This year on Nov 11, National Education Day, the PM of India Mr Manmohan Singh launched a nationwide campaign “Shiksha Ka Haq Abhiyaan” to motivate the children of the country to do well in studies to achieve their dreams.
Though India has been late in implementing the Right to Education Act, it has set up several schools in every nook and corner of the country to ensure easy access to education facility. As many as 83 per cent of the total 1,061 thousand habitations have access to primary schooling facilities within 1 km and 76 per cent habitations to upper primary schooling facilities within a distance of 3 km guaranteeing that access would not feature as a major road block for enrolment. Similarly the number of teachers both at the primary and upper primary levels of education over time has increased many folds.
Though the government had made strides in ensuring easy access to education can it also assure a quality that is on par with good education systems across the world? The Government of India has spent INR 88,000 Crores (~$18 Billion) on education since 2004. For this, the government should get the credit for investing in education which has no definite outcomes. Less than 5% of the education budget is spent on non-salary recurrent expenditure [Kingdon, 2010]. The maximum education budget is allocated for teacher salaries and benefits that have increased generously to respectable levels in recent years, due to the 6th pay commission. Despite, why are the educational institutions shying away from taking accountability for the achievement outcomes of their institutions?
While leading the assessment of GyanShala, an alternative education provider in Gujarat, which provides quality education to thousands of slum children in the selected Gujarat and Bihar cities, I was astonished to learn that the government school teachers refused to implement the successful GS pedagogy in their schools. Equally surprising was the reason for refusal, the teachers felt that the implementation of GS methodology meant more work, more pressure and more accountability.
The fundamental question that has been intriguing the stakeholder populations for decades is why do teachers especially in public schools lack accountability? What are the factors that determine the lack of accountability among teachers? Is it possible to make schools accountable for student achievement levels?
Education in India is both Centre’s and State’s responsibility, giving the state governments a stake in the state education policy making. Different states follow different teacher recruitment procedures in India. Though the procedures are different there is a single definite outcome for all state government teachers anywhere in the country, total job security. This aspect of the job determines the entire behavior of a school teacher throughout his career in schools. Whereas in a corporate sector where cut throat competition is the drive to excel in performance, in public sector and especially in schools there is a lack of motivation to excel as the work force is confident of regular cash flow in the form of salaries and yearly benefits.
There are many factors that determine the accountability among teachers. The first and the foremost as discussed above is the job security. This aspect has been the most advantageous for the teachers as no power can easily terminate their services. Teacher behavior is conditioned by the fact that their jobs are eternal, untouched by any power. Therefore there is no reason for teachers to enhance their performance by setting goals and targets. The schools lack clear plans, measures and strategies that collectively define the direction and outcomes of a business. Their thinking as an individual institution is a far thought of notion as they are bound by state policies and dictums. Hence, institutional plans and strategies are of little value as they are not accountable for their schools’ results.
There are a few basic behaviors that showcase teachers’ accountability anywhere in the universe, one of them being attendance which is the most compromised one by the teachers and most favored one by the heads of the institutions. The school staff exemplifies marvelous teamwork in being absent regularly from the campus. There is a subtle harmony among the teachers and the leaders in maintaining the balance of teacher and leader absenteeism. A chronic problem in India, teacher absenteeism in government schools stems from weak monitoring mechanism, high level of corruption, influence and power of teacher unions, lopsided policies that cannot fire teachers, seniority-based salary structure, and the extreme centralized nature of the education system. Though the systemic maladies manifest in all sorts of irregularities in the public schools, the teachers per se are highly qualified and well informed in stark contrast to the teachers of the private providers. However, when the students’ outcomes and achievement levels are compared the students of private schools stand out in terms of high grades, always. It is difficult to deny that the private school teachers are more accountable than public school teachers.
Though the constitution of India guarantees Right to education to all the children it is the prime duty of the enforcement agencies specifically the learning institutions to enable the government machinery to achieve the national goal. Unless the schools contribute to the nation’s commitment young India cannot feature as the most literate population in the world in the distant future.
It is still a mystery that though the government invests heavily on capacity building of the faculty for its sector schools, nothing has changed from the dawn. The set up remains the same, the systems remain the same and the staff too remains the same with the same lackadaisical attitude towards their profession and their accountability to the community.
Well, defining the problem is not the solution in itself. What is needed is a complete remodeling of the recruitment structure with well defined policies and norms that govern the weak accountability mindset of the department. A few strategies that might ascertain that individuals become more accountable to their professions are introduction of PMS (performance management system) more accountable teacher unions, demand driven services and an empowered community that does the quality check of educational institutions on departments’ behalf.
Performance Management System
Let’s not be blinded by the thought that PMS cannot be introduced in the government organizations. The job becomes easier if the objectives for the department are clearly mentioned and monitored by the senior officers. If profit is the objective for a business unit or private firms, then service obviously is the main objective for the public schools. The activities of the department can then surmise from the main objective where the entire hierarchy becomes accountable for its performance. This ensures that the quality is mainstreamed from beginning to end. PMS can be introduced in a phased manner where the senior management team is accounted first followed by the middle management level and lastly the teachers and the administrative staff.
Though the existing schools cannot be closed on the premise of lack of student strength as access is an important promise by the union and the state government, the services can be demand driven where the community decides whether the school is functioning effectively or wobbling due to non committal attitude of its important stakeholders.
It is man’s nature to wink responsibility in the absence of monitoring. If the monitoring mechanism is weak then there is more plausibility of accountability shunning among teachers. The lack of honest hierarchy and infrastructure compounds the problem further. Therefore, a strong monitoring system is essential to help the school staff account for their responsibilities. School self evaluation complemented with external review could be the best way to pin the school leadership and the faculty for their actions and outcomes. This method debars the interference of unions in the day to day administration of schools. Similarly if the teacher unions are localized and made accountable for the progress and development of schools in their own areas, our schools could feature as the best models of excellence in the continent.
Empowering community
This could be the biggest and most successful example of democratization of education process in the world. The community can be trained and empowered to monitor the education systems across the country through the use of simple monitoring instruments. National agenda requires local actions and leadership. The localized community will ensure that the schools excel in their provision apart from minimizing the state’s expenditure on defunct monitoring system. When the community is empowered to take decisions on the efficacy of provision, changing policies and changing governments’ interruption on education system in the states will be reduced.
This will also pave for a more successful, strong partnership with the community. Unless the learning institutions are trained for societal and organizational accountability through a set of work guidelines it is difficult to improve the provision in our government schools.
Author: Ms Anitha Jagathkar is the Project Manager with CfBT Education Services, India. She led her team in evaluating various alternative educational programs in India. She has assessed several schools for institutional effectiveness in various districts of Andhra Pradesh. She has also authored several baseline reports and drafted school improvement plans for both public and private schools. As a Leadership trainer she mentored school principals to improve the provision in their schools. Currently she is pursuing her Ph.d at National School of Leadership, Pune.
She can be contacted at ajagathkar[at]gmail[dot]com
