Quality of education needs to improve, says Survey
NEW DELHI: Corporate identity number-type tags for schools, co-location of institutions to better utilise resources, cash incentives to students via direct benefit transfer, and greater focus on education outcomes is what the mid-year Economic Survey prescribed for India’s expanding education sector.
The Survey said the government must work to provide quality education to help families get good return on education investments.
As India emerges as a knowledge-based economy, “quality and relevant” education will play a significant role in economic development, the second volume of Economic Survey 2016-17 said.
“The focus of school education so far has been on creating physical infrastructure, which is underutilised and needs to shift to improving utilisation of assets,” the Survey said, adding that there should be focus on reaping gains from the synergy and efficiency of co-location of schools at all levels of schooling.
“Each school that is being funded under any scheme/programme should have an identity tag/number, akin to a Corporate Identity Number (CIN), that shall help to track resources received from the Centre/ State/Other sources that have tax concessions under section 80G (and other sections) of the Income Tax Act,” it said, in a prescription aimed to bring accountability to the education sector.
The Survey said though access to schools and enrolment have improved significantly, “the challenge of quality in terms of learning outcomes remains to be addressed”.
Again, while the number of higher educational institutions had expanded, the quality of students passing out had come under scrutiny, affecting their effectiveness in the labour market.
The Survey pointed out that in addition to the rising costs of education in private institutions, private coaching had emerged as a major component of educational expenditure.
“The share of private coaching in the educational expenditure is around 30% in secondary levels in rural areas and around 45% in higher secondary levels in urban areas among the students attending government institutions”.