Five principles integral to better schooling systems

WHILE THERE IS A CASE FOR A COMMON CURRICULUM, IT MUST HAVE OPPORTUNITIES FOR LOCAL DEVELOPMENT OF TEACHING AND LEARNING METHODS THAT RESPECT LOCAL CONTEXTS.

- Amarjeet Sinha

A study recently published by the World Inequality Lab at the Paris School of Economics says that China's manufacturing and productivity leap is rooted in more than 40% of its youth pursuing vocational education in the 1980s, as compared to India's 10%. B Sekhar's recent analysis for the Public Report on Secondary Education (PROSE) study, based on household data from the National Sample Survey and the National Family Health Survey, also highlights the large gaps in access and quality in secondary/vocational education. The PROSE study is a serious effort to understand how India's education and skilling system can contribute to higher productivity and higher wages of dignity.

The most damning statistic on the neglect of primary education in India in the first four decades of freedom comes from the 42nd round of the National Sample Survey (1986-87), which found 69.23% of aged six-plus females in rural India never enrolled in a primary school. Surely, a few high-quality higher education institutions can't make up for India's neglect of primary education.

Why has India's schooling system not done better? Lucy Crehan, a British school teacher who wrote about five high-scoring countries in the learning-outcome benchmark Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) test, provides some answers. Crehan says that in Finland, Singapore, Japan, Canada, and Shanghai (China), five principles explain high-performing, equitable schooling.