By Tracy Cardoz
If education is the soul of a nation passed on from one generation to the next, our children are its custodians. To realise the vision of progressive reforms laid out in policy measures and unlock their full innate potential, it is vital that we ensure they receive high-quality education, since it is the foundation on which our collective future will be built.
However, the journey ahead of us to deliver world-class learning to every child across India’s grassroots is a long one:
Approximately 825 million children across the globe are not learning essential skills they need, of which 320 million students are in India. Prolonged school closures over the last 2 years have seen over 37% of children in rural areas stopped studying entirely, and 48% are not able to read more than a few words. This is notably different from urban India, where only 19% of children stopped studying, and 42% were unable to read more than a few words.
NSO 2020 further highlighted rural-urban divides, with the rural literacy rate (73.5%) lagging behind that of urban areas (87.7%). This divide is also manifested across genders, with the male literacy rate (84.7%) higher than the female literacy rate (70.3%).
The World Bank has cautioned of a global learning crisis, and studies closer to home reiterate this. While one can expect progression among students as they move up a grade, ASER 2021 instead reveals that the number of children in grade 2 still at a beginner level has doubled since 2018. Similarly, NAS 2021 shows how average student performance came down from about 54% (in 2017, when the last NAS was conducted) to 47% in the latest survey.
Given India accounts for one in every five children in the world, it is vital that we holistically reshape the education ecosystem to help every child across India realise their full human potential.
The challenges at hand
The government recognises the scale of the challenge in the offing, and has rolled out multiple policy frameworks to address this. For instance, NEP 2020 highlights the need for a dynamic, interoperable, and publicly accessible digital education infrastructure, while ECCE and Foundational Literacy and Numeracy have been prioritised by the Department of School Education & Literacy. This is complemented by an array of initiatives, such as Samagra Shiksha, SAFAL, and National Initiative for School Heads’ and Teachers’ Holistic Advancement (NISHTHA), which look to not just offer high-quality learning opportunities in traditional and digital classrooms, but also empower teachers and improve the quality of instruction in rural schools. The rollout of myriad other initiatives, such as E-Vidya, will greatly help students from rural backgrounds access a high-quality standard of education.
From a fiscal perspective as well, the Union Budget 2022 looks to bring to life the vision of NEP 2020 by increasing the allocation of spend to education, albeit with a focus on digital learning. In effect, this recognises the challenge of bridging India’s education gaps, but the ground reality is that simply emphasising digital learning or increasing budgetary spends are not enough. The ecosystem needs to be stimulated on multiple fronts, addressing issues such as:
1- Inadequate internet connectivity and digital literacy (just 4% of rural households in India have access to computers, and a mere 14% have access to the internet)
2- Poor availability of mobile devices (about half of the homes in rural areas have no smartphones)
3- Physical and digital infrastructure that needs to be updated for modern-day needs
4- Low proximity to schools and learning institutions (NSO 2020 revealed that just 38% of rural households had a secondary school within a 1-kilometre radius, as opposed to 70% in urban regions)
5- Empowering and supporting teachers with new-age pedagogical approaches and curriculum
6- Making available multilingual digital content that is highly localised in nature
7- Getting foundational learning right, as it forms the building blocks of future learning
8- Low levels of engagement among parents and communities in a child’s learning journey
Indian education stands at an inflection point, where our choices today will reverberate long into the future. Besides the social upside of getting foundational learning right, which would see these children grow into responsible adults with a reduced need for future remedial measures, it can also provide a major fillip to economic growth, potentially growing GDP by 7.39% (a contribution of $3.8 trillion), when benefits are calculated over 20 years.
A Focus on Holistic Solutions
The process of creating true change across rural India’s diverse education landscape is one that requires a multipronged approach to ensure comprehensive, sustainable, long-term development, and optimal learning outcomes. Here are some of the ways in which this can be achieved.
Narrowing Inequalities and Improving Access
While India continues to make progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, a high number of children in remote and rural India continue to drop out of school or perform poorly in reading, arithmetic and sciences. According to the Inclusive Internet Index 2021, numerous students from lower or middle-class families don’t have access to steady internet, or smartphones, which hindered learning. Additionally, many girl students were married off before they turned 18, while underage male students accompanied their parents to work as labourers.
Building more schools or the digital infrastructure needed to make education accessible to all students is only part of the solution to this. We must also engage parents and communities to change the social mindset, and ensure that children are given every opportunity to explore a world of knowledge and create their own learning journeys.
Creating Modern Infrastructure
The lack of modern infrastructure, both physical and technological, creates a domino effect with a tangible impact. In the absence of schools or digital devices and infrastructure, children simply miss out on school, and this can be seen in low enrolment and high dropout levels, as it was when the pandemic enforced school closures.
Updating schools for the need of a modern age, or building new ones entirely, carry a high cost. Hence, a PPP (Public Private Partnership) might be the best solution to create various learning opportunities for students, such as through schools on wheels, Anganwadi home learning programs, creating ICT labs, smart classrooms and more.
Education Innovations
Technology has been a great enabler, and when it comes to education, the possibilities for innovation are boundless. Besides digitising content resources, approaches such as gamifying content have also gained in popularity, as children are better engaged by play-based learning. Beyond students, teachers and program administrators too stand to benefit from the creation of data-driven, integrated, and scalable learning solutions, as it can help them track learner progress, highlight and redress gaps, and thereby improve learning outcomes.
Empowering Educators
The depth and quality of pedagogy available to students in rural and semi-urban geographies are lower than that available to their urban peers, negatively impacting learning outcomes. This can be addressed by supporting teachers through individualized, needs-based training programs that empower them. The Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing (DIKSHA) platform is a step in the right direction, and more teachers need to be engaged in such training programs.
The events of the past few years have given us a rare opportunity to stay true to principles that form the cornerstone of NEP 2020, and ensure greater equity, equality, and access to Quality Education for all. In this way, we can ensure no learner is left behind, wherever they might be. By combining the best of the tried and trusted, and new-age approaches to education, we can create a new paradigm for education in rural India, and thereby play our part in taking Indian education to new heights.
The author of this article is director of education, Square Panda. Views expressed are personal.
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