Wednesday, January 27, 2010

A for Applicability

In the newly independent India, a satyagrahi and his wife arrived at a dusty village set around an arid landscape. Pt. Nehru, on being turned down on his offer to join his government, had instructed him to spread education in a village that he had recently visited. The visitor's first challenge was to set up a shack that would serve as classroom. Selling some personal belongings helped him do that. His next challenge was to bring village kids to classrooms from reluctant parents's home. He persuaded them and was able to form a class of boys and girls, students from upper and lower caste, and Dalits. It was nothing less than a social revolution under that shack. One of his student, a woman, went on to become a prominent politician of Haryana and, later, Lt. Governor of Pondycherry. Others became officers in public departments. Another of his student became a school teacher himself and his grandson, yours truly, received one of the best education in India. This working paper on education improvement techniques in rural India, recently cited in Economist, made me remember this story and I wondered what would have I been had that satyagrahi not come to my village.

I was lucky. And so was my village. But most of the other villages were not. About six decades on, so much has been done but quality education still evades rural India. This paper experimentally proves how a novel technique of monetary incentives for teachers can improve the quality of educated imparted in rural India. This paper, IMHO, would largely be a disappointment for policy makers as it lacks any 'actionable' information, if I may borrow a term from diplomatic parlance.

The authors of the paper observed performance of students in two sets of government run schools in rural Andhra Pradesh. In one set, they introduced a scheme of performance bonus to teachers of science and language in primary schools. The other set was left untouched to serve as a control for comparison with the first set. After a period of two years, authors observed a much higher performance of students in the first set as compared to second set in independently administered tests. Now, who didn't see that coming!? Further, authors argue that "performance pay might not only increase effort among existing teachers, but systematically draw more effective teachers into the profession over time". This is a naive conclusion that I would want to differ with. The paper lack thoughts on many implementation issues that can derail author's noble intentions.

Authors have ignored the difference in performance of schools in rural settings as compared to urban schools. Urban schools perform better because (a) parents are more conscious of the importance of education, and (b) urban lifestyle allows time for study as compared to rural places where most of the families are associated with labor intensive agriculture, and (c) teachers are regular in discharge of their duties due to higher visibility in cities. While the proposed scheme may create more diligent teachers in rural area, it leaves the first two factors unchanged. It's also more important to bring quality education to rural places because they don't always have a luxury of private school as an alternative. Private operators find it tough to invest for low student population in villages. Coming back, since scheme leaves first two factors unchanged, it will push teachers to seek postings in urban places over rural places. As the number of teachers is always low than required, this can create a negative bias towards rural schools. This might be corrected by additional policies that enforce teachers to serve in rural schools for a certain period of time but this would then engender use of influence to get the desired postings by a teacher. This can also result in teachers leaving rural schools as soon as their terms get over. Teachers protesting against such a harsh policy is a different matter altogether.

Authors have also kept quiet on how to administer exams fairly. Would teachers not be tempted to assist students when they proctor them during exams? Even if teachers are not proctoring students from their own class, what stops him or her from helping students in return of the same favor from another teacher. How often should this exam be administered and in which grades? What happens to a teacher who is recently transferred to a class that will take this exams? What about cheating during exams? I have myself seen scores of family members and friends throwing answer notes (chits as they are called) inside examination room to their dear ones despite presence of teachers and police around. In fact, looking from outside, the examination centre looked like a fallen fort with the 'ravaging army' attempting to enter it from every possible inlet.

Would this policy not be unfair for other subject teachers if it is made applicable for only science and language teachers, as authors did for their experiment? A potential of protests of huge intensity would make any government rethink this part of the scheme. If all subject teachers are made eligible for the bonus compensation, would it still carry the same value? Another of the paper's finding was that students did better in all subjects and not just for the subjects for which teachers were paid extra. This spill over benefit would be tough to use through a government policy.

It has usually been remarked that services run good when government pays and private organizations provide. It's hard to envisage a situation where this could be applied to education in India. There is less incentive to open private schools in small villages with small student population. It's therefore more effective to build the right infrastructure that would make commuting easier to nearby town. It's also important for majority of population to move from labor intensive agricultural practice to specialized skilled labor. This would in effect increase priority among parents to see their children get quality education. This priority can also increase if the state run institutions become fair in providing employment and other opportunities to youths. A sense of nepotism and corruption lowers incentive for parents to seek quality education for their kids and promotes throwing chits to their wards during exams. If things were fairer, increasing pay and not bonuses to teachers would attract the right talent into teaching. Of course, this is nothing less than a social revolution and we also don't have any more satyagrahis around!

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