lose sight of what they are learning. The MDGs and the current Sustain-
able Development Goal (SDG) 4, which is quality education, have not succeeded
in developing satisfactory indicators to measure improvements in quality, and this
remains a singular challenge for tracking the progress of SDG-4.

3 Quality

My third question is: Are the planned measures to improve the quality of educa-
tion adequate to produce the desired outcomes? The planned measures include
many interventions such as provisioning of infrastructure, appointment of additional
teachers, in-service training of teachers, review of curriculum, residential accom-
modation for teachers etc. But are there sufficient resources–financial and human–to
implement these measures? For example, if we are to take the feasibility of one
intervention, such as the appointment of teachers and training of teachers, will it be
feasible to appoint adequately trained teachers to impart quality education within the
timeframe of 2020, particularly in underperforming States?
In their recent study, An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions, Jean Dreze
and Amartya Sen highlighted the huge burdens created by poor standards, particularly
in government schools. They note that of the children aged 8–11 years enrolled
in government schools only 50% can read, 43% can subtract and 64% can write
(Campaign for Popular Education (CAMPE) 2007). The adverse teacher–student
ratio, particularly in government schools, again, is a huge problem.
In Bangladesh too, the students demonstrate poor capability in reading, writing
and mathematics. We are faced with not only shortage of teachers but a shortage
Universalisation of Secondary Education: Questions … 423

of teachers who will be able to improve the quality of education. A recent survey
found that 78% of heads of institutions were not aware of either the strength or
the weakness of their curriculum; 35% of teachers reported receiving no training to
improve the quality of their teaching; and 30% of students felt that their teachers
were not knowledgeable (Campaign for Popular Education (CAMPE) 2005). About
a half of the schools had no science laboratory; only 15% had a library with a modest
collection and 37% of schools claimed to have computer education facilities but a
fifth of these schools had only one computer (Chowdhury 2015). In public sector
schools, teacher–student ratio in computer education is 4207 compared to 755 in
private sector schools (Bhatnagar et al. 2018).
I hope the seminar will come up with a few innovative ideas to add value to the
measures already being planned to improve the quality of education. Moving forward,
we need to change teaching methods and teaching materials to make our education
competitive in the global market. The low scores of India in the PISA ranking,
compared to the consistent top ranking of East and Southeast Asian countries, should
be a matter of great concern for policy-makers. We need to also pay attention to the
contents of curriculum. Sometimes, efforts are made to change school curriculum,
as has happened recently in Bangladesh, to downgrade the importance of diversity
in our cultural tradition. We need to be vigilant against such efforts, particularly at a
time when globally and in our region, conscious political campaign is being mounted
to portray the ‘other’ as the enemy.

4 Inequality

My fourth question is: Are the recommended interventions to reduce inequality

likely to produce equitable outcomes by 2020? Do these measures adequately address
some of the sources of inequality such as the exclusion of marginalised groups and the
growing divide between public and private sector and vernacular medium and English
medium schools? In South Asia, we have produced and nurtured a dual system of
education–one for the rich and another for the poor. Will inclusion of excluded groups
be accommodated within the existing dual system with ever-increasing disparity
between English medium private sector schools, on the one hand, and public sector
vernacular medium schools, on the other?
The recommended measures for inclusion appear to be geared towards increasing
coverage of excluded groups such as students coming from rural areas and urban
slums, scheduled tribes and scheduled castes and girls. Will the expansion of existing
facilities, building of new schools, free boarding facilities, cash incentives and so on
be adequate to address the myriad of economic and social obstacles that hold back
the children from these groups from attending schools?
In Bangladesh, as I noted earlier, we introduced a special cash incentive of
providing scholarships for girl students for secondary education. This not only
contributed towards fast increase in girls’ school enrolment, there were other collat-
eral benefits such as reduction in the number of young women marrying before the
424 R. Jahan

age of 18. For example, the overall proportion of 13- to 15-year-old married girls
declined from 20% in 1992 to 14% by 1995 (Dreze and Sen 2013). But we have also
noticed that cash incentives often were not enough to counter the parents’ concerns
of safety and security for girls in an environment of fear of sexual harassment and
violence against girls.
If we are to ensure equitable outcomes for girls’ secondary education then we
need to think of multi-pronged measures to improve girls’ and women’s condition and
status, and community and society’s support for enhancing women’s empowerment. I
have annexed a Table 1 comparing gender-related indicators in India and Bangladesh
which is taken from Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen’s book Uncertain Glory. The table
shows Bangladesh doing better than India in all indicators including literacy, school
enrolment and labour force participation. Female literacy rate is 78% in Bangladesh
compared to 74% in India, secondary school enrolment ratio for girls is 113 in
Bangladesh compared to 92 in India. And labour force participation rate is 57% in
Bangladesh compared to 29% in India. These improvements in Bangladesh have
been made possible by consistent and conscious policies and actions pursued by
government as well as the non-government sector for the last four decades.
I believe if we are serious about addressing the issue of inequality and inequity,
then we have no alternative but to improve the standards of government and vernac-
ular medium schools so that children from upper income households do not flee
from these schools and flock to private English medium schools. The growth of the
dual system of education has consolidated a widening social gap between a narrow
privileged elite and the large excluded masses. This inequality has expanded over
the last half a century. In Bangladesh, we have now reached a situation where many
people have given up efforts to improve the quality of public sector and believe that
the public sector is beyond repair!
But this divide between vernacular and English medium and public and private
sector schools was not there when I went to school and university in the 1950s and
early 1960s. Most of us studied in Bangla medium government or private schools
in muffasil towns. I did not have that many post-graduate teachers in my schools
but I received sound basic training in reading, writing and mathematics from highly
motivated teachers which enabled me to make the transition to an English medium
college and university after matriculation, and ultimately earn a Ph.D. from Harvard
University. I think it will be much more difficult and unusual for a student trained
in Bangla medium mufassil schools these days to make this kind of transition to an
elite university in the USA. I believe many of my age group in India also were able
to go through similar transition from vernacular medium schools in small towns to
top universities in India and even the USA or UK.
Even if we think that given ground realities inequality has to be bridged by provi-
sioning of a public-private sector mix, we still have to improve the standards of the
public sector where the majority of our students are enrolled. I hope the seminar
will come up with many different options involving both public and private sector.
One recommendation of the Right to Education Act which drew our attention in
Bangladesh was the reserved quota for underprivileged children in elite private
schools. It will be interesting to know how far this measure has been implemented.
Universalisation of Secondary Education: Questions … 425

Another issue I would like to draw your attention to, which is not generally
discussed in seminars, is the availability and quality of translation. When I was in
school I could read excellent Bangla translation of world literature including those of
Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Chekov, Maxim Gorky, Eric Maria Remarque
and so on. In fact, I enjoyed more reading the Bangla translation of Arthur Conan
Doyle’s Lost World, when I was in school, than the original English edition, which
I read later when I was in college. I was exposed to books published in the West
mainly through Bangla translations. These days, I do not find good quality Bangla
translation of books published in other countries. This has narrowed the horizon of
Bangla medium students. Internet, with all its limitations, is their only window on
the world.
Here I would like to particularly acknowledge my deep appreciation for Professor
Muchkund Dubey’s recent translation of Fakir Lalon Shah’s poems and songs from
Bangla to Hindi. He has added a new dimension to translation. I feel translation from
Bangla into Hindi, rather than just English, has widened the readership of Lalon
and created an opportunity for a much larger Hindi-reading public to understand
and appreciate the rich syncretic cultural legacy of Bangladesh which had tradition-
ally focussed on mystical and devotional aspects of religion. I believe many more
such translations from one vernacular language to another will help foster greater
appreciation and understanding between different regions of South Asia.

5 Governance

My fifth question, again, is: Are the measures planned by the initiatives to improve
governance sufficient and appropriate? In their book An Uncertain Glory: India and
its Contradictions, Dreze and Sen highlight several governance challenges, including
those of management, accountability and the role of professional organisations. They
highlight the problem of absenteeism of teachers as an example of governance failure.
They have calculated that with 20% absenteeism of teachers and 33% absenteeism of
students, in effect, the probability of any effective teaching in a school in any day is
50% (Chowdhury 2015). They further note that despite improvement in salary, absen-
teeism of teachers has continued, which underscores lack of monitoring and account-
ability. They point out the narrow focus of teachers’ associations who mainly demand
improving the conditions of teachers rather than the condition of the education sector
as a whole.
In Bangladesh too, we face similar problems of student and teacher absenteeism.
Absenteeism of head teacher is 20% in primary schools and 18% in secondary
schools. Over the years, teachers’ salaries, though still inadequate, have improved, but
this has not contributed towards reduction in absenteeism. Again, I do not remember
teachers being absent when I was in school though those teachers were also poorly
paid. Moreover, nearly 40% of teachers are involved in private tutoring. Teachers’
associations are politicised and political parties use them to expand their vote base.
Before every national election, teachers’ associations start agitations to increase their
426 R. Jahan

salaries. Members of parliament have expanded their holds on school boards and use
them as patronage resource.
Governance reforms are critical to improving quality and reducing inequality.
But these reforms are not feasible without a strong political will and social commit-
ment, the very first question I started with in my address. I hope the deliberations
of this seminar will be widely disseminated to academics, policy-makers, political
leaders, civil society activists and the media and you will continue your engage-
ment in pushing for governance reforms, improvement of standards, and reduction
of inequalities in the education sector. I look forward to future opportunities for
sharing our experiences and learning from each other.

Annex

See Table 1.
Table 1 Gender-related Indicators in India and Bangladesh
India Bangladesh
Female labour force participation rate, age 15+, 2010 (%) 29 57
Female-male ratio in the population, 2011 (females per 1000 males)
All ages 940 997
Age 0–6 years 914 972a
Ratio of female to male death rates, 2009b
Age 0–1 1.01 0.89
Age 1–4 1.55 1.25
Ratio of female to male school enrolment, 2010 (%)
Primary 100c 104d
Secondary 92 113
Literacy rate, age 15–24 years, 2010 (%)
Female 74e 78
Male 88e 75
Proportion of adults (age 25+) with secondary education, 2010 (%)
Women 27 31
Men 50 39
Women’s share of seats in national Parliament, 2011 (%) 11 20
Total fertility rate, 2011 (children per woman) 2.6 2.2
a Age 0–4 years
b 2007 for Bangladesh
c 2008
d 2009
e 2006

Source Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen, An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions, London:
Penguin, 2013
Universalisation of Secondary Education: Questions … 427

References

Bhatnagar, D., Dewan, A., Torres, M. M., & Kanungo, P. (2018). Empowerment case studies:
Female secondary school assistance project, Bangladesh. Project Brief, World Bank, Wash-
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ces/14828_Bangladesh-web.pdf. July 2018.
Campaign for Popular Education (CAMPE). (2005). Education watch report 2005. The State
of Secondary Education—Quality and Equity Challenges. XXXVI–XXXVIII. Available from:
http://www.campebd.org/page/Generic/0/6/18.
Campaign for Popular Education (CAMPE). (2007). Education watch report 2007. The State of
Secondary Education—Quality and Equity Challenges. XXIX–XXX. Available from: http://
www.campebd.org/page/Generic/0/6/18.
Chowdhury, R. K. (2015). Fact sheet on status of teachers in primary and secondary schools in
Bangladesh. Dhaka: Campaign for Popular Education.
CPD. (2018). State of the Bangladesh economy in fy 2017–18 second reading. CPD’s Budget
Recommendations for FY2018–19. Available from: https://cpd.org.bd/wp-content/uploads/2017/
10/Paper-on-IRBD-CPD%E2%80%99s-Budget-Recommendations-for-FY2018-19.pdf.
Dreze, J., & Sen, A. (2013). An uncertain glory. England: Allen Lane, Penguin Group.
Tilak, J. B. G. (2001). Building human capital in East Asia: What others can learn. Working
paper. World Bank Institute, Washington D.C. Available from: http://documents1.worldba
nk.org/curated/en/412751468770664542/pdf/multi0page.pdf.
Tilak, J. B. G. (2013). Financing of secondary education in Asia-Pacific. Bangkok: UNESCO
Bangkok Asia & Pacific Regional Bureau of Education. Education Policy and Research Series:
Discussion Document No. 4. Available at: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0022/002255/225
507E.pdf.
UNESCO. (2016). Universalizing secondary education in India. International Institute for Educa-
tional Planning (IIEP) April 21, 2016. Available from: http://www.iiep.unesco.org/en/universal
izing-secondary-education-india-3531.
Author Index

B Mitra, Susmita, 245

Bandyopadhyay, Madhumita, 17 Mukherjee, Sangram, 51
Bhandari, Bornali, 323 Muzammil, Mohd., 409
Mythili, N., 151

C
Chakraborty, Achin, 101 N
Choudhury, Pradeep Kumar, 113 Nagi Reddy, V., 279
Chugh, Sunita, 17

P
D Prudhvikar Reddy, P., 279
De, Anuradha, 71

S
J Sahu, Ajaya K., 323
Jahan, Rounaq, 419 Samson, Meera, 71
Jain, Charu, 323 Sarkar, Nivedita, 263
Jha, Praveen, 367 Sastry, Amrita, 137
Sedwal, Mona, 301
Sheela Reddy, C., 205
K Sikdar, Satadru, 367
Kumar, Deepak, 221 Sree Rama Raju, D., 279

M T
Majumdar, Manabi, 51 Thakur, Narender, 395
Mitra, Arup, 355 Tilak, Jandhyala B. G., 1

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Subject Index

A Central Advisory Board of Education

Agricultural education, 19, 248, 308, 314, (CABE), 3, 18–21, 24, 45, 209–212,
315 246, 263, 279, 284, 293, 296, 304,
All India Education Survey, 25 370
Andhra Pradesh, 5, 12, 105, 115, 124, 126, Central Board of Secondary Education
264, 275, 280–282, 291–293, 296, (CBSE), 43, 63–65, 173, 181, 206,
305, 348, 372–374, 376, 378–380, 311, 313, 314, 409, 414
382 Centre-state, 390
Annual Status of Education Report (ASER),
Cess, 294, 295, 390, 391, 393
6, 41, 53, 60–62, 67, 102, 103, 106–
111, 213–215, 326, 327, 337, 341, Cess, education, 388, 389
370 Child labour, 248, 249, 259, 362
Asia & the Pacific, 358 Citizenship, 4, 138, 141, 157, 162, 324, 343,
Assets index, 131, 227, 230, 233, 238, 239, 357
240 Commercial, 7, 310
Attendance ratio/rate, 27, 39, 283, 285, 326, Commercialisation, vi
399–405
Common school system, 4, 7, 19, 42, 141,
403, 406
B Comprehensive/composite/integrated
Backward classes, 11, 39, 180, 252, 399 school, 3, 4, 7, 19, 29, 41–43, 45,
Bangladesh, 13, 419–426 47, 60, 96, 105, 106, 158, 209, 210,
Basic schooling/education, 11, 17, 245, 323 307, 308, 390
Bhadralok, 139 Compulsory education, 17, 18, 21, 47, 48,
Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa 53, 54, 108, 211, 222, 246, 324
(BRICS), 212, 387, 389 Constitution, 19, 211, 221, 236, 246, 412
Constitutional Directive, 1
Convention of the Rights of the Child, 18
C
Cost of schooling/education, 77, 89, 264
Capability approach, 395
Career options, 7, 314 Cultural diversity, 8
Caste, 10, 12, 18, 19, 34, 39, 41, 52, 53, 55, Culture of learning, 10, 138, 145, 148, 187
69, 76, 125, 127, 128, 130, 131, 139, Curriculum, 7, 10, 18–20, 40, 42–45, 47, 51,
140, 145, 170, 180, 224–228, 231, 52, 58, 62, 90, 92, 117, 138, 141, 146,
233, 234, 236, 239, 247, 252, 254, 156, 160, 207, 210, 212, 216, 248,
257–259, 264, 267–269, 272, 275, 302, 308, 311, 313–317, 320, 422,
293, 295, 326, 359, 397–402 423
© Council for Social Development 2020 431
J. B. G Tilak (ed.), Universal Secondary Education in India,
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432 Subject Index

D Efficiency, 39, 41, 47, 102, 103, 154, 165,

Decolonization, 140 188, 216, 280, 356–358, 362, 395,
Delhi, 22, 25, 26, 116, 172, 208, 305, 326, 421, 422
335, 348, 359, 361, 380, 382, 396, Elementary education, 1–5, 8, 21, 22, 26, 29,
409, 414, 420 35, 46, 47, 51, 55, 59, 71, 101, 102,
Demand, 3, 9, 11, 18, 21–23, 29, 35, 39, 108, 109, 111, 141, 205, 206, 211,
41–43, 46, 47, 53, 58, 65, 67, 89, 91, 214, 221, 222, 236, 237, 245, 246,
92, 96, 103, 109, 111, 114–116, 118, 258, 263–265, 357, 367, 371, 372,
122–124, 126, 127, 142, 144, 206, 390, 393, 395, 396, 399, 401, 402,
207, 210, 213, 216, 221, 223, 247, 406
248, 258, 263, 302–304, 307, 309, Employability, 5, 12, 42, 207, 302, 303, 310,
311–315, 317, 320, 321, 324, 326, 315, 321, 327, 340, 355, 356, 361
356, 357, 362, 379, 392, 411, 419, Employment, 2, 4, 17, 93, 116, 139, 222,
425 225, 268, 301, 302, 308, 309, 321,
Democracy, 113, 141, 172, 179, 420 324, 325, 355, 356, 358, 359, 399
Demographic dividend, 217, 301 Enrolment rate/ratio, 4, 5, 10, 11, 18, 33,
Demographic pressure, 3 54, 71, 101, 129, 173, 181, 208, 209,
Digital skills, 337–339 213–215, 222, 224, 264, 268, 275,
District Information System for Educa- 283–285, 291, 292, 325, 410, 422,
tion (DISE), 29, 33, 60, 102, 424
104–106, 108, 327, 370. See also Entrepreneurship, 313, 321, 362
Unified District Information System Equal opportunities, 20, 41, 141, 421
for Education (U-DISE) Equity, 6, 8, 11, 20, 21, 34, 39, 40, 43, 59,
District Primary Education Project (DPEP), 102, 105, 111, 124, 210, 213, 215–
1, 5, 21 217, 280, 283, 357, 370, 386, 392,
Diversity, 43, 44, 67, 141, 151, 152, 170, 393, 395, 402, 406, 424
189, 210, 270, 340, 343, 423 Evaluation, 43, 45, 47, 51, 141, 156, 157,
Double shift, 85 160, 212, 216, 313, 317, 414
Drop-out, 11, 20, 37–39, 42, 47, 52, 69, 74, Examinations, 10, 19, 37, 38, 52, 60–66, 72,
77, 86, 91, 92, 213, 214, 221–223, 75, 76, 85–87, 89, 90, 92, 96, 124,
248, 250, 251, 255, 259, 264, 265, 141, 147–149, 173, 181, 225, 308,
269, 276, 283, 287–289, 294–296, 313, 314, 409, 412, 414
324, 325, 337, 402, 403, 409 Exclusion, 12, 69, 88, 96, 143, 210, 252, 399,
423
Expenditure quintiles, 328, 330
Externality(ies), 110, 113, 248, 324, 360,
E 396
East Asia, 172, 245, 420, 421
Economic class, 5, 41, 58, 67, 256, 396,
403–406 F
Economic status, 11, 55, 58, 115, 118, 122, Family background, 10, 223
128, 212, 222, 225, 229, 234, 236, Federal system, 370
264, 272, 273, 275, 403 Financial, 4, 7, 9, 17, 41, 43, 46, 53, 66, 67,
Educationally backward blocks, 317 76, 93, 102, 107, 109, 111, 157, 206,
Educationally backward districts, 206 207, 209, 212, 224, 237, 248, 249,
Education attainment, 328 264, 276, 304, 310, 311, 313, 314,
Education cess, 390, 391 316, 321, 341, 356, 370, 371, 387,
Education commission, 19, 23, 24, 42, 210. 389, 392, 410–413, 422
See also Kothari Commission Five Year Plan (FYP), 3, 18, 24, 40, 111, 153,
Education market, 2, 6, 10–12, 18, 47, 53, 302, 308–313, 316, 371
66, 110, 114, 115, 117, 127, 128, 143, Formal education, 20, 137, 213–215, 252,
216, 245, 255, 258, 314, 339, 357, 267, 268, 270, 271, 273, 274, 303,
359–362, 395, 396, 407, 411, 423 311, 328, 412
Subject Index 433

Formal learning, 137, 138, 213–215, 225, Household surveys, 88, 124, 225, 325
357 Human capital, 113, 124, 212, 224, 247, 249,
Formal schools, 86 280, 403, 420, 421
Foundational skills, 12, 339–341 Human development, 2, 12, 113, 116, 180,
Free and compulsory education, 18, 21, 47, 223, 225, 245, 323
48, 53, 54, 108, 211, 222, 246, 324 Hunter Commission, 301

G I
Gender, 3, 10–12, 17–19, 21, 23, 32–34, 41, Illiterate, 2, 125, 131, 205, 227, 229, 230,
53, 55, 57, 73, 91, 101, 114–116, 118, 238–240, 250, 252, 258, 267, 268,
124, 125, 127–129, 131, 209, 210, 270, 274, 275, 358
212, 213, 215, 216, 225–229, 238, Income distribution, 2, 113, 245, 362
247, 248, 252, 256, 264, 267, 270, Income mobility, 41, 359, 361, 362
272–275, 280, 282, 283, 285, 289, India Human Development Survey (IHDS),
293, 324–327, 334, 343, 385, 399, 115–117, 121–123, 128–130, 223,
401, 402, 405, 406, 419, 424 225–228
Gender disparity, 123, 215, 282, 285 Inequalities, 5, 7, 12, 55, 60, 61, 63, 69, 113,
Gender inequalities, 123, 124, 237 123, 141, 223, 225, 236, 280, 326,
General education, 12, 311, 315, 361, 381, 328, 336, 396, 399, 402, 407, 426
383, 397–399 Information and Communications Tech-
Gini coefficient, 326 nology (ICT), 90, 168, 206, 207, 337,
Globalisation, 17, 143, 357 341, 355, 362, 379
Goods and Service Tax (GST), 13 Information technology, 17, 315
Government-aided schools, 9, 117, 276, 375. Infrastructure, 3, 4, 6–9, 11, 24, 26, 35, 36,
See also aided schools, and private 42, 43, 58, 79–81, 85, 97, 103–106,
aided schools 111, 214, 249–252, 254, 265, 303,
Government schools, 7, 26, 29–31, 33, 34, 336, 355–357, 362, 370, 371, 393,
40, 43, 66, 76, 81, 94, 106–109, 115, 422
117, 126, 142, 144, 173, 181, 216, Investment, 7, 9, 17, 18, 20, 46, 94, 113, 115,
222, 225, 227, 228, 231, 234–237, 124, 206, 212, 217, 222, 236, 247,
259, 333, 373, 375, 383–386, 392, 249, 310, 339, 356, 358, 362, 371,
410, 411, 414, 422 387, 421
Gross enrolment ratio, 4, 5, 11, 18, 54, 71,
173, 181, 208, 209, 325, 410, 422
J
Job market, 6, 47, 114, 302, 339, 359–361
H
Hartog committee, 303 K
Health outcomes, 358 Kasturirangan committee, 4
Higher education, 1–6, 12, 18, 20, 31, 42, Kendriya Vidyalaya(s), 13, 205, 206, 375,
45, 110, 114, 126, 128, 143, 205–207, 377, 393
216, 237, 245–247, 263, 279, 307, Korea, 17, 103, 111, 302, 357
308, 311–313, 315, 320, 321, 323, Kothari Commission. See Education
324, 339, 340, 358, 372, 381, 390, Commission, 6
397, 402, 403
Household costs, 11, 77, 87, 89, 90, 222, 228,
248, 264, 268, 273, 275 L
Household expenditure, 57, 68, 124, 239, Laboratories, 4, 9, 24, 40, 44, 46, 60, 80, 81,
270, 290 313, 423
Household income, 249, 252, 254, 267, 268, Labour market, 2, 6, 10–12, 18, 115, 128,
272, 273 216, 245, 255, 258, 357, 359, 361,
Household investment, 116, 122, 123 362
Household size, 269, 272 Latin America, 246, 264
434 Subject Index

Learning outcomes, 6, 12, 26, 37, 39, 61, 63, Navodaya Vidyalaya(s), 20, 205, 206, 370,
65, 97, 107, 152, 212, 213, 280, 293, 377
294, 314, 334, 337, 412, 413, 421 Neighbourhood, 7, 116, 360, 406
Liberalisation, 143, 310, 311, 321, 356 Neo-liberal, 143, 389, 396, 397, 406
Life expectancy, 113, 358 Net enrolment ratio, 5, 54, 101, 283, 325
Literacy, 2, 17, 61, 71, 86, 87, 105, 106, 114,
171, 179, 207, 280–283, 296, 336,
337, 341, 370, 379, 424, 426 O
Lorenz curve, 326, 332 Odisha, 10, 12, 53, 108, 137, 142, 306, 307,
334, 349, 373, 374, 376, 378–380,
382
M Operation blackboard, 141
Macaulay, 139, 301 Opportunity cost, 10, 90, 222, 248, 249, 251,
Madrassa, 117, 246, 419 254, 255, 259, 268
‘Option effect’, 163
Maharashtra, 9, 12, 33, 71–73, 76–78, 83,
Out of pocket expenditure, 383
97, 224, 305, 307, 316–319, 349,
Out of school children, 7
372–374, 376, 378–380, 382
Management, 9, 11, 28, 30, 31, 45, 46, 76,
78, 83, 95, 109, 117, 152, 153, 157,
P
209, 216, 309, 343, 375, 409, 410,
Parental education, 10, 223, 225, 227, 229,
412–414, 425
230, 232, 233, 236, 247, 268, 296
Market efficiency, 395
Pass percentage, 75–77, 86, 166, 171, 181
Market failures, 110, 396, 407
Pedagogy, 51, 61, 141, 165, 212, 251
Medium of instruction, 19, 45, 58, 114, 142, Per student expenditure, 12, 43, 375, 376,
145, 146, 228 378, 381, 383, 387, 397, 398
Mid-day meal, 2, 5, 251, 391, 392 Political will, 7, 13, 420, 426
Migrants, 359, 360 Post colonialism, 140
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), 1, Post-elementary, 2, 51, 52, 55, 56, 59, 370
221, 245, 280, 367, 422 Poverty, 2, 12, 17, 27, 44, 53, 67, 109,
Mobilisation of resources, 13, 389, 390 110, 113, 114, 116, 234, 245, 248,
Mudaliar (Commission), 35 249, 251, 254, 258, 259, 264, 324,
Multipurpose schools, 19, 81, 308, 309 356–359, 362, 403
Muslim, 26, 38, 39, 55, 56, 72, 74, 92, 96, Poverty line, 2, 42, 216, 245
97, 120, 123, 128, 130–132, 172, 223, Poverty trap, 2
224, 228, 230, 231, 233, 234, 236, Pratham, 53, 102
238–240, 252, 254, 256, 258, 259 Primary education, 1, 2, 19, 21, 66, 114,
141, 173, 213, 221, 245, 280, 399,
404–406, 412
N Private aided schools, 76, 94, 95. See also
National Achievement Survey, 153, 173, government-aided schools
187, 214, 326, 337 Private coaching, 66, 68, 224, 333, 334, 369,
National Council of Education Research and 386
Training (NCERT), 25, 34, 41, 43, Private education, 47, 110, 114, 127
107, 153, 174, 206, 210, 313, 377 Private expenditure, 12, 67, 68, 265, 381,
National Policy on Education, 19, 20, 312, 396, 397. See also private spending
313, 370 Private schools, 5, 7, 9, 10, 31, 53, 76, 93–95,
National Qualifications Framework, 313 107–111, 114, 115, 117, 118, 122–
National Sample Survey, 22, 224, 247, 255, 129, 142, 144, 145, 149, 213, 216,
265, 283, 367, 369, 399 224, 225, 227, 230, 231, 234–237,
National Skills Development Corporation 239, 240, 255, 259, 294, 333, 375,
(NSDC), 315–317, 320 386, 395, 396, 406, 407, 410, 411,
National Vocational Qualifications Frame- 413, 419, 424
work, 42, 307, 311, 315 Private spending, 66
Subject Index 435

Private tuition, 9, 47, 77, 78, 89, 90, 225, 228, Retention, 3, 20, 22, 141, 210–212, 222, 248,
232, 235, 238, 239, 248, 385 251, 255, 263, 279, 293, 296, 402,
Privatisation, 5, 143, 386, 398 410
Productivity, 355–359 Returns to education, 247, 339, 357
Professional education, 399 Right to Education, 2–5, 18, 19, 21, 28, 39,
Promotion rate, 37, 38, 75, 85 42, 43, 46–48, 54, 213, 222, 246, 320,
Public funding, 12, 395, 396, 406, 407, 411, 390
412 Right to Education Act, 7, 8, 18, 21, 26, 43,
Public-private mix, 9, 107, 108 213, 246, 324, 399, 406, 413, 420,
Public-private partnership, 5, 45, 46, 320, 424
406 Rural, 8–11, 20–25, 27, 29–31, 34, 40, 55,
Public schools, 108, 114, 419. See also 57, 60, 69, 78–82, 87–90, 93, 97, 102,
government schools 103, 108–110, 114–116, 118, 122,
Pull factors, 264 124–129, 131, 141, 226, 227, 229,
Pupil-teacher ratio, 4, 40, 60, 101, 103, 251 238–240, 250, 252, 258, 264, 265,
Push factors, 251, 264 267, 269–274, 282–291, 293, 294,
Push-out, 9, 52, 53, 58, 61, 62, 64, 66, 250, 301, 308–311, 317, 320, 321, 326,
251 327, 335–337, 350, 356, 359, 381,
385, 386, 397–406, 423

Q S
Quality, 2–12, 17, 20, 21, 23, 26, 27, 34– Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan, 3, 4, 246, 317
36, 41, 43–45, 52, 53, 62, 63, 65, Sargeant Report, 303
66, 71, 85–87, 94–96, 101–103, 105– Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), 2–5, 21, 22,
109, 111, 114, 115, 123–125, 127– 77, 101, 102, 106, 107, 153, 188, 206,
129, 138, 139, 141, 142, 144, 151– 222, 246, 320, 390–392, 395, 396,
153, 155, 156, 161, 164, 165, 168, 402, 420
186–189, 205–207, 209, 210, 212, Scheduled castes, 39, 46, 72, 74, 76, 124,
214, 216, 217, 224, 225, 227, 248, 128, 231, 250, 252, 254, 264, 318,
250–252, 263, 264, 280, 296, 309– 359, 399, 423
311, 314–317, 320, 323–327, 333, Scheduled tribes, 39, 46, 72, 74, 76, 124, 128,
334, 336, 337, 339, 340, 356, 357, 231, 252, 254, 264, 319, 399, 423
361, 362, 367, 370, 377, 381, 386, Scholarship(s), 42, 95, 141, 228, 235, 237,
392, 393, 395, 399, 402, 406, 407, 241, 368, 377, 391, 412, 423
410–412, 414, 419, 420, 422–426 School choice, 114–118, 124–129, 131, 132
Quasi-government, 117 School education, 3, 4, 7, 11, 12, 17–20,
22, 38, 42, 52, 54, 55, 59, 94, 101,
103, 108, 110, 111, 114–116, 124,
161, 171–173, 180, 210, 213, 223–
R 225, 228, 236, 247, 255, 280, 302,
Radhakrishnan Commission, 140 303, 320, 370, 379, 381, 390, 393,
Raja Rammohan Roy, 139 396, 399–402, 404, 405, 413, 420,
Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan 421
(RMSA), 3, 12, 21, 22, 24, 29, 40, School fees, 10, 222, 224, 228, 239, 249, 413
43, 47, 71, 73, 82, 94, 95, 128, 153, School leadership, 3, 11, 151–165, 167,
187, 188, 212, 213, 215, 222, 246, 169–171, 174–179, 181–186, 188
263, 275, 279, 296, 304, 313, 317, School life expectancy, 52, 58
320, 325, 327, 368, 377, 379–382, School mapping, 20, 41, 45, 216
390–392, 395, 396, 410–412, 420 School principal, 151, 157, 414
Religion, 10, 19, 27, 41, 127, 128, 130, School size, 264
224–228, 231, 233, 252, 254, 256, Self employment, 2, 11
425 Self-financing schools, 5, 9
Resource allocation, 102, 105, 396 Sen, A.K., 103, 111, 248, 395, 422, 424
436 Subject Index

Services, 13, 17, 41, 62, 89, 92, 103, 107, Technical education, 4, 11, 237, 301, 303,
110–112, 139, 144, 310, 314, 315, 304, 308, 314, 372, 391
320, 355, 356, 361, 363, 368, 389, Telangana, 5, 12, 33, 280–283, 291–297,
390, 396, 407, 412 306, 307, 373, 374, 376, 378–382,
Shala Siddi, 3 392
Shiksha Kosh, 391 Telecommunications, 17
Singapore, 103, 111, 302 Telugu speaking states, 280, 291, 296
Skill development, 6, 7, 11, 279, 302, 313– Textbooks, 61, 62, 77, 90, 117, 141, 207, 210,
315, 317, 320, 321, 358 313
Small schools, 34, 40, 41, 47 Training, 2–4, 6, 7, 11, 12, 37, 42–44, 53, 54,
Social commitment, 7, 13, 420, 426 58, 61, 65, 67, 84, 95, 137, 141, 153,
Social groups, 5, 20, 27, 35, 38, 69, 74, 76, 165, 188, 206, 207, 215, 255, 258,
88, 119, 124, 125, 127, 128, 130, 131, 301–304, 307–317, 320, 321, 323,
207, 215, 216, 226–228, 230, 231, 339, 357, 361, 377, 403, 412, 420,
233–235, 238, 239, 247, 250, 252, 422–424
254, 268, 270, 280, 283, 285, 289, Training, general, 12, 339, 340
294, 295, 381, 397, 398, 400, 401 Training, specific, 12
Social inclusion, 263 Transition, 13, 21, 22, 37–39, 41, 47, 51–55,
Social justice, 8, 41, 114, 209, 210, 217, 357, 58, 59, 86, 179, 211, 212, 214, 231,
370, 395 237, 265, 275, 279, 311, 324, 325,
Social mobility, 113 327, 334, 402, 424
Social sector, 386, 387, 393
State Council of Education Research and
Training (SCERT), 95, 311, 313 U
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 2, Unaided schools, 26, 30, 42, 76, 78, 87, 94,
245, 280, 302, 321, 337, 367, 392, 117, 384, 385
395, 422 Unemployment, 311
Unified District Information System for
Education (U-DISE), 25, 26, 28, 30–
39, 102, 114, 327, 375, 376
T Urban, 8, 10, 11, 22, 23, 25, 29–31, 40, 55,
Tax, 117, 387–390 57, 60, 69, 78, 79, 81, 82, 87, 88, 90,
Tax-GDP ratio, 389 91, 93, 97, 114, 116, 119–122, 124–
Tax, property, 389 129, 131, 152, 225, 227, 229, 238,
Tax, wealth, 387 250, 252, 254, 256, 258, 265, 269,
Teacher education, 4, 45, 396 270, 272–275, 284–291, 293, 294,
Teachers, 4–7, 9–11, 18, 19, 24, 26, 29, 35– 301, 326, 335, 336, 350, 359, 381,
37, 40–46, 53, 60–62, 67, 72, 79, 82– 385, 386, 397–399, 401–406, 410,
84, 86, 90, 96, 97, 105, 108, 117, 423
138, 139, 141, 147–149, 151–153, Utilisation of resources, 413, 422
155, 160–170, 173–179, 183, 185– Uttar Pradesh, 12, 13, 53, 124, 264, 306, 307,
189, 207, 209, 210, 217, 246, 248, 318, 334, 350, 372–376, 378, 381,
249, 251, 280, 302, 306, 307, 309, 382, 409
315, 318, 321, 324, 334, 335, 360,
368, 369, 389, 407, 408, 410–412,
417, 420–423 V
Teachers deployment, 11 Vocational education, 4, 11, 12, 40, 42,
Teaching learning process, 36, 53, 62, 152, 47, 90, 210, 301–303, 305, 307–315,
157–159, 162–165, 168–170, 175, 317, 320, 321, 326, 327, 370, 379
177, 178, 184, 188 Vocationalisation, 42, 207, 304, 309, 310,
Technical and vocational education, 301, 313, 315
308, 327 Vocational schools, 307, 313, 317
Technical and Vocational Education and Vocational skills, 42, 309, 315, 326, 339,
Training (TVET), 301, 302, 315 340, 343
Subject Index 437

W World Bank, 17, 47, 124, 153, 264, 301, 302,

Wages, 2, 6, 221, 249, 355, 357, 358, 360 324, 339
Wardha Scheme, 303
West Bengal, 58, 60, 306, 307, 334, 350,
372–374, 376, 378, 379, 381, 382, Y
392 Years of schooling, 2, 17–19, 38, 205, 226,
Woods Dispatch, 301 227