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Here is my takedown of Gurucharan Das’ article and why I believe increasing privatization and private schools and decreasing government spending on government schools in India will sound the death knell for quality education in India https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/men-and-ideas/one-and-a-half-cheers-national-education-policy-promises-much-but-fails-to-come-to-grips-with-indias-education-crisis/
He makes a list of 8 ‘facts’of why pvt schools should be encouraged and many of them are not facts and the ones that are facts actually make a stronger case for why private schools need to go and why strengthening government schools is our only hope for quality education for all
I will start with Fact 8 which is the most common misconception about private schools – the fact that private schools have better learning outcomes at a lower cost. Both of these claims are bullshit and have been rubbished again and again by tons of research
The cost of sending a child to private school at the primary level is 38 times higher than sending the child to a government school. Apart from school fees, families also have to spend on books, uniform, transportation,computer labs etc in a private school https://www.asianstudies.su.se/polopoly_fs/1.172427.1395846631!/menu/standard/file/ERT%20India%20Vol.1.pdf#page=205
All of these are free in a government school where kids get free books, uniform, meals and are entitled to free and compulsory education under the RTE, which puts the onus on the government to ensure enrolment, attendance, and completion of education for all children in India.
The other argument for private schools is the fact that the quality of teaching and learning in private schools is better. Which is another myth. Unless it is a very high-end private school charging shit tons of money, the average private school is no better than a govt school
Many studies have shown that the learning outcomes in private schools are only marginally better than the ones in government schools and even that advantage goes away when you correct for the backgrounds of the children in pvt and govt schools
Additionally, private schools keep their costs low by reducing the amount they pay their teachers as salaries. Private schools hire local young women who are not qualified to teach, and use their unskilled status to pay them below the minimum wage - https://www.jstor.org/stable/41720245?seq=1
Not only does this raise serious questions about the quality of teaching that ensues, it also highlights the potential exploitation of these women as cheap labour in these schools
The private school I taught in, in Mumbai, the teachers used to get paid Rs 700 – Rs 1100 a month! In Mumbai! Which is such a ridiculously low amount that it wont even cover groceries for a family of 4 for a month!
The biggest argument that people who are pro private school make is that private school enables choice and it allows people to choose which school they can send their children and gives them options other than sending them to a government school
the notion of having ‘choice’ in selecting a school however is mostly enabled by social status which means the poorest/most vulnerable children who are in dire need of quality education are not the ones attending private schools
In fact if you look at statistics, even if you look at the low fee or budget private schools which charge 500-1000 rupees per month as fees, 87% of the students who attend these schools belong to upper caste Hindu families - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0738059311000046?casa_token=aGy5EgYgov0AAAAA:8rq3RKJDH1VKsrozHpqnu3h9pCAiYVI2hlZYKpEB_4gumhBeWn0zkUqhbnk5wXHfovn_76GL5e0
Alternatively, if you look at government schools the proportion of SC/STs/Muslims in government schools is 85% and the lower castes and Muslims make up a large majority of students in government schools
As private schools (low fee and high fee) increase in number, the ones that are the WORST hit are the poorest and the vulnerable because they can neither access private schools because of the fees nor can they access government schools because of deteriorating quality
Private providers cannot be providers of the last resort to the poor and will not be able to provide education to those who fall outside the top two quartiles of household income and this can ONLY be done by the government
Like the World Bank (ironically, since it is a puppet of neoliberals and corporates) observes has achieved significant improvement in primary education without government involvement and state schools have to be strengthened to ensure quality education for all
Also the biggest reason private schools exist is for profit. Which is the biggest problem I have with private schools. As privatization increases education ceases to be a public good and becomes a commodity which can be sold in the market for a price
Low-fee private schools (LFPS) especially are family run businesses which (for the lack of a better word) loot the poor and make them pay ridiculous amounts as fees for extremely poor infrastructure and teaching quality
In fact, the trend of small and big businesses and corporates entering the market and setting up schools was to make money off “the bottom billions”. There is no greater good, no notion of wanting to provide quality education, just a drive to make money. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781119082316.ch1
Neoliberalism and privatization put limits on democratic governance and while allowing individuals the freedom to choose, it does not allow them the option of choosing to construct a strong collective institution for public good, like a government school
The only reason private schools exist is to make money especially off the poor people by promising them English speaking skills, computer labs and a better curriculum, none of which the children and parents eventually get
The private school that I taught in, in Mumbai did not even have a school building! We taught in chawls in a Mumbai slum where 7-10 chawls were allotted to different classrooms! The major attracting factor was the fact that it was English medium
Like one of the studies points out, private schools offer ‘educational opportunity’ and not quality education - meaning that they are responsible only for providing education but not for ensuring that kids become educated and prepared for life in society - https://www.jstor.org/stable/25663709?seq=1
Even the studies that find private schools better than government schools on a ‘range’ of indicators, use indicators such as desks available, pupil-teacher ratio, presence of blackboards, teacher absenteeism as indicators of quality!
None of these are indicative of quality and teaching and adaptability of the curriculum, pedagogy and assessment to the changing needs of the children.
The state of most private schools in India is abysmal. Cramped classrooms, no proper toilets, no resources, poor teaching, no playground and very poor infrastructure
Gurucharan Das also VERY randomly quotes Amartya Sen and says that Sen said that government schools will soon be history. Ironically Sen is the BIGGEST proponent of strengthening government schools and making education the responsibility of the state
If only Das had made an effort to read Sen before quoting him he would know that Sen considers Kerala as the model for universal education and healthcare, has faith in democracy and believes that the state and not market should ensure quality education! - https://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-amartya-sen/
Globally, state run schools have suffered because of privatisation, leading to diminishing public control and finance of education, vouchers, charters, public-private partnerships, and increasing reliance on businesses and corporates for funding education
As a result, government schools comprise dilapidated facilities, poorly trained teachers, and poor access to learning materials, leaving parents to look for alternative options, which is where LFPS prey on the insecurities of parents
Das also complains about how 1 out of 4 teachers is absent in government schools and even if present they aren’t teaching despite getting paid a good salary. Thus private schools are the way to go is Das’ fairly inane logic
Increasing the funding for state schools and increasing the focus on strengthening teaching and learning in government schools will help reduce the onslaught of private schools and ensure that quality education is provided to every single child irrespective of background
Education should follow the 4A framework. It should be accessible, available, acceptable and adaptable. Which means everyone should be able to access it without discrimination, good quality schools should be made available to everyone
Education should be acceptable quality and education should adapt itself to the changing needs of the child. On all these four counts private schools fail. They aren’t available to everyone especially the poorest of the poor
They aren’t accessible to all. Private schools frequently turn away disabled kids, kids with learning difficulties etc and many many private schools are highly discriminatory in nature – discriminating either on the basis of gender, caste, class or religion
The quality of education is not acceptable since the learning outcomes and the quality of teachers in most private schools is low. And finally they don't adapt to the needs of children and are still focused on test taking and test performances as measures of student success
The for-profit motives of LFPS mean that they prioritise low operating costs, and this combined with the lack of government oversight across much of the sector means that they fail the requirements of quality and trained teachers as laid down by the RTE
India is 74th in PISA, teachers are failing the teacher eligibility test, students across the board (in private and govt schools) are unable to read and write BUT increasing privatization will only make all of this worse.
There are three categories of privatization that are spoken about: delegation, divestment, and displacement. Delegation where the govt continues to remain actively responsible for a function but delegates the production activity to the private sector.
https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/4617108/sem200601_md02_in.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DPrivatization_and_public_private_partner.pdf&Expires=1596539993&Signature=GVlO8ICcBPDJTGQRYO97nqWu5MDWBd8oDFsR7mVCvaqibRsFOFCTEBLoEvncT26Byje9gIIGUFPb5eCwoahvZr82UYZAKrv1hXaHikF4BHS0r~M6Y3z1zt7SIsT~cLsqgaCMMpn-Te0pn~L8Z9HQHKQsCojrHPmj6AeNGnB2ZQ-kjqQj3lniHj2YFmHI7MER55R06~sBx1qIGU5CXlCvGezJWYEneZvQWsTXyTzhcX2M5lNl0i8oRqASP49JXgPrUuSUsbWrExtxoJ6RY5fe5xWTXZ~5Tw0UX3chDxx~L07-SBGUrrEJjAsagtuWc5mJVCNP-X2FeGSLs8yPU1laFQ__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA
https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/4617108/sem200601_md02_in.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DPrivatization_and_public_private_partner.pdf&Expires=1596539993&Signature=GVlO8ICcBPDJTGQRYO97nqWu5MDWBd8oDFsR7mVCvaqibRsFOFCTEBLoEvncT26Byje9gIIGUFPb5eCwoahvZr82UYZAKrv1hXaHikF4BHS0r~M6Y3z1zt7SIsT~cLsqgaCMMpn-Te0pn~L8Z9HQHKQsCojrHPmj6AeNGnB2ZQ-kjqQj3lniHj2YFmHI7MER55R06~sBx1qIGU5CXlCvGezJWYEneZvQWsTXyTzhcX2M5lNl0i8oRqASP49JXgPrUuSUsbWrExtxoJ6RY5fe5xWTXZ~5Tw0UX3chDxx~L07-SBGUrrEJjAsagtuWc5mJVCNP-X2FeGSLs8yPU1laFQ__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA
Sort of like delegating the mid-day meals to an external organisation. Divestment involves the government letting go off its responsibility by transferring it to a private agency. The government enterprise is sold or given away. Sort of like PPPs
And finally, displacement which does not require an active measure on the government’s part, but involves instead “a more passive or indirect process that leads to government being displaced gradually by the private sector, as markets develop to satisfy people’s needs
Increasingly in India with respect to aspects that come under public good like healthcare, education, clean air, drinking water etc, aggressive displacement has been carried out leading to complete deregulation of the sector.
While it may not be possible to have no private oversight over quality education for all, the government should consider delegation as a means of privatization instead of complete displacement and handing over the reins of quality education to private players
The government should have strong regulations in place before allowing private schools to flourish and should spend a large part of the budget in strengthening state schools and strengthening teacher quality in government schools
When Gurucharan Das talks about the top 10 economies of the world choosing privatisation, he doesn’t tell you what the data really tells us. In most of the developed countries in the world private schooling is still something that the elites can access
A large majority of the students in these countries go to state schools but in India the number of children going to private school stands at around 55% and is increasing every year.
Now if we further add COVID-19 to the mix, unless the government schools are strengthened and children are provided free and quality education, more and more children are going to drop out of schools. Already disabled kids are dropping out in large numbers https://www.hindustantimes.com/education/43-lakh-disabled-students-across-states-may-drop-out-unable-to-cope-with-online-education/story-ZAg4a1nyWDluuq4BfV2V0K.html
Unless we drastically increase the quality of government schools, slowly wean ourselves away from private schools and and reduce dependency on corporates and private players to provide education, education for all will be distant dream
