Education

Learning Poverty

World bank report “Ending Learning Poverty”.

• Learning Poverty defined as the percentage of 10-year-olds who cannot read and understand a simple story. World Bank estimates that 53 percent of children in low- and middle-income countries cannot read and understand a simple story by the end of primary school.  

Recommendations for Ending learning poverty

• Targeted approach: to reduce by at least half the share of 10-year old who cannot read by 2030.
• Ensuring political and technical commitment to clear goals, means, and measures for literacy is required to achieve the target.
• Assessing performance: well-defined ways to inform future instruction based on assessment results.  
• proper design, implementation, documentation, and dissemination of results.  
• Attention to ensuring that the assessment results are comparable within the country over time, allowing for consistent measurement of country progress.
• Improving teacher quality by:Making teaching an attractive profession by improving its status, compensation policies, and career progression structures.
• Ensuring teachers are well-equipped to transition and perform effectively in the classroom.
• Promoting a meritocratic selection of teachers
• Providing continuous support and motivation to allow teachers to improve
• Using technology wisely to enhance the ability of teachers to reach every student
• Role of families and communities: Renewed attention in building the demand for education, creating the right environment for learning, and supporting the right education reforms.
• Multi sectoral approach: better water and sanitation, improved health and nutrition, better social protection for disadvantaged populations, civil service reforms, and strengthened management and financing of public services.
• Access to age and skill appropriate material
• Significance of home language:children gain reading proficiency if they are taught in their home language first. 
• Redefining skill sets with the changing trends
• Reading as a gateway to explore other areas

Education as a public good 

Evolution of Education as a public good in education policies of India

• University Education Commissionin 1948, Dr. S. Radhakrishna suggested reorientation of higher education to the five basic tenets constitution -Democracy, Justice, Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, reinforced by the Secondary Education Commission in 1952 under Dr.  L.S.  Mudiliar
• Education Commission D.S. Kothari. National Policy on Education 1968 common school system of Public Education which would provide equality of access to children from all social strata and which would be adequate in quantity and quality was proposed.
• National Policy on Education-1986 modified in 1992 greater attention to the backward classes, physically challenged and minority child for their development in education.
• 42nd Amendment to the Constitution in 1976 education was moved from the State to the Concurrent List and the 86th Amendment in 2002 under which education became an enforceable right

Education as a public good 

• Public goods are defined by two characteristics:
• Non-excludability: It is not possible to exclude non-payers from consuming the good.
• Non-rivalry in consumption: Additional people consuming the good do not diminish the benefit to others.
• Education as a service: that a modern state is expected to provide to its people & every welfare democracy is obliged to give in the most accessible form.
• Education as a Human right: Article  26 Universal Declaration of Human Rights “everyone has the right to education” such that “education  shall  be  free,  at  least  in  the  elementary  and  fundamental  stages”  and  “elementary  education  shall  be  compulsory”, and that ‘education shall be directed to the full development of the  human  personality  and  to  the  strengthening  of  respect  for  human  rights  and fundamental freedoms’.
• Knowledge economy: Quality education will be a key part of the transition to the knowledge economy that is currently underway in parts of India but needs to encompass the entire country
• Equality: Competition in education or in job markets is fair only when the competitors are of equal strength which cannot be achieved by privatizing the education.
• Demographic dividend: India is one of the youngest nations Affordable and accessible education will make India realize its potential in the favourable demographic phase 
• Dignified living: Education a tool to development against deprivation and cannot be treated as a commodity, where market forces create the demand for certain types of education(Eg: Artificial Intelligence)
• Financing:  India spends only 2.7% of GDP towards education as against China and Brazil spend above 4% and 6% of GDP respectively. Even if education is made free at institutions such as IITs and IIMs, there would be an additional expense of only about 0.1% of yearly budget, but could potentially have a multiplier effect on the development of an economy which has 54% of its total population below 25 years of age.
• Enrollment ratio: gross enrollment ratio in higher education is only 26.3% in 2018-19.
• Philanthropic endowments: Even the unique Ivy League universities (a group of eight schools such as Harvard) were created because of generous philanthropic endowments which functions more like a public institution today.

Arguments against making Education as a public good:

• Financial constraints: E.g. India has a low per capita income of just over $2,000, the highest income tax rate of 42.74% and a tax-GDP ratio of just below 11%. So, providing affordable higher education becomes difficult.
• Higher education is not a pure public good. What people who call education a public good mean is that there are positive externalities i.e. not all of the benefits accrue to the students but society benefits when more people go to college. However, students enjoy a significant fraction of it. Thus, it is reasonable that students should bear a good fraction of the cost of higher education.
• Treating higher education as a public good means treating the individuals being educated as instruments of the public good rather than as ends in themselves. The more we believe the primary justification for education is the public benefits it produces, the less we allow individuals to receive the higher education they want rather than the education the government believes is good for them.
• most of the top institutes in US such as Stanford and Harvard Universities are privately owned and they provide scholarships to students.
• Making education as a public good may not always lead to quality education due to bureaucratization, limited competition, resources, limited need to attract best talents.
• Many financial institutions provide education loans to students which they can repay back when they start earning (Study now, pay later model of Australia). This way the quality will not be compromised

The educational landscape has undergone deep changes over the last decades, with the transformation of governance models, the increasing involvement of civil society organizations as well as a growing trend towards privatization and commodification of economic, environmental and intellectual areas, call for a humanistic and holistic approach to education that goes “beyond narrow utilitarianism and economism to integrate the multiple dimensions of human existence”

Global Education Coalition 

• UNESCO
• multi-sector partnership involving the United Nations agencies, international organisations, private sector, civil society representatives, philanthropic and non-government organisations etc.
• facilitate inclusive learning opportunities for children and youth during the period of educational disruption due to COVID 19 pandemic
• Help countries in mobilising resources and implementing innovative and context-appropriate solutions to provide education remotely, leveraging hi-tech, low-tech and no-tech approaches
• Seek equitable solutions and universal access
• Ensure coordinated responses and avoid overlapping efforts
• Facilitate the return of students to school when they reopen to avoid an upsurge in dropout rates  
• Adverse consequences of school closures as per UNESCO
• Interrupted learning as children and youth are deprived of opportunities for growth and development, 191 countries have closed all their schools, affecting over 1.5 billion students from pre-primary to tertiary education. (9 out of 10 students worldwide)
• Poor nutrition as many children and youth rely on free or discounted meals provided at schools for food and healthy nutrition
• Confusion and stress for teachers as they are often unsure of their obligations and how to maintain connections with students to support learning
• Parents unprepared for distance and home schooling especially those with limited education and resources
• Challenges in creating, maintaining, and improving distance learning as demand overwhelms existing portals to remote education
• Rise in dropout rates due to protracted closures and when economic shocks place pressure on children to work and generate income for financially distressed families
• Social isolation as schools are hubs of social activity and human interaction that is essential to learning and development
• Challenges in measuring and validating learning as strategies to administer examinations at a distance raise serious concerns about fairness, especially when access to learning becomes variable.

Inclusive Education and its importance

Inclusion systemic reform by changes and modifications in content, teaching methods, approaches, structures and strategies in education to overcome barriers to provide students of all ages with an equitable and participatory learning experience and environment that best corresponds to their requirements and preferences. It focuses on the full and effective participation, accessibility, attendance and achievement of all students, especially those who are excluded or at risk of being marginalized.

Benefits

• Improvement in academic achievement, social and emotional development, self-esteem and peer acceptance
• Including diverse students can prevent stigma, stereotyping, discrimination and alienation.
• potential efficiency savings from eliminating parallel structures and using resources more effectively in a single, inclusive mainstream system
• Promotes inclusive societies based on fairness, justice and equity
• provides a systematic framework for identifying and dismantling barriers for vulnerable populations.

Challenges

• National laws do not reflect commitments made under international conventions
• Lack of desire to make education more inclusive: Teachers, teaching materials and learning environments often ignore the benefits of embracing diversity
• Prevalent segregation of students: students with disabilities, laws in 25% of countries make provisions for education in separate settings, 10% for integration and 17% for inclusion, the remainder opting for combinations of segregation and mainstreaming.
• Need of targeted financing: Socio-economically disadvantaged schools and classrooms are more likely to have less qualified teacher

Impact of COVID-19

• School closures placed challenges on governments, teachers, students and parents aiming to ensure learning continuity.
• Only a minority of countries have the basic infrastructure to facilitate online approaches to teaching and learning.
• Learners with disabilities are at higher risk of exclusion in distance learning.
• many resources are not accessible for blind or deaf students
• children with mild learning difficulties, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, may struggle with independent work in front of a computer.
• About 40% of low- and lower-middle-income countries have not supported learners at risk of exclusion during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as those living in remote areas, the poor, linguistic minorities and learners with disabilities.
• Increasing social isolation has also increased the risk of marginalized students disengaging further from education and leaving school early.
• Cancellation of exams in many countries, including India, has led to the concern that scoring based on teachers’ judgments may be affected by stereotypes about particular types of students.

Recommendations

• Widen the understanding of inclusive education to include all learners, regardless of identity, background or ability
• Share expertise and resources to sustain a transition to inclusion
• Targeted financing to improve access to education for vulnerable sections
• Engage in meaningful consultation with communities and parents to overcome discriminatory beliefs about gender, disability, ethnicity, race or religion
• Ensure cooperation across government departments, sectors and tiers
• Make space for non-government actors to challenge and fill gaps
• Apply universal design where all children should learn from the same flexible, relevant and accessible curriculum, one that recognizes diversity and responds to various learners’ needs.
• Prepare, empower and motivate the education workforce to prepare all teachers to teach all students.
• Collect data on and for inclusion with attention and respect and avoid any labelling that stigmatizes.

India’s efforts towards Inclusive Education

• Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 provision of accessible transport systems and universal design in public buildings and education facilities
• Right to Education Act, 2009 requires primary schools to be located no more than 1 km from a child’s home.
• 2014 Supreme Court ruling, recognizing the status of transgender people, the University Grants Commission called on universities to include the category on all application forms
• share of teachers from scheduled castes, which constitute 16% of the country’s population, increased from 9% in 2005 to 13% in 2013
• Steps taken by states-
• Tamil Nadu state set up a State Resource Centre for Inclusive Education.
• Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra arranged transport for children and their parents, as they closed small schools.
• Bihar ensured representation of parents of learners with disabilities on school management committees.