America's most valuable resource
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| Dilip Thakore |
It is a pleasure and privilege for me to be here to address this distinguished audience of 54 elected governors. The United States of America — no matter what governments and pundits around the world say — is the most admired nation worldwide. Certainly in India. The latest Pew Global Attitudes Project (June 2005), a worldwide survey of popular attitudes towards the US, indicates that 71 percent of India’s population entertains a positive attitude of America — the highest positive rating of the US worldwide. Your institutions of governance — Congress, independent judiciary and media, as also America’s marvelously high-productivity industry, are an inspiration and benchmark for national governments. Particularly to lovers of freedom and individuals committed to the rule of law such as myself.
The governance of your great nation which guarantees all citizens the fundamental rights of equality, liberty, fraternity and uniquely, the right of every individual to the pursuit of happiness, would not have been possible without a great education system. Though you are too close to it to admire it, America’s egalitarian and generously-funded public school system and great universities which are citadels of learning and powerhouses of cutting-edge research, are inspirational wonders of the contemporary world.
Moreover it is truly educative and indicative of your great nation’s commitment to continuous learning and improvement that apex-level constitutional functionaries such as Governor Warner and members of the National Governors Association are concerned about slipping standards in your widely admired school system. Coming from a nation in which primary and secondary education is a low priority item on the national development agenda, it’s a difficult task for me to highlight the positive features of India’s education system.
Nevertheless it is true to say that there are some features of India’s school system which augur well for the future and are worthy of study, if not emulation. But before I highlight the positive attributes of contemporary India’s school system, I need to acquaint you with its salient features.
Currently there are 900,000 primary schools and 133,000 secondaries in India. Of these 90 percent are promoted and managed by Central, state and local governments. Of these except for perhaps 5,000-10,000 Central government promoted schools (including those of the armed forces, railways and public sector corporates) across the country where teaching-learning standards are on a par with those of the best private schools, regrettably the great majority are in a sorry condition and deliver education which is completely out of sync with the requirements of the 21st century. Therefore the great majority within India’s fast-expanding middle class prefer — indeed make great financial sacrifices — to enroll their children in the country’s private (including church and missionary) schools whose number is estimated at 75,000. It is these private sector schools which have some characteristics from which America’s school system can derive some useful lessons.
Of the country’s one million plus primary and secondary schools the overwhelming majority are affiliated with examination boards of the 31 state governments and follow their prescribed syllabuses. On the other hand, India’s best 8,000 private schools are affiliated with the pan-India Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) and the Central Board of Secondary Examinations (CBSE) — both Delhi-based. These examination boards which conduct nationwide school-leaving (grade X and XII) examinations demand world standard infrastructure for the delivery of holistic education to the estimated 8 million students enrolled in them. The other ‘B class’ private schools tend to be affiliated with state examination boards.
The distinguishing characteristic of all CISCE (the successor board of the UK-based Cambridge International Examinations) and most CBSE schools is that English is the medium of instruction. Likewise the medium of instruction in the great majority of other private schools — including Christian missionary and church schools — is predominantly English.
Therefore a sound knowledge of the English language — or rather ‘Inglish’ — is a distinguishing characteristic of private school education in India. Familiarity with English facilitates easy access to the world’s best humanities and science textbooks which has enabled a small percentage — which given India’s huge population base translates into a large number — of engineers, doctors, lawyers and businessmen to emerge from within the education system. Hence Mr. Bill Gates’ statement before this very forum to the effect that India produces "almost a million more graduates than the United States".
A second vital characteristic of the private school system in India is that unlike the US where early streaming is permitted, the study of science and maths is compulsory for all students until grade X. This is a positive feature of the Indian education system. It compels all students to study science and maths for ten years. This accounts for the relatively large numbers of engineers India produces.
A third feature of the private school system is that hardly any students drop out before completion of grade XII and most go onto college. On the other hand a massive 53 percent of children enrolled in government primary schools fail to enter secondary education. This in my opinion amounts to the greatest loss of human resources in the contemporary world. Therefore the prime objective of EducationWorld is to migrate the best practices of private sector schools in India into government or public schools to stem this huge wastage of human resources.
A relatively new development within private education is the emergence of a rash of new five-star international schools. These are internationally benchmarked residential-cum-day schools which offer state-of-the-art infrastructure and the syllabuses of international examination boards such as the International Baccalaureate Organisation, Cambridge International Examinations as also of the Middle States Association of Schools and Colleges, USA. Since teacher and staff salaries in India tend to be a fraction of those abroad, the new English medium international schools offer world-class private education at affordable prices ($2,000-8,000 per year) and are attracting students from around the world.
India’s rapidly expanding private school system — the public has lost faith in government schools — has some lessons to offer America’s school system, viz, the importance of compulsory science and maths education for all upto grade IX/X. Moreover India’s successful private school system highlights the virtues of autonomy from the dead hand of government. Unfortunately this is not true of higher collegiate education which is rigidly and strictly controlled by the Central and state governments.
As a consequence there are very few institutions of higher learning which offer internationally benchmarked education. Notable among them are the Central government-owned seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and six Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) which have miraculously retained their academic autonomy. Consequently the competition to enter the best 100 of India’s 315 universities and 15,600 colleges (which offer higher education at highly subsidised prices) is intense. And since only 7 percent of India’s college age group (18-24) can be accommodated into tertiary education, India is the world’s largest market for foreign education providers.
In the academic year 2003-2004, 79,000 students from India enrolled in US colleges and universities — the largest foreign contingent of students in the US for the third year in a row. Given that American collegiate education is thous-and-fold more expensive than in India, this huge annual exodus of students to the US proves there is great respect in India for America’s excellent institutions of higher education. And if you could learn a few lessons from India’s school system, we could learn many lessons from American academia about establishing, maintaining and managing excellent institutions of higher education. EducationWorld if not the government of India and the states of the Indian Union, is whole-heartedly in favour of partnerships and greater interaction between America’s great universities and Indian academia. Indeed we believe that intensive cooperation in this field is the moral obligation of the world’s two most populous democracies.
This brings me to the central purpose of my visit here which prompted me to traverse two continents and several oceans to make a 15 minute address to this august assembly. It is impact upon you that the National Governors Association which is commendably engaged in the vitally important task of reforming and upgrading high school education in the United States, needs to take this initiative beyond US boundaries.
The dawn of the new millennium has signalled a new age in human history. Following the second Iraq war — the right war perhaps for the wrong reason — the United States is now officially committed to the war on terrorism and spread of real democracy around the world. This coincides with a global youth movement to make poverty history.
Against this backdrop my submission to you is that the best methodology for attaining all these goals — eliminating terrorism, spreading democracy and making poverty history — is massive investment in education worldwide. Especially in the developing nations and Africa in particular. This is the task in which EducationWorld is engaged.
But five years on we have experienced limited success. In sharp contrast to the situation in the US where American industry and powerful establishment organisations such as the National Governors Association are actively involved with America’s schools and universities, governments — even industry — in the developing nations of the third world have limited awareness of the vital linkage between investment in high quality education and rising organisational and shop floor productivity. This myopic mindset needs to be changed.
Given the emergence of the new flat world of the 21st century made possible by the wonder inventions of American industry and science — so cogently described by Tom Friedman in his new book — there is growing awareness globally that education is the best antidote to poverty. There is an emerging global consensus that education as enunciated in the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goal of primary Education For All by 2015 is the vital prerequisite of making poverty history.
Ladies and gentlemen, as a practitioner of development journalism, I am fully persuaded and convinced that quality Education for All on a global scale is the prerequisite of a just, peaceful and stable world order. Last week at Gleneagles, $50 billion were committed by the G-8 countries for debt relief, food aid and infrastructure development in Africa. These are necessary but insufficient conditions to make poverty history.
For the sustainable growth and development of poor countries in Africa and around the world, a massive investment in education needs to be made. Because in the final analysis the best aid is that which helps people help themselves. Thus high quality education as practiced in America and Europe is the best insurance for the world’s 3 billion poor people to become self-supporting dignified citizens of a new just global order. Education is the magic elixir, the silver chalice, to build a just new world.
Therefore I hope that you will use your considerable influence in the highest councils of government to ensure that the United States will share and export its greatest resource — its tried and tested education system and processes — to the short-changed people of the developing nations of the third world. This is the only sure-fire antidote to spreading terrorism, dictatorial misrule and obstinate global poverty. Quality Education for All is the magic formula for a just, peaceful and democratic new world order.
(Excerpted from plenary session address to the National Governors Association in Des Moines, Iowa, July 16 2005)