Pay commissions are still in the grips of that old sarkari mantra when it comes to the highest pay grades and have, therefore, as our columnist argues, not been able to really address compensation levels for seniormost officers. But this commission has been commendably bold in hiking central schoolteachers? pay; this will have a domino effect on other sarkari school pay structures. Teachers? pay is crucial because there?s a huge demand for good school education and good school education, given India?s demographics, is the surest guarantee that the growth potential will be exploited over the next two decades. So, let?s take the big picture view of the commission awarding roughly a 40% hike for teachers and in senior grades, recommending almost double the existing pay. This seems great, but remember the base is low. Adjusting for purchasing power parity (PPP), schoolteachers get about five to six times less in India compared with the US. Comparisons for many other white-collar professions in the two countries, adjusted for PPP, do not yield such stark differences. So, despite academic studies that say schoolteachers? pay increased by 5% annually in real terms between mid-1970s and mid-1990s, the real point is that white-collar salaries have changed dramatically in India since mid-1990s. A BPO job is a far better prospect than being a teacher?this shouldn?t strike anyone as being an ideal state of affairs.
The dropout rate in India?s secondary schools is huge. It puts India far behind China. Clearly, teacher performance, which is influenced by pay, is a crucial factor here. But we also need to look beyond government schools. There?s little appreciation that even the poor, including the rural poor, are buyers of private education. A superbly researched 2007 paper by Geeta Gandhi Kingdon for the Global Poverty Research Group demonstrates how dramatically private schooling has grown in recent years for all social classes and how it outperforms government schools across the country. This refocuses the education debate. Shouldn?t the government consider using the education budget for giving out vouchers and asking parents to choose private schools? In this market model, teachers? pay will be market priced, and education standards will be market-evaluated.
