Rise of private schools in India – but is this the solution?

The growing movement towards private schools for children in India is getting even stronger. But is this the solution for improving the quality of education in schools?

A lack of trust in the government-run K-12 schools has prompted many Indian parents including the poor, to look to private schools for their children’s education. Watch this video which portrays the growth of private schools for the poor in India. Low teacher accountability and low quality infrastructure in government schools have prompted the poor to look to private schools. The popularity of private schools is so strong that , India currently has about 75,000 K-12 private schools with approximately 90 million students enrolled in it. This is in comparison with 129 million students in the government-run schools and 142 million children who are out of school. The demand for private schools is only growing and it is estimated that by 2012 there will be about 90,000 private schools in India.  What’s more, the government recently allocated a whopping Rs. 44,000 crores in the recent budget for issuing vouchers to the poor, so that they can attend private schools if they choose to.

Are private schools the solution to this problem? What about the teacher quality? It’s not that the quality of the teachers in majority of the private schools, is better than in the government schools. It’s just that because of “better” teacher accountability, the teacher absenteeism is lower in private schools and teaching does take place on a daily basis. But the concern on my mind is that the private schools are not equipped enough to impart the basic education needed for the children to be prepared for the 21st century.

We live in an economy where routine tasks are being automated by computers. Rote learning is not an option anymore. Where humans can add value in today’s world, is in tasks which require the use of higher order skills like creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration and so on. These skills cannot be taught if, all the children are made to do, is sit in a classroom and listen to the teacher go on endlessly about a set of facts that are not tied to any context in the child’s life. The children need to be stimulated and actively engaged in their learning. The teacher should be competent enough to facilitate discussions and activities around the children’s tasks so that the higher order skills are learned. In fact, scientific research has uncovered a range of teaching methods that can be deployed in order to impart education suitable for children to be effective in the 21st century.

A McKinsey study in 2007 which compared some of the top education systems in the world, showed very clearly that “The quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of it’s teachers”. What can be done to improve the quality of teachers in schools – be in private or government schools? Higher salaries? Incentives for teachers? Better training? I’m sure there are many ideas.

Organizations like Pratham are doing impressive work to improve the quality of education in government schools. Azim Premji Foundation recently announced the opening of a teacher training university in India in order to improve the quality of teachers.

There are many ideas geared towards helping the children of India grow up to be contributing citizens of the democracy. There are organizations doing some very meaningful work to improve the quality of education in government schools of India. Considering the large number of children who are being educated in the private schools of India, a meaningful debate needs to happen on the Indian education system as a whole – that includes both government and private schools – on how the quality of education can be improved in India.

What are your thoughts on all this?