NEW DELHI: In the past 30 years South Asia has experienced rapid education expansion, outpacing the rest of the world. While it is India which is driving these regional averages, of every 10 new schools established here in the past eight years, seven are private independent schools.
As per the new Global Education Monitoring Report 2022 by Unesco, inadequate supply and quality of public education, combined with parental aspirations, have driven private education growth in India, as it calls for increased attention to the implementation of regulations covering equity and quality across all schools so that no children are left behind.
The report says: “Only 46% of adults agreed that the primary responsibility for providing school education rested with the government, the lowest share amongst 35 middle-and high-income countries.” Moreover, a mass increase in the rates of private tutoring is noted in India with 61% of secondary school students saying they took tutoring due to poor schooling quality.
Highlighting that non-state actors are significantly involved in every aspect of education systems in south Asia, the report stated that about a third of students in India and Pakistan, and a quarter in Nepal are in private schools that receive no state assistance. Over 90% of teacher education institutions in India are funded only by fees.
Citing that in 2020, there were about 29,600 unrecognised schools educating 3.8 million students, the report stated that “this may be an underestimate, given differences in the quality of recordkeeping at the state level. In India, an estimated 4,139 unrecognised madrasas educate over 500,000 students.”
Underlining that while regulations are in place against teachers providing tutoring to their own students, no licensing or registration are required to set up a private tutoring business at present.
“A survey found that 73% of parents in India chose private schools because public schools did not meet quality standards, 12% because they offered English-medium education and 10% because public schools were not available.”
An analysis of the preferences of 4,400 parents from low-income households across eight cities in India found that over 86% of the children were enrolled in a budget private school or would expect to transition to one in Class I. The main choice criteria included English-medium instruction, schools’ ability to provide classes beyond pre-primary, proximity to home, and education quality proxies such as school reputation.The report warns that expanding access to education through non-state provision is inequitable. Also, 67,000 of the 97,000 schools established since 2014 have been private and unaided.
According to the report, an estimated 4,139 unrecognised madrassas educate over 5,00,000 students across India.
