Normand labrie presentation2

Education in 2010 India
Facts and Challenges
Normand Labrie
Associate Dean, Research and Graduate Studies
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
University of Toronto
nlabrie@oise.utoronto.ca
CIDE, October 14, 2010

Overview
• 1. Introduction
– 1.1 Demographic and economic trends
– 1.2 Political landscape
– 1.3 Overview of the education system
• 2. Elementary Education
• 3. Secondary Education
• 4. Technical and Vocational Education
• 5. Tertiary Education
• 6. Research and Innovation
• 7. Conclusion
• 8. References

1. Introduction
• ‘’…the current economic momentum is not going to be sustained without
the development of a much larger well educated and trained workforce ’’
(Short, 2008a, 2.13).
• “…the education sector in India today needs the kind of focused and
urgent policy attention that trade and industry did in the late eighties,
which led to their reforms in 1991” (Kumar, 2009).
• “Education reforms and progress are the most important and critical
policy issue in the country today. Otherwise, we may soon discover that
our much-touted demographic dividend has remained an illusion and
instead morphed into a disaster as large groups of unemployable youth,
unable to join the workforce, end up swelling the ranks of extremists and
insurgents. India will have to earn its demographic dividend and time is
actually running out because the window is a relatively short one”
(Kumar, 2009).

1.1 Demographic and Economic
Trends

Trends
– Education:
– School life expectancy from primary to tertiary level: 10 years (CIA vs. Canada: 17 years)
– Literacy rate 15-years and over: 61% (2001 Census vs. Canada: 99%)
• Economy:
– Labour force: 523.5 million (2008 est.)
– Unemployment Rate: 9.1% (est. 2008 vs. 7.2% in 2007)
– GDP per capita: US$2,900 (CIA 2008 est. vs. Canada: $39,200)
– GDP growth: 6.1% in 2009 (CIA est. vs. 9% in 2007)
– National and Regional Budget by Sector (Education): 3.2% of GDP (CIA est. for 2005)
• Languages:
– Hindi 41%, Bengali 8.1%, Telugu 7.2%, Marathi 7%, Tamil 5.9%, Urdu 5%, Gujarati 4.5%, Kannada
3.7%, Malayalam 3.2%, Oriya 3.2%, Punjabi 2.8%, Assamese 1.3%, Maithili 1.2%, other 5.9%
• English:
– Less than 5 per cent of the Indian population speaks English (Graddol, 2009)
– Internet Users: 81 million (2008)

Trends
GDP by sector
(est. 2008)
Labour force
(est. 2008)
Agriculture 17.6% (Canada: 2%) 60% (Canada: 2%)
Industry 29% (Canada:
28.4%)
12% (Canada: 19%+)
Services 53.4% (Canada:
69.6%)
28% (Canada: 76%)

Trends
http://www.worldbank.org.in/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/SOUTHASIAEXT/INDIAEXTN/0,,contentMDK:22339000~pagePK:141137~piPK:141127~theSi
tePK:295584,00.html

1.2 Political Landscape
• Under the Constitution, responsibility for education is shared between
central and state governments (28 States and 7 Union Territories). The
central government sets policy, stimulates innovation and plan
frameworks. The state governments are responsible for running the
education system on the ground (Lall, 2005).
• The central government drafts five-year plans that include education
policy and some funding for education. State-level ministries of education
coordinate education programs at the local levels (Cheney et al., 2005, p.
12).
• The Department of Education (Ministry of Human Resource Development)
« coordinates planning with the States, provides funding for experimental
programs, and acts through the University Grants Commission (…) and the
National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) to develop
standards, instructional materials, and design textbooks. The NCERT’s
textbooks serve as models since States are not legally obligated to follow
the national syllabus » (Cheney, et. Al. 2005, p. 12).

1.2 Political Landscape
• Congress-led United Progressive Alliance won 15th Lok Sabha elections (May
2009)
• 100 day plan (Minister Sibal, June 26, 2009)
– Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act (August 2009)
• children between the age of 6 years to 16 year olds
– Enhancement of standards (major changes in examination system)
• Replacing the current assessment procedure of giving marks with grades thus reducing stress (to make
the 10th standard board examinations optional for students who wish to continue in the same school;
to form one national school board and conduction of a uniform examination for class 12)
– Vocational Training for an Emerging Economy
– Targets for postsecondary education
– Restructuration of postsecondary governance
• For an autonomous overarching authority for higher education and research based on the Yashpal
Committee and the National Knowledge Commission to be established
– International competition
– Equity (backward classes)
• Amendment to National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions Act (to reduce the number
of reserved seats)
– Research and Innovation

1.3 Overview of the Education System
• The educational structure in India is generally referred to as the Ten + Two + Three
(10+2+3) pattern. The first ten years provide undifferentiated general education
for all students. The +2 stage, also known as the higher secondary or senior
secondary, provides for differentiation into academic and vocational streams and
marks the end of school education. In +3 stage, which involves college education,
the student goes for higher studies in his chosen field of subject.
(http://www.highereducationinindia.com/).
• The World Bank estimates that 27 percent of all Indian children enrolled in schools
are being privately educated. (http://www.globalenvision.org/library/8/767).
• Drop-out Rate (2003/2004) (Dongaonkar, s.d., p. 7):
– Primary (I-V): 31.47%
– Middle (I-VIII): 52.32%
– Secondary (I-X): 62.69%

2.1 Elementary Education
• Today India has more than six hundred thousand primary schools serving 115
million students (the average teacher to student ratio is 1:43) and more than two
million upper primary schools serving 45 million students (the average teacher to
student ratio is 1:38) (Cheney, 2005, p. 3).
• 80% of all recognized schools at the Elementary Stage are government run or
supported (Wikipedia).
• Total Teachers: 4.17 million (including 379,385 para-teachers) (Dongaonkar, p. 12).
• …it is estimated that at least 35 million, and possibly as many as 60 million,
children aged 6-14 are not in school (Lall, 2005).
• Emphasis on reform has been compulsory school attendance, rather than on any
measure of expected learning (Chenez, 2005, p. 4).
• The issue today is not lack of demand, but rather quality of supply. Students often
drop out because their public school experiences are often so poor that they learn
very little even after being enrolled for 4 to 5 years (Cheney et al., 2005, p. 6).

• Ninety percent of the estimated 112 million children who enroll in primary school
annually have no choice but to attend ill-maintained government schools… the
fast-increasing middle class prefers to send its children to the government-aided,
privately run schools (Cheney et al., 2005, p. 9).
– For most students in India, the learning environment is pretty abysmal. School consists of a
one-room schoolhouse, one teacher covering multiple grades, and 40 students per teacher. It
should be noted that many rural public schools barely have the most basic of facilities (a
closed-in building, drinking water, toilets, a blackboard) (Cheney et al., 2005, p. 10).
– A study of 188 government-run primary schools found that 59% of the schools had no
drinking water and 89% had no toilets (Wikipedia).
• A government-sponsored study (the PROBE Report published in 1999) in four
Indian states found that in half of the government schools no apparent teaching
activity was taking place and in a third that the headteacher was not present when
visited. Kremer et al. (2004) made 3 unannounced visits to 3700 government-run
primary schools leading to 34,525 direct observations. They conclude that:
– With one in four government primary school teachers absent on a given day, and only one in
two actually teaching, India is wasting a considerable share of its education budget, and
missing an opportunity to educate its children (p. 14).

• Pedagogical regime: from rote learning and memorization, to-the-
point answers, rules and guidelines towards creative, interactive,
hands-on experiments, intellectual curiosity.
• Teaching is a well-paid profession in India and teachers are typically
apppointed based on political affiliations, not on content or
pedagogical knowledge. There is no system in place to motivate
teachers to improve academic achievement, and very little training
available to strenghten teaching practices (Cheney et al., 2005, p.
10).
• 6th Central Pay Commission (2008):
– Primary School Teacher: Rs. 6500/month ($150)
– Principal: Rs. 16500/month ($400)

3.1 Secondary Education
• The Secondary Stage consists of grades 9-12 (ages 14-17) (Cheney et al., 2005, p.
6).
• India has more that one hundred thousand secondary and senior secondary
schools serving 30 million students (the average teacher to student ratio is 1:34)
(Cheney et al., 2005, p. 6).
• India needs to equip the 12 million young people who join its labor force every
year with higher levels of education and skills to be able to access better-paying
jobs, and to benefit from the demographic dividend… (www.worldbank.org.in).
• Projections suggest an increase in absolute demand for secondary education
between 2007-08 and 2017-18 of around 17 million students, with a total
enrollment growing from 40 to 57 million students. However, an increasing share
of these students will come from rural and lower income quintile groups, who will
be less able to afford private unaided secondary education
(www.worldbank.org.in).

• Public exams at the end of grades 10 and 12 drive instruction at the
school level (Chenez, 2005, p. 6).
• The majority of students exit school after grade 10 (approximately age
15). For those who stay, schooling becomes differentiated. Based on
performance on the 10th grade subject exams, student enter an upper-
secondary stream for their last two years of schooling before university
(grades 11-12)…
• Secondary schools are affiliated with Central or State boards which
administer examinations at the end of grade 10 resulting in the award of
the Secondary School Certificate (SSC), the All-India Secondary School
Certificate or the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education…
• There are three national examination boards: the Central Board of
Secondary Education (CBSE), the Council for the Indian School Certificate
Examinations (CISCE) and the National Open School (NOS) for distance
education (Cheney et al., 2005, p. 7)

• The most prestigious stream (which has also the highest cut-off in terms of marks
required in the grade 10 exams) is the science stream, the second is commerce,
and the third is humanities (arts)… Upper secondary education is conducted in
schools, or two-year junior colleges (some of which are also affiliated with degree
offering colleges)… The curricula for upper secondary institutions are determined
by State or Central Boards of Secondary Education and students sit for exams at
the conclusion of grade 12 (Cheney, 2005, p. 8).
• The rich and famous are typically enrolled in five-star English-medium schools
affiliated with the upscale CBSE (all India), CISCE (pan India), and IB examination
boards which offer globally accepted syllabuses and curriculums.
• Next in the pecking order are English medium government aided schools affiliated
to State-level examination boards to which children of the middle grade are sent.
The 28 State boards offer inferior infrastructure, sub-standard education and less
rigorous syllabuses and examination assessments.
• And at the base of the education pyramid are shabby, poorly managed
government municipal schools which shove dubious quality language education
down the children of the poor majority (Yasmeen, in Cheney et al. 2005, p. 10)

4.1 Technical and Vocational
Education
• Vocational and technical education is also an option in higher secondary
schools. The aim of vocational education is to gain a broad knowledge
about occupations, not training in specialized subjects… Only 10 percent
of students are opting for the vocational stream, against a year 2000
target of 25%. This is attributed to the lack of industry-school linkages
and the system hasn’t convinced students that this stream can prepare
them for real jobs and careers (Cheney et al., p. 9).
• Training is provided in 32 Engineering and 22 non-engineering trades
approved by the National Council for Training in Vocational Trades to
people aged 15 to 25 years. 7,500 Industrial Training Institutes with an
overall capacity of 750,000 places have been established around the
country. Periods of training vary from 1 to 2 years. The Industrial Training
Institutes are also used as Basic Training Centres for Apprenticeship
Training Programmes… There are 1,400 polytechnics in India (Short,
2008c, p. 8)

Education
• Facilities to impart skill development programmes for
about 3 million persons per annum exist in the country
whereas the total labour force is about 400 million. Every
year 7 to 8 million labour force enters the market. Majority
of it has not undergone skill development programmes
(Working Group).
• Today, less than 3% of rural youth and 6% of urban youth
go through any kind of TVET programmes. 6 Roughly 92%
of India’s TVET workforce is employed in the informal or
unorganised sector having dropped out of school on
average at the end of Year 8 meaning it is difficult for the
TVET system to capture young people and educate them
(Short, 2008c p. 9).

Education
• India has one of the world’s most youthful population (53% of
people are aged below 25 years according to the 2006 Census) and
there are 310 million people aged 15 – 25 years but only 5% of
them have any TVET qualifications… Over ninety percent of India’s
trades workforce is employed in the non-formal sector picking up
skills and knowledge in the work place (Short, 2008c, p. 4).
• Over 200 million students enroll for schools in Class I each year, but
only 20 million of these are able to finish Class XII i.e. 90 % of the
school students drop out at different stages. Only 2.5 to 3 million
vocational education and training places are available in the
country. Out of these, very few places are for early school
dropouts. This signifies that a large number of school drop- out do
not have the necessary education and skills to be productively
employed in the industry (idem).

Education
• Private sector delivery of TVET has increased markedly in recent
years, responding to both student demand and industry needs.
Large companies like Tata, Reliance Industries and many of the IT
firms like Infosys and Wipro have developed inhouse training
programmes. As well, a network of community outreach
programmes have been established to offer slum and rural
communities training opportunities (Short, 2008c, p. 6).
• Teachers in general are poorly paid in India with salaries ranging
from NZD100 monthly in the private sector to NZD300 monthly in
the good senior secondary public schools. TVET teachers salaries
have been at the lower end of the public scale, and in many cases in
rural polytechnics or technical institutes, the teachers have had
only basic education themselves. Efforts are underway presently to
improve the quality of teacher training for all education sectors,
including for TVET teachers (Short, 2008c, p. 9).

5.1 Tertiary Education
• Higher education is provided by:
– Universities
– Deemed to be universities
– Institution of National Importance
– Open University
– Industrial training institutes and polytechnics
• India has about 350 universities… (National Knowledge Commission, 2006, p. 3)
• There are a total of about 17,700 undergraduate colleges (idem, p. 6)
• As of 2009, India has 20 central universities, 215 state universities, 100 deemed
universities, 5 institutions established and functioning under the State Act, and 13
institutes which are of national importance. Other institutions include 16000
colleges… functioning under these universities and institutions (Wikipedia).
• Instruction for almost 80 percent of students in undergraduate programs is
delivered by colleges which are affiliated with universities… Universities prescribe
the courses and set the standards for the colleges, conducting the examinations
and awarding the degrees (Cheney et al., 2005, p. 21).

• The University Grants Commission (UGC)… is responsible for the
development of higher education, allocating and distributing grants from
the Central Government to all eligible central, State and deemed
universities based on an assessment of their needs (Cheney et al. 2005, p.
18).
• The UGC established an autonomous body, the National Accreditation and
Assessment Council (NAAC), for carrying out periodic assessment and
accreditation of volunteering universities and colleges. NAAC’s process of
assessment and accreditation involves the preparation of a self-study
report by the institution, validation of the report by peers, and final
decision by the Council (Cheney et al., 2005, p. 18).
• All universities are member of the Association of Indian Universities (AIU).
The AIU has no executive powers but plays an important role as an agence
of dissemination of information and as an advisor to the government,
UGC and the universities themselves (Cheney et al., 2005, p. 19).

• At the pinnacle of the nation’s higher education establishment stand the seven
Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), which have won fame around the world for
their prowess in engineering, along with five institutes of management, the All
India Institute of Medical Sciences, and a handful of schools such as the Tata
Institute of Fundamental Research, focused on the physical sciences, and the Tata
Institute of Social Sciences. But all of these institutes are fairly specialized, lacking
a university’s full panoply of research and teaching programs. And they are small.
The seven IITs have a total of 30,000 students, about as many as a single state
university campus in the United States…
• Apart from the specialized institutes, there are some outstanding master’s- and
doctoral-level academic departments in India’s universities, and a few schools
have fairly high standards—such as the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi,
one of the few institutions sponsored directly by the central government…
• The swollen middle tier of Indian higher education is full of universities and
colleges that provide a mediocre education at best (Altbach, 2006, p. 50).

• While the students who graduate from secondary school number
some 10 million annually, there are only places for 20% of them at
the tertiary level, and only a few percent of these are admitted to
the elite institutions (Short, 2008a, 2.10).
• (O)nly ten percent of the age cohort is actually enrolled in higher
education… ten percent enrollment amounts to 9 million students,
resulting in 2.5 million new college graduates a year (Cheney et al.,
2005: p. 1).
• Almost nine in ten students pursue bachelor’s degrees, one in ten
pursue post-graduate degrees (Cheney et al., 2005, p. 17).
• Estimates suggest that there are about 160,000 students from India
studying abroad. If their average expenditure on fees and
maintenance is US$ 25,000 per student per year, Indian students
overseas are spending US$ 4 billion (National Knowledge
Commission, 2006, p. 13).

• Student enrollment has grown about five-percent annually
over the past two decades (Cheney et al., 2005, p. 16).
• The current Five-Year Plan has 5 educational objectives
with one focusing on tertiary education: “increase the
percentage of each cohort going to higher education from
the present 10% to 15% by the end of the plan.” (Short,
2008a, 2.8)
• The challenges that confront higher education in India are
clear. It needs a massive expansion of opportunities for
higher education, to 1500 universities nationwide, that
would enable India to attain a gross enrolment ratio of at
least 15 per cent by 2015 (Cheney et al., 2005, p. 16).

• The nature of annual examinations at universities in India
often stifles the teaching-learning process because they
reward selective and uncritical learning. There is an acute
need to reform this examination system so that it tests
understanding rather than memory. Analytical abilities and
creative thinking should be at a premium. Learning by rote
should be at a discount. Such reform would become more
feasible with decentralized examination and smaller
universities. But assessment cannot and should not be
based on examinations alone (National Knowledge
Commission, 2006, p. 3).
• It is estimated that about 63% of all tertiary education
(including TVET) in India is now provided in the private
sector (Short, 2008a, p. 12).

• … India’s higher education system, like its K-12 counterpart, is fraught with politics
and corruption and is considered to be highly inefficient in doing its job (Cheney et
al. 2005, p. 19-20).
• India’s current system of education is centralized and highly politicized, offering
relatively limited access to higher education… Over the course of the 1970s and
1980s, politicians acquired a vested interest in universities, seeing them as ways to
expand patronage. The result is that in many cases, universities are inextricably
intertwined with government officers who oversee and/or fund them. The hiring
and promotion of teachers is also politicized, providing teachers with inconditional
job security and no accountability in improving student achievement (Cheney et
al., 2005, p. 15).
• First, the appointments of Vice-Chancellors should be based on search processes
and peer judgment alone. (National Knowledge Commission, 2006, p. 5).
• Only about one-third of the nation’s 472,000 academics hold Ph.D.’s. It is taken for
granted that many professors will not show up for class; some supplement their
incomes by insisting that students take their private “coaching classes.” (Altbach,
2006, p. 50).

• Research weakness in the universities has been exacerbated by outdated
approaches to Faculty career development. Once an academic is
appointed a Professor, they can remain on tenure until age 65 with the
possibility of another 5 years without any performance assessment. While
there are many excellent Professors taking advantage of the
government’s new efforts to revitalise the universities, there are also
many more that lack the motivation to do research, publish or provide
appropriate support to graduate students to mould new researchers.
(Short, 2008b, p. 4).
• Average Monthly salary of Entry-level Faculty Positions (2005-2006)
– India: $ 1,151 / Canada: $ 5,206
• Average Monthly salary of Senior Faculty Positions (2005-2006)
– India: $2,071 / Canada: $7,992
• Ratio of Average Monthly Faculty salaries, in World Bank parity Dollars to
GDP per capita (2005-2006):
– India: 8.73 / Canada 2.24 (Altbach et al., in Jaschik, 2008)

6.1 Research and Innovation
• Over the past 40 years, India has concentrated on developing excellence
in five key research areas – space research, civil nuclear energy research,
agricultural and water research, pharmaceutical research, and bio-
technology. India has been a global leader in creating an endogenous
space industry developing satellites to provide telecommunications
throughout the country (Short, 2008b, p. 3).
• China allocated 1.34 per cent of its GDP in 2005 on R&D (which,
incidentally, is well below 3.6 per cent in South Korea) while expenditure
on R&D in India was barely 0.61 per cent in the same year (Kumar, 2009).
• China has 708 researchers per million population compared with 19 in
India (idem).
• Four percent of research expenditure is made through higher education
institutions (Agarwal, 2009).

• The majority of India’s research is government funded (73%)
providing both financial support and personnel, and takes place
presently within specialised autonomous Centres of Excellence…
These Centres, however, are not firmly connected to the
universities. One result of this is that the teaching and training of
young scientists and other researchers is not well integrated with
active research projects as these happen mainly in the Centres of
Excellence (Short, 2008b, p. 3).
• It is fair to say that no Indian university today is, as an institution,
research-intensive. (Altbach and Jayaram,2009).
• Linkages between the specialised Centres, the universities and
industry have been forged using linear rather than tripartite
partnerships inhibiting the potential for existing and future
research results leading to patents and commercialised products
(Short, 2008b, p. 4).

• Despite, being widely recognized that teaching and research are
complementary, there is growing dichotomy between them and the two
systems work in isolation in India. Merely four percent of research
expenditure is made through higher education institutions in India
compared to 17 percent in the US and Germany and 23 percent in the UK.
Even in China, more than 10 percent funds on research are spent through
the universities… (Agarwal, 2009).
• Interestingly the IITs themselves have not historically been strong centres
for research, focussing instead on teaching to produce world class
technical graduates. With the IITs now recognising the important role they
must play in training more technical graduates up to doctoral level, they
are beginning to build bigger research programmes in engineering and
other technical disciplines. Newer research disciplines such as micro-
engineering and bio-medical sciences are being developed with support
from central government funding (Short, 2008b, p. 11).

• The recommendation to change this situation, put forward both by
the NKC and the Prime Minister’s Science Advisory Council is the
creation of a new super public body, the National Science
Foundation. NKC takes this one step further and suggests a body
which would also include the social sciences to build much stronger
inter-disciplinary linkages. Thus the agency would be known as the
National Science and Social Science Foundation (Short, 2008b, p.
13).
• With a national illiteracy rate of 35% and a third of the just over 1
billion population living below the international poverty line of 1 US
dollar a day, India needs its research community to be contributing
solutions to these problems as well as engaging in world leading
innovation in science and technology (Short, 2008b, p. 4).

7. Conclusions
• Challenges
– Growth of both population and participation
– Drop-out rates
– Confidence crisis in public institutions
– Private Sector, NGO’s Initiatives, Internationalization
– Economic Growth, Urbanization & Social Mobility
– Linguistic Diversity & English
– Curriculum and Pedagogy
– Governance and Accountability
– Educating Educators and Administrators
– Balancing quality and excellence with social justice

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