Equity in Quality in Elementary Education

Chapter VIII

EQUITY IN QUALITY IN ELEMENTARY EDUCATION

8.0.0.Introduction:

In the previous chapter, cost of schooling at primary level e.g. per child per year cost of elementary education in UP, cost of primary schooling cycle per child and outline of major terms of expenditure in elementary education was presented.

In addition to the above, in the chapter four and chapter six as well,an overview of efforts madeto improve the quality of elementary education in UP alongwith its cost implications under the Basic Education Project(BEP), District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) was presented. As mentioned earlier, under DPEP and SSA in UP, efforts made to address the quality issues revolved largely around the quality of infrastructure and support services, teacher characteristics, in-service training of teachers, revision and development of curriculum and teaching learning material, textbooks and teacher handbooks, classroom processes, pupils evaluation, monitoring and supervision.

In the present chapter, issue of equity in quality will be discussed. Although, in Uttar Pradesh,large scale expansion of schooling facilities has taken place resulting in increased coverage, gross enrollment has increased very significantly, gender and social gaps in enrollment have narrowed down. However, as it was demonstrated in chapter six, there are vast differences in terms of learning levels of students enrolled in primary schools. Students’ achievement levels are far below the expected level. Children are completing the education cycle without attaining the required competencies and skills. Perception of parents towards government schools is such that role of private sector is increasing in the elementary education sector. Specific to rural Uttar Pradesh, Harma (2010) reports that poor children attend fee charging private schools because of dissatisfaction with the quality and functioning of government schools in rural areas as well.[1]

Thus issue of quality in primary education has become central. In this background, potentialities of ensuring equity in quality in primary education in the state of Uttar Pradesh would be presented in this chapter.

8.1.0 Concept of Equity and Equality in Elementary Education:

UNESCO has looked at analysing equity through three specific “objects” of equity. One is a measure of access (enrollment ratios) and two are measures of resources allocated to education (expenditure per pupil and pupil-teacher ratios). It emphasises on two main principles of equity–horizontal equity and equal educational opportunity. Horizontal equity is related to disparities in access to education and resources for education. Equal educational opportunity can be assessed through the relationship between wealth and the three objects of equity, as well as urban-rural differences in the provision of access to educational facilities.[2]

Equity refers to fairness whereas equality refers to sameness or absence of discrimination[3]. Equity is also described in terms of its absence or the presence of educational inequities. While equity as a philosophical concept has been deliberated upon by many scholars, centrality of these arguments has revolved around notions of ‘fairness’ and ‘justice’.

‘Equal educational opportunities’ has been the most recurring theme in discussions on equity, however it denotes only the ‘sameness’ component of equity, as it does not take into account that all individuals may not necessarily have the enabling conditions to access the opportunities which have been provided. However, equal educational opportunity is regarded as the minimum threshold for achieving equity.[4]

The concept of equity is not limited to providing equal opportunities for access, process or outcomes in educational experience, it goes beyond these. Because of this complexity in understanding what constitutes equity, different scholars have enriched the debate by defining equity as also need -based /desert (merit) based (Gewirtz, Ball and Bowe 1995)[5] as vertical and horizontal equity(Berne and Stiefel,1984)[6], or as variations of equity in educational outcomes (Burbules et el. 1982).[7] Broadly the criteria of need, merit, equality and minimum thresholds have been regarded as measures of equity.

The term equity has qualitative connotation, if equity is a theoretical construct, equality is a practical one. If equity is the guiding force, equality is the operating force. Equity is used to mean just and fair treatment based on need. It may imply unequal or preferential treatment in favour of socially disadvantaged groups.Access to opportunities and resources are constrained by the position of the child based on caste, gender and economic status. It somehow leads to inequity.By equity, it means not only equal opportunity, but also creation of conditions in which the disadvantaged sections of the society – children of SC, ST, Muslim minority, landless agricultural workers and children with special needs, etc. – can avail of the opportunity and processes.

Any major equitable and socially just process of educational development has to aim at ensuring achievement of identified minimum levels of educational outcomes or attainments across regions and social, economic, linguistic, ethnic and religious groups. Financial resource allocations alone cannot ensure improved outcomes or reduction of disparities. However they do provide an indication of the commitment of a programme or scheme towards bridging disparities.

It would not be out of place to recollect that the Kothari commission (1964-66) recommended establishment of separate girls schools if co-education was not acceptable in places. National policy on education (1968) stipulated that girls’ education receive emphasis, not only on grounds of social justice but also because it accelerated the process of social awakening ultimately resulting in improving their status in society. In the Fifth Five Year Plan (1975-79), the initial commitment for providing free and compulsory education for all in the age group 6-14 was prioritized. Under the different programmes aimed at universalising elementary education in the state, interventions focused on girls’ education had been implemented.

In 2000, the World Education Forum, Dakar, reiterated the commitment of “eliminating gender disparities in primary education by 2005, and achieving gender equality in education by 2015. Its focus was on girls’ full access to and achievement in basic education of good quality’ (UNESCO, 2000). The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) has also focussed on “promoting gender equality eliminating gender disparity in primary education, preferably by 2005.”

The policy makers in education have tried to infuse the element of equality in social and educational context by concepts of neighbourhood schools. But somehow this concept was transferred into common school concept. There is nothing like educational equality and hence it is a myth. It does not exist and cannot exist.[8]There has been a constitutional commitment to avoid inequality: The Fundamental Rights, provisions in the Directive Principles of the Constitution, RTE Act 2009 are enumerations of this commitment. The RTE Act 2009 provides a justiciable legal framework that entitles all children between the ages of 6-14 years free and compulsory admission, attendance and completion of elementary education. It provides for children’s right to an education of equitable quality, based on principles of equity and non-discrimination.

RTE Act provides that “Every child of the age of 6-14 years shall have a right to free and compulsory education in a neighbourhood school till completion of elementary education”. Free education is defined as “removal of any financial barrier by the state that prevents a child from completing eight years of schooling’. ‘Compulsory education’ means obligation of the appropriate government to provide free elementary education and ensure compulsory admission, attendance and completion of elementary education to every child in the six to fourteen age group”[9].

To ensure equity in education, one aspect can be of creating adequate infrastructure, circumstances, enabling conditions and availability of relevant learning material. It would require setting of conditions, and opportunities in a way that its potential beneficiaries may feel them to be adequate enough. In the context of education it would mean the rules of admission, learning, teaching, evaluation etc. besides cash incentives like scholarships, fees etc.

One aspect of planning for universal access directly flowing from the thrust on a rights and equity oriented approach is the need for creation of capacity within the education system and the school for addressing the diversified learning needs of different groups of children who are now in the school system. The learning needs of children cannot be compromised because of limitations of the system.

8.2.0 Equity Issues: Gender, Disadvantage, and Exclusion:

Gender is an issue cutting across the categories of disadvantaged groups as well as weaker sections. In the RTE Act, some of the relevant provisions in this regard are: no discrimination against children from ‘disadvantaged groups and ‘weaker sections’ on any grounds (including gender); inclusion of women in school monitoring committees; provision of good quality education that includes equity issues, curriculum development in conformity with constitutional stipulations, training, enrollment in age appropriated classes (which will largely apply to girls, especially from disadvantaged communities).

Addressing equity issues in elementary education forms that exclusion takes, and the different ways in which it is manifested, have not been sufficiently addressed across the components of access, participation, retention, achievement and completion of elementary education. This makes exclusion the single most important challenge in universalising elementary education. Inequality manifests in classrooms. There have been a plethora of recent studies on how children from extremely disadvantaged communities are caught in the web of exclusion.[10] In order to have socially inclusive classrooms, the curriculum needs to bridge the family-school divide.

The RTE Act, 2009 has defined children belonging to disadvantaged groups and children belonging to weaker sections as follows:

“Disadvantaged groupsare defined as those that belonged to the “SC, ST, socially and educationally backward class or such other groups having disadvantage owing to social, cultural, economic, geographical, linguistic, gender, or such other factors as may be.

Weaker Sections are defined as those belonging to such parent or guardian whose annual income is lower than the minimum specified by the appropriate Government by notification”.[11]

The Act requires the appropriate government and every local authority to “ensure that the child belonging to weaker sections and the child belonging to disadvantaged groups are not discriminated against and prevented from pursuing and completing elementary education on any grounds”.

The enactment of the RTE requires addressing gender and social equity within a framework that is holistic and systemic. Approach in this regard as per revised SSA implementation framework is as follows[12]:

Equity will mean not only equal opportunity, but also creation of conditions in which the disadvantaged sections of the society – children of SC, ST, Muslim minority, landless agricultural workers and children with special needs, etc. can avail of the opportunity.
Access will not be confined to ensuring that a school becomes accessible to all children within specified distance but implies an understanding of the educational needs and predicament of the traditionally excluded categories –the SC, ST and other sections of the most disadvantaged groups, minority, and girls in general, and children with special needs.
Gender will be a critical cross-cutting equity issue and will imply not only making efforts to enable girls to keep pace with boys but to view education in the perspective spelt out in the National Policy on Education 1986 /92; i.e. a decisive intervention to bring about a basic change in the status of women.
Centrality of classroom practices and processes where the culture in theclassroom, and beyond the classroom,will produce an inclusive environmentfor children, especially for girls from oppressed and marginalised backgrounds and free from discrimination.

After passage of RTE Act, guidelines of SSA have been revised and it notes that equity agenda of SSA would work towards moving from an ‘incentives and provisions’-based approach to a ‘rights and entitlements’ approach. It emphasises on developing a deeper understanding on issues contributing to exclusion and disadvantage, prevalent stereotypes and the challenges faced by children from disadvantaged communities. SSA guidelines reiterate the necessity of assessing needs of different excluded and marginalised groups and communities and consequently addressing these needs through innovative thinking and contextualised strategies to address issues of gender, equity exclusion that will cut across the different SSA goals. SSA focuses on encouraging up-scaling and institutionalisation of interventions and strategies found effective, viable and sustainable with a view to strengthening the mainstream education system.

In order to focus on equity, SSA would mean to address exclusion of girls and children belonging to SC/ ST, minority children, children in difficult situations, issue of migrating children, urban deprived children, homeless children, and children with special needs (CWSN). Under SSA, reaching out to the girl child is central to the efforts to universalise elementary education. The revised SSA framework of implementation points out that gender has become an accepted category in policy and programme formulation, however it is largely seen in terms of provision of opportunities so that girls can ‘catch up’ with boys and ‘close the gap’. Thus, achieving gender parity has been an overarching concern of the education system.

Girls are not a homogenous or singular category and gender does not operate in isolation but in conjunction with other social categories resulting in girls’ having to experience multiple forms of disadvantage. The dimensions of location (rural-urban), caste, class, religion, ethnicity, disabilities etc. intersect with gender to create a complex reality. It needs to be pointed out that curriculum, textbooks, classroom processes and pedagogic practices, need to capture the entire web of social and economic relations that decide the life experiences.

Despite significant improvement in the enrollment of girls, girls from disadvantaged communities continue to form the bulk of out of school children. Therefore access continuesto be an equity issue in the case of girls. Also, there is a need to consider retention as anequity issue, as SC, ST, Muslim girls, are vulnerable, and most likely to dropout. Parents from such communities often due to limited resource, opt for not enrolling the girl child at first and in majority of cases compelled to leave the system. The hidden discrimination in the classrooms makes schooling a difficult experience for girls.

In the background of phenomenal growth in enrollment of students, it has been shown that attendance of students remains an unresolved issue. Students’ not attending school is an indicator of the quality of school, as without any learning, students have little incentive to be in the school. Studies have shown that the quality of inputs has a substantial impact on child learning and provides incentives for children to attend the school regularly. When not in school, students were asked reason for not being in school, 16 percent said the reason was ‘lack of proper education’ in schools which reflects the importance of quality education to ensure retention. However, 51 percent parents said that the education that their child was receiving was not of good quality.[13]It should be reiterated that children not attending the schools regularly are prone to drop out, making their retention difficult. Classroom processes intertwined with this fact ultimately result in poor learning levels. It is further manifested in lower transition rates from primary to upper primary and then to secondary level. Therefore equity has to be ensured not only in access and participation but in learning also.

Expansion of schooling facilities has probably ignored the provision of adequate physical and academic resources, many schools have inadequate resources and the children who are enrolled in these schools are more likely to be at the risk of low learning outcome and falling into the zone of silent exclusion, these children are enrolled however learning vary little and are at risk of drop out.[14]

Issue of equityis equally concerned with components of enrollment, access, participation, retention, and quality. As evident, exclusion takes different forms according to the context and background of children, strategies to achieve equity and inclusion will have to take account of the local situation within which a particular form of inequity or exclusion is manifested.

8.3.0Equity in Quality in Elementary Education in Uttar Pradesh:

In the chapter six, issue of quality had been discussed at length. Indicators of quality, factors that affect the quality in elementary education, learning levels of students, subject wise competency levels, interventions under different programmes of the state focused at quality improvement were presented.

State of Uttar Pradesh is committed to ensure free and compulsory elementary education to all children in the age group of 6-14. Although discrimination on the basis of gender in society is prevalent, equality for the girl child in education has been one of the objectives of initiatives in primary education in Uttar Pradesh. In addition to the SSA provisions, state government is addressing the issue of financial barriers by providing incentives in the form of uniforms, textbooks and workbooks, stationary, school bags, and scholarships. However, the incentive based approach would need to shift to an entitlements perspective. Reduction in dropout rate, changes in curricula at primary stage, making the textbooks gender neutral are some of the indicators of positive steps in the direction of equality. To bring equality- curricular transformations, curricular transactions, with regard to aims, content, method and evaluation system can go a long way. Under DPEP and SSA, focus has been on revision of curriculum and textbooks for elementary levels; however, teacher training was central to the pedagogical renewal process in the state in pursuit of quality improvement. Idea of regular academic support to teachers paved the way for creation of new structures, in addition to District Institutes of Education and Training namely Block Resource Centres(BRC) and Nyaya Panchayat Resource Centres(NPRC). These structures were aimed at, under the leadership of District Institute of Education and Training, identifying the pedagogical problems and finding their solutions in the local context. Lot of investment was made to develop these institutions as per their envisaged roles in the state. Available literature, annual reports of SSA, classroom studies, observation of teacher training, and some experience of school visits present the following scenario in the state: