Prioritising quality in education

“Many South Asian teachers barely know more than their students. For example, surveys from India and Pakistan show that teachers perform poorly in math and language tests based on the primary curriculum they are supposed to teach”. – World Bank report: ‘Student learning in South Asia – challenges, opportunities and policy priorities’.

Quality in education is one of the daunting challenges South Asian countries are faced with. “Schooling is successful when it enables students to lead fuller lives – as individuals and as labour market participants. For this to happen, merely spending time in school is not enough; there has to be a significant gain in cognitive and non-cognitive skills”, says the report.

What should be done to meet this challenge? The report identifies seven priority areas in this regard. First, learning outcomes should become the central goal of the education policy. Student learning in South Asia is far behind local and international standards. Students do not get even the basic numeracy and literacy skills after putting in a reasonable time in school. According to some assessments, the report says, about one third of primary school students lack the minimum level of numeracy and literacy skills needed to further their education in higher classes.

Low quality education creates a vicious circle, leading to low productivity and competitiveness. With low skills one cannot compete in the labour market; low productivity and competiveness mean low economic growth and little chances to escape from poverty. Lack of basic numeracy and literacy skills is thus a big waste of human resource. Against this backdrop, the report recommends that learning outcomes should become an integral goal of education policy.

The second priority area identified by the report is investment in early childhood nutrition. A minimum level of living standards is necessary for a child to attain his or her human potential regardless of the circumstances – such as gender, geographic region, ethnicity or family background – into which he or she is born. Such minimum standards must include electricity, clean water, sanitation, healthcare, and education.

Children from disadvantaged groups of the society set off on an unequal path from day one. The disadvantages and deprivations they carry curb their opportunities. Early disadvantages have lasting impacts. It is extremely difficult to cost-effectively correct such disadvantages with policy interventions at a later stage in life. Development economists have almost a consensus on the point that early interventions have high payoffs. The report thus emphasises investment in early childhood nutrition programmes to improve the quality and efficiency of education in South Asia where the prevalence of malnutrition is reported to be the highest in the world.

The third area prioritised by the report for quality education is ‘teacher effectiveness and accountability’. Level of motivation and methodology of teaching are two important determinants of teachers’ effectiveness. Teachers in Pakistan are found lacking on both these accounts. They are a highly demotivated stuff. It seems as if the teaching profession has been thrust upon them. The reasons for this demotivation are obvious and need no further elaboration.

A large percentage of teachers do not have the capacity to transmit knowledge to students (says the report). They can hardly explain basic concepts and satisfactorily answer the queries of the students. In order to hide their inefficiency most teachers, especially in public schools, discourage the habit of questioning and instead encourage rote learning. Absenteeism is pervasive and accountability mechanisms are not fully in place.

The report recommends a three-pronged policy to enhance teacher effectiveness and accountability. One, there should be clear standards for the recruitment, placement, transfer, and promotion of teachers. Clear safeguards should be in-built in the policy against non-merit based decisions. Two, arrangements should be in place for both pre-service and in-service training to equip teachers with up-to-date pedagogical skills. Three, there should be a clear criterion of career progression, which rewards acquisition of new skills and performance and punishes lethargy and inefficiency.

Provision of additional instructional resources to disadvantaged children is the fourth priority area the report has focused on. Use of financing tools to improve quality is the fifth priority area. Better infrastructure and better input are important to attract students and retain them in school. The report, however, says that evidence is scant to suggest that better input raises quality of education.

Similarly, evidence also does not support the view that better teacher salaries can improve the quality of education unless they are held accountable. The assumption – the basis of education policies so far adopted in the South Asian region – that better input will automatically translate into better learning outcomes is a fallacious proposition. So there is a need to put in place clear accountability mechanisms like performance-based pay and promotions, and connecting school funding formulas to quality improvement by the schools.

The sixth priority area is about leveraging the role of the private sector. South Asian countries face the twin challenge of improving access to education and ensuring quality. At the same time capacity is low and resources are scarce. In this context, the report recommends that there is need to leverage the contribution of the private sector in the education sector.

The private sector has emerged as a potent sector in the last two decades within the education sector in Pakistan. “Expanding the role of the private sector, with appropriate mechanisms for accountability, could provide increased access to more and better education services for disadvantaged groups”, says the report. The seventh priority area for improving quality in education is through enhanced learning assessment systems. There is need for a more balanced assessment system which incorporates both classroom assessment and large-scale learning assessments. There is also a need to benchmark so that national learning outcomes can be judged against regional and international learning standards.

There is no denying the fact that the priorities identified in the report are based on the in-depth and true diagnosis of the quality problem in education. But the question here is: how can these priorities be translated into action? It first requires strong commitment on the part of the provincial government. The most visible indicator of this commitment will certainly be through substantial increase in budget allocations for the education sector. Currently we are hardly spending two percent of our GDP on education. The increase in allocations announced in recent budgets is hardly sufficient to meet the Herculean challenge as these allocations are very marginal in nominal terms.

Second, bringing in quality in education is certainly not restricted to the education sector. A multi-sectoral approach is needed. For example, early childhood nutrition is highly significant for quality learning but it does not directly come under the control of education policymakers. Policy initiatives are required to help enable children of the disadvantaged sections of society to follow an equal path with their rich counterpart. That means that equity considerations should essentially become part of the education policy aimed at improving quality. Further, governance reforms are also important for transparent and merit-based recruitments, placements, performance evaluations and promotions of teachers.

According to the report, “Teacher unions in many South Asian countries are powerful but do not lobby for improved educational outcomes. In many cases, there is strong nexus among teachers, politicians, and government officials that weakens teacher accountability and contributes to poor student learning outcomes”. The message of the report is very loud and clear – national educational policies to improve student learning should become part of a larger agenda of inclusive growth and governance.

The writer is a graduate of Columbia University.  Email: jamilnasir1969@gmail.com Twitter: @Jamilnasir1