Cover Story

Union Budget 2006-07: Lip service to education

With the dust raised by the hosannas to Union finance minister P. Chidambaram’s second budget for the upa government having settled, indications are that the professedly handsome budget provision for education doesn’t match the rhetoric. Dilip Thakore reports

By all media accounts, justice was done to Indian education in the Union budget of 2006-07 presented to Parliament by finance minister P. Chidambaram on February 28. Now almost a month later with the hosannas (the Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensex has scaled an unprecedented peak of 10,800 from a budget eve high of 9958) to Chidambaram’s second budget for the Congress-led UPA government having abated, it’s a moot time to assess whether the professedly handsome budget provision for education matches the rhetoric. More to the point, is the provision at all commensurate with the needs of India’s 415 million children below 18 years of age?

Clearly by his own estimation, Chidambaram believes he has done the best he could for the trendy new causes of public education and health — two sides of the same coin as consistently maintained in this publication — of which the self-centred Indian establishment has belatedly become conscious. "Education and health will continue to enjoy primacy. For 2006-07 the allocation for education has been enhanced by 31.5 percent to Rs.24,115 crore and for health and family welfare by 22 percent to Rs.12,546 crore," said Chidambaram in his 150 minute budget presentation speech to Parliament.

Setting aside the issue of public need and provision made therefor for the moment, it would be churlish to deny that within the framework of the political compulsions of the Union budget which has to provide for several sacrosanct holy cow sectors of the Indian economy — defence, ‘non-merit’ subsidies (higher education, electricity, cooking gas, fertilizer, diesel, kerosene, food etc) — unprecedented provision for social sector spending has been made in Budget 2006-07. While presenting last year’s budget Chidambaram had listed the UPA government’s "eight flagship programmes" viz, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (Education for All); the mid-day meal scheme for primary school-going children; the Rajiv Gandhi Drinking Water Mission; the Total Sanitation Campaign; National Rural Health Mission; Integrated Child Development Services programme; the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission. "On the eight flagship programmes, the total allocation in 2005-06 was Rs.34,927 crore. In the ensuing fiscal year the total allocation will be Rs.50,015 crore, representing an additional Rs.15,088 crore or 43.2 percent," said the finance minister in his address to Parliament which has received widespread public acclaim.

There are other commitments to upgrading and facilitating access to education in Chidambaram’s budget proposals which offer hope of growing awareness within government and the myopic establishment that public education or mass human resource development — rather than education of the middle class — is the prerequisite of sustainable economic development. The Centre’s allocation for the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan programme has been raised from Rs.7,156 crore last year to Rs.10,041 crore in fiscal 2006-07, from which amount "500,000 additional classrooms will be constructed and 150,000 more teachers will be appointed".

Moreover the Central government’s allocation for the mid-day meal scheme — "the largest (free) school lunch programme in the world" — will be 60 percent higher at Rs.4,813 crore this fiscal and an additional 140,000 schools will be covered under the supply of the drinking water and sanitation programme. Other provisions for education include a 45 percent higher allocation for ICDS (Integrated Child Development Services) of Rs.4,087 crore; doubling the corpus of the Maulana Azad Educational Foundation to Rs.200 crore; a contribution of Rs.16.47 crore to "strengthen the equity base of the National Minorities Development and Finance Corporation", and the promotion of 1,000 new residential schools for girls from SC, ST, OBC and minority communities for which a provision of Rs.300 crore has been made. Moreover the universities of Calcutta, Mumbai and Madras which celebrate their 150th anniversaries this year, as also Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana ("in acknowledge-ment of its pioneering contribution to the green revolution") have been granted Rs.100 crore each for research activity (see box).

Although prima facie the higher outlays for education and child healthcare under various heads seem impressive and have won popular acclaim, it is pertinent to bear in mind that they have to be spread over the world’s largest child population and that in terms of per capita allocation, they are likely to prove modest. Therefore the fact that there is not a word about the needs of the education sector, or of the percentage of GDP (Centre plus states) proposed to be spent this fiscal, are significant omissions in the finance minister’s Budget 2006-07 speech.

Moreover some provisions for education are pure window dressing. Under the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya Scheme, Chidambaram has promised to provide Rs.300 crore to build 1,000 residential schools for SC, ST, OBC girl students. In effect this translates into a provision of Rs.30 lakh to construct each fully residential school. The pitiful inadequacy of this provision is highlighted by the reality that the new five-star international residential schools which are transfor-ming post-liberalisation India into a global hub of high quality secondary education (see EW special report February, 2006) are constructed at costs varying between Rs.20-100 crore each.

Moreover despite the promise of an outcomes budget (copies of last year’s outcomes budget are impossible to obtain), while credit is taken for higher primary school enrollment, there’s no mention in the budget papers of the number of additional schools built in the year past. For an assessment of the Central government’s true valuation of the importance of education, one needs to search for disparate clues in the finance minister’s Budget 2006-07 speech. One such clue: against the Centre’s total budgeted expenditure of Rs.563,991 crore this fiscal, the total allocation for education is Rs. 24,115 crore (4.27 percent). On the other hand the salary, travel, perquisites and pensions expenditure of its 4 million employees in 2006-07 is budgeted at Rs. 62,746 crore (according to the painstaking research of Prof. M.R. Narayana of ISEC, Bangalore) and defence at Rs.89,000 crore.

"By previous standards, the increase in the allocations for education in the budget are commendable and are appropriately focused on elementary education for which there has been a 36.4 percent increase in outlay to Rs.17,132 crore. However the Centre’s higher outlay has to be matched by the state governments who will not only have to increase their budgetary outlays but also create efficiencies within the system to productively absorb and spend the larger allocations," says Dr. D.K. Srivastava an alumnus of the Allahabad and St. Andrews (UK) universities and currently director of the Madras School of Economics.

Nevertheless Srivastava admits that the annual estimated expenditure of Rs.112,000 crore (Centre plus states) on education is nowhere nearly enough. "Clearly this sum is inadequate if we aim to transform 21st century India into a knowledge-based economy. The fast growth of the Indian economy, especially in the service sector requires a huge number of employable graduates. Therefore public expenditure on each segment of the education pyramid going all the way to higher education and higher end research has to increase substantially. The aim should be to increase the annual national education outlay to 6 percent of GDP — from the current 4 percent — by 2008-09," adds Srivastava.

But this is easier said than done, given the widespread belief that mass education is not a precondition of economic development. Within Indian society there is considerable — even if covert — resistance to the proposition that the great mass of the poor at the bottom of the social pyramid if educated, can make substantial contributions to wealth creation and factor productivity. Even within the inner councils of the representative organisations of big business such as CII, FICCI and Assocham, there is minimal awareness of the linkage between better learning outcomes in government schools and higher shopfloor productivity in industry. Hence apart from ritual incantations to the cause of education, industry organisations — in effect little more than lobbies pressing for tax concessions — have conspicuously failed to emerge as pressure groups for high priority for public education.

Similarly captains and managers of Indian industry are nowhere nearly as generous as their American counterparts in the matter of promoting institutions of learning and/ or contributing to their alma maters. Only recently, with the economy recording 7-8 percent year-on-year growth and a grave shortage of skilled personnel impacting itself on industry, have business leaders begun to become aware of the linkage between mass education and industrial growth, productivity and competitiveness.

Consequently with captains of Indian industry unwilling to speak up for greater resource allocation for mass education and the poor and illiterate putting their children to work as soon as possible, post-independence India is a distant laggard in the international race towards full adult literacy and universalisation of primary education. According to the Union government’s own admission only 65 percent of the country’s adult population is literate (cf. 85 percent in China and 98 percent in South Korea) — a statistic which translates into almost 300 million illiterate citizens. Further, it’s common knowledge that in India tests for measuring literacy are very perfunctory. Therefore it’s quite probable that the number of functional illiterates nationwide could exceed half the national population — proof of massive neglect in developing human capital.

Unfortunately, this globally unprecedented, indefensible wastage of human resources continues to this day. For instance, of the 200 million children countrywide who enroll in primary school annually, 53 percent drop out of the nation’s inhospitable institutions of elementary education before they reach class VIII. And of the estimated 31 million who enter secondary school, a mere 9.8 million are admitted into the country’s 15,800 colleges and 380 universities. Moreover as testified by the Annual Status of Education Report, 2005 (ASER 2005), researched and published by the highly respected Mumbai-based NGO (non-government organisation) Pratham, learning outcomes in the nation’s primary schools — especially government primaries — are poor with 39 percent of class VI-VII students unable to cope with class II texts or maths problems (see EW cover story March 2006).

Widespread publicity of the shocking conclusions of ASER 2005 has prompted a shift in focus from investment in augmenting education infrastructure to improving learning outcomes in the nation’s classrooms. In his Budget 2006-07 address to Parliament, Chidambaram signaled the government’s preference for this soft option. "Government has shifted the emphasis from the sheer ‘quantity’ to the ‘quality’ of the outcome of the various social sector programmes," he said.

Yet from the viewpoint of national interest it is important that this "shift of emphasis" doesn’t become an excuse for freezing capital outlays in the education sector. This is quite possible because a growing number of influential socio-economic pundits (including Swaminathan Aiyar, editor of the Economic Times) have begun to advance the argument that as a percentage of GDP (gross domestic product), national (Centre plus states) education spending in India (4 percent) is higher than in China (2.8 percent) and and Japan (3.6 percent). Ergo, the focus now should be on improving learning outcomes in existing schools and institutions rather than additional capital spending.

Although superficially attractive, this argument is flawed. For a start the (per capita) GDP of China and Japan is much larger than of India. Secondly with 415 million children below the age of 18, India has a substantially greater number of child citizens to educate. Moreover with the independent ASER 2005 having confirmed that the number of children out of school nationwide has fallen dramatically to a ‘mere’ 11 million, a substantially larger number of secondary schools and colleges need to be built quickly to absorb the rising inflow from primary schools.

"It is well recognised that India’s education system is severely starved of funds which are required by all sectors — primary, secondary and tertiary — for maintenance of existing institutions and further expansion. Current spending on education at 4 percent of GDP is well below the target of 6 percent set long ago. Indeed current estimates indicate that the target itself needs to be raised to 8-10 percent of GDP. A committee of the Union HRD ministry of which I was the member secretary recently estimated that to realise the 6 percent of GDP target by 2009-10, national spending on education should have exceeded Rs.119,000 crore in 2005-06 and should increase to Rs.142,000 crore in fiscal 2006-07. This has not happened," says Dr. Jandhyala B.G. Tilak, alumnus of Delhi University and visiting faculty at Virginia and Hiroshima universities. Currently Tilak is head of the educational finance unit of the National Institute of Education Planning and Administration (NIEPA), Delhi.

That a massive, determined resource mobilisation effort would be needed to universalise foundational elementary education was indicated almost ten years ago by the Saikia Committee (1997) comprising education ministers of state governments which recommended an additional outlay of Rs.40,000 crore during the Ninth Plan period (1997-2002). But even this modest proposal was ignored. Subsequently the specially appointed Tapas Majumdar Committee (1998) recommended additional spending of Rs.14,000 crore per year for the decade ending 2010 to attain the goal of universa-lising primary education. Significantly, while according "primacy" to education and health in Budget 2006-07, Chidambaram neglected to inform Parliament or the public whether these recommendations have been incorporated into his budget proposals. Nor despite his promise of outcomes and performance budgets, did he mention the number of additional schools/ classrooms constructed in fiscal 2005-06.

Education provision: How India compares

One manifestation of the wastage of resources inherent in the school — especially government school — system is high teacher absenteeism which is a prime cause of poor learning outcomes in the nation’s classrooms. ASER 2005 confirms the dismal assessment of PROBE (Public Report on Basic Education) 1998, that on any given day 25 percent of the country’s government school teachers — a statistic which translates into over 1 million teachers — are absent from duty, although for some mysterious reason it (ASER 2005) seems unperturbed with this finding. Reduction of mass teacher absenteeism should be the first priority of the Central and state governments if wastage within the education system is to be mitigated as suggested by Goyal. Perhaps the Right to Education Bill, 2005 which provides for local School Develop-ment Management Committees dominated by parents monitoring teacher attendance and perfor-mance, will prove the panacea to the problem of chronic teacher absenteeism.

Nevertheless the wastage inherent in the school education system will persist unless normative standards are set for schools and schooling, says Dr. A.S. Seetharamu, professor of education at the Institute of Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Bangalore. "It’s very important for the finance minister and the public to understand the distinction between schools and schooling. A school is defined by its physical — land, building, equipment — and human resources, i.e teachers and staff. Schooling on the other hand is defined by learning outcomes. Unfortunately normative definitions of schools and schooling have never been attempted by the Central or state governments. The consequence is there’s very little quality consciousness in education, government schools in particular. Way back in 1993 the Dave Committee had recommended the setting of minimum standards of schools and schooling by an independent organisation such as Britain’s OFSTED (Office of Standards in Education), but to no effect. Therefore the dismal learning outcomes in India’s primary schools confirmed by ASER 2005. When children in class VI-VII can’t cope with class II texts and maths, it reflects a massive wastage of 200-400 school days," he explains.

Be that as it may, the numerous references to education and provisions made to upgrade and expand the nation’s institutions of learning at primary, secondary and tertiary levels in Budget 2006-07 indicates there’s growing awareness within government and the establishment of the importance of public education for national development. Although Chidambaram’s latest budget maintains a discreet silence on the needs of Indian educa-tion to upgrade it to at least shouting distance of first world standards, there’s no doubt that public education is progressively looming larger on the national development agenda.

Yet with sustained higher attendance in the country’s primary schools thanks to initiatives such as SSA and the mid-day meal scheme, the bulge in primary education is all set to spill over into institutions of secondary and tertiary learning. Therefore the need for persistent academic and public pressure for substantially larger needs-related allocations for education — by way of recasting expenditure priorities — in the UPA government’s next and succeeding budgets.

If 21st century India is to seize the advantage of its fortuitous demo-graphic dividend, the era of leisurely incremental budgeting is over.

With Autar Nehru (Delhi); Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai) & Gaver Chatterjee (Mumbai)