Economic Survey Calls for Unified Efforts to Improve Primary Education Quality

New Delhi: The Economic Survey for FY 2023-24, tabled in Parliament on Monday, emphasized the need for a unified effort across the Centre, states, and local bodies to improve the quality of education, especially primary education.

The survey highlighted that the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 aims to ensure foundational literacy and numeracy for every child by the end of third grade in the near future.

"Education is one of the most critical areas for India's development. Implementing well-designed and well-intentioned programs in a mission-mode and cost-effective manner is essential to improve the quality of education, especially primary education. Without quality primary education, further years of education add little value," the survey stated.

The document stressed the importance of coordinated efforts across central, state, and local governments, given that 'public education' falls under the concurrent list.

It also pointed out that enhancing the cost-effectiveness of public spending on education requires investments in pedagogy and governance. This includes filling supervisory positions to monitor teaching quality, recognizing good and bad teacher performance, and hiring local volunteers to ensure 'teaching at the right level' since merely completing textbooks is ineffective if children are far behind curricular standards.

According to the survey, government spending on social services, including education, increased by 9.36 percent to Rs 23.50 lakh crore in FY24 from Rs 21.49 lakh crore in FY23. Of this total, Rs 8.28 lakh crore was allocated to education in FY24, marking an 8 percent increase from Rs 7.68 lakh crore in FY23.

The survey also noted that the increase in higher education enrollment has been driven by underprivileged sections, such as SC, ST, and OBC, with a notable rise in female enrollment across these sections.

"In higher education, the female Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) has exceeded the male GER for five consecutive years. While this indicates the rising importance of girls' education, translating this into economic empowerment will require better learning outcomes, employability, labor force participation, and conducive infrastructure," the survey stated.

Female enrollment in higher education rose to 2.07 crore in FY22 from 1.57 crore in FY15, a 31.6 percent increase since FY15. The growing equity in higher education suggests better employment opportunities for previously disadvantaged sections.

The survey suggested strengthening the link between higher education, industry, and research to better translate Gross Expenditure on Research and Development (GERD) into research output.

"Another challenge is the low 'Lab to Land' time. Indian institutions develop technologies, but their transformation rate from the lab to society remains low. Various efforts are underway to attract research personnel and create adequate opportunities in the nation's research ecosystem. The ease of doing research is being improved through the streamlining of patent grants, significantly reducing the average time for examining a patent application from 72 months in 2015 to between 5 and 23 months in 2022, depending on the technology field," the survey concluded.

(With PTI Inputs)