India

India's disadvantage vis-à-vis other countries in primary school participation
rates is now much smaller compared to that for youth literacy rates, since 93.4
per cent of Indian elementary school age children were enrolled in school in
2006 according to the Annual Survey of Education Report (ASER)
(Pratham, 2007 ). 1 However, as Figure 1 shows, at the secondary school level,
India is again at a large disadvantage with respect to all three other BRIC
countries where secondary enrolment rates are far above those predicted for
countries at their levels of per-capita GDP. Brazilian and Russian secondary
school net enrolment rates are 27 percentage points higher than that of India.
Figure 2 shows that India is more than 30 years behind China in terms of the
proportion of the population with completed secondary and post-secondary
schooling.
Comparable data on learning achievement of students are not available for

most of the countries with which India is commonly compared. For instance,
none of the South Asian countries nor China participated in international
studies of learning achievement such as the ‘Trends in International
Mathematics and Science Study’ (TIMSS 2003) in which 46 countries
participated, or in the ‘Progress in International Reading Literacy Study’ (PIRLS
2001) in which 35 countries participated. Moreover, South Asia does not have
the equivalent of the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring
Educational Quality (SACMEQ) study, which is a regional inter-country
comparative study of achievement levels in 14 African countries. 2 However,
World Bank ( 2006 ) applied the TIMSS questions to secondary school students
in the Indian states of Rajasthan and Orissa, with the permission of the Indian
Ministry of Human Resource Development. The findings show that the
international mean achievement in the maths test was 52 per cent for grade 8
students but the average scores of Rajasthan and Orissa students on the same
test were 34 and 37 per cent, respectively. Similarly, the international mean of
achievement was 57 per cent for grade 12 students but the corresponding
scores for Indian students were 44 and 38 per cent in Rajasthan and Orissa,
respectively. 3 However, the high international average percentage mark from
the 46 TIMSS countries included both high- and low-income countries. When
India did participate in international studies of learning achievement in the
early 1970s, the performance of Indian children was poor relative to most
participating developing countries, according to the International Association
for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA).
III Schooling access and quality
At independence, India inherited a legacy of large-scale illiteracy and lack of

proper provision for education. At the first post-independence census of 1951,
only 9 per cent of women and 27 per cent of men were literate. It was resolved
by the framers of the constitution that the new Indian state would endeavour
to provide free and compulsory education to all children up to age 14 by 1960.
This goal turned out to be elusive and the deadline for its achievement has
been put back repeatedly in the past 55 years. While even today this goal
remains unfulfilled, there has been very encouraging progress in schooling
participation and other educational outcome indicators in recent times. We
consider several educational access and quality indicators next.
(i) Primary and secondary enrolment rates
The ASER2006 survey (Pratham, 2007 ) provides the latest picture of schooling
participation in India. It finds that 93.4 per cent of all elementary-school-age
children (6–14 year olds) were enrolled in school—an encouraging statistic,
reflecting a good deal of progress compared to enrolments in the early
1990s. 5 Among children aged 11–14 years, enrolment was lower: 10.3 per
cent of girls and 7.7 per cent of boys were out of school (either never enrolled
in school or dropped out). Among 15–16 years olds, the corresponding out-of-
school figures rose steeply to 22.7 per cent and 20.2 per cent, respectively, for
girls and boys. The distinction between enrolment and current school
attendance is important and we discuss current attendance in section (ii)
below. Drèze and Kingdon ( 2001 ) find that both demand- and supply-side
factors are important in explaining schooling participation in India.
Figure 1 shows a gross enrolment rate in secondary education of 47 per cent.
While below the level predicted for a country of India's per-capita income
level, secondary enrolment rates have risen impressively in India (World
Bank, 2006 ). Demand for secondary education has risen (partly via increase in
private schooling) because it is a lucrative level of education to acquire.
Kingdon ( 1998 ) and Kingdon and Unni ( 2001 ) find, using sample selectivity-
corrected earnings equations, that the education–wage relationship is convex
in India, i.e. returns to secondary and higher education are significantly greater
than to primary and middle levels of education. 6 Estimation of wage functions
using National Sample Survey data also confirms that wage returns to
education increase with education level: the coefficient on the quadratic term
in ‘years of education’ is large, positive, and statistically significant in almost
every state for both genders (Kingdon, 2007 ). Moreover, Figure 3 shows that
for both men and women, the returns to higher secondary and tertiary
education have risen consistently over time. For women, the return to primary
education has fallen, but for men it has remained static. These findings are
based on National Sample Survey data analysed by Duraisamy ( 2002 ),
Vasudeva-Datta ( 2006 ), and World Bank ( 2006 ).
Using National Sample Survey data for 1999/2000, we find there is a good deal
of interstate variation in the extent of inequality in access to secondary
schooling, as seen in Figure 4 . The inequality (measured as the difference in
access to secondary education among those in the top and bottom quintiles of
the distribution of household per-capita income) is greatest in Haryana,
Andhra Pradesh, and the so-called ‘BIMARU’ (literally ‘sick’, but meaning
generally backward) states—Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar
Pradesh—which lag behind in many other indicators of social development.
The inequality is lowest in the left-leaning states of Kerala and West Bengal.
(ii) School attendance rates

Current attendance rates are a more reliable indicator of schooling
participation than enrolment rates, since large enrolment rates measured at
the start of the school year can mask non-attendance and/or drop-out later in
the school year. Table 2 shows current school attendance rates from the
National Family Health Surveys (NFHS) of 1993 and 1999 (NFHS 2005 data are
not available yet). In this short 6-year period, school attendance among rural
6–10-year-old girls and boys increased by 20 and 12 percentage points,
respectively; these are very substantial increases. In the rural 11–14 year age
group, increases were more modest but still large, especially for girls, at 13.7
per cent. Urban increases (not shown) were smaller. Andhra Pradesh, Madhya
Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh made very large improvements in their
current school attendance rates, particularly in rural areas, where, in each of
these four states, attendance rates rose by over 25 percentage points in the 6-
year period. Overall, nearly 80 per cent of all 6–14-year-olds were attending
school in 1999. 8 One of the best ways to measure school attendance rates is
to observe a student's attendance in class at several points in time throughout
the school year. A recent study using this method shows that attendance
varied from 43 per cent in Bihar and 59 per cent in Uttar Pradesh, to very high
rates (in the 90s per cent) in the more educationally progressive states
(MHRD, 2007 )
(iii) Literacy rates
Data from the 1991 and 2001 Indian censuses in Table 3 show that in the
population aged 7 years and older, literacy rates rose substantially in the 1990s
from 52 to 65 per cent, an increase of 13 points. This is the highest absolute
increase in any decade since records began in 1881. 9 Over this 10-year period,
the gender gap also began to close noticeably, as seen in Figure 6 . Some states
experienced particularly rapid literacy increases, e.g. in Madhya Pradesh and
Rajasthan, literacy rates rose by 20 and 22 percentage points, respectively. The
increase in female literacy was also large in these states, as well as in Uttar
Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. However, Bihar and Gujarat made poor progress.
Latest NSS data show that in the population aged 7 years and older, in 2004–5,
the literacy rate was 77 per cent among males, 57 per cent among females,
and 67.3 per cent overall (NSS, 2006 ).

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India's disadvantage vis-à-vis other countries in primary school participation

Comparable data on learning achievement of students are not available for

III Schooling access and quality

At independence, India inherited a legacy of large-scale illiteracy and lack of

(ii) School attendance rates

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