Towards A Paradigm Shift in Quality Education

The Right to Education (RTE) Act 2009 has made a paradigm shift in public policy to ensure universal admission to public schools from the age of 6-14 as a matter of fundamental right. This has ensured university in access, cutting across genders. However, the findings of Annual Status of Education Reports (ASER) consistently reports serious shortfall in learning outcomes. This is far cry from the experience of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, where the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores shows a more robust trend. This paper examines the contours of the ASER reports in terms of the exact shortfalls in reading and numeracy skills and makes a comparison with the PISA scores. It also makes a comparative assessment of performance of private schools as compared to the public schools and brings out the correlation between allocation and Human Development Index (HDI) outcomes. The author strongly believes that apart from doubling allocation to education, greater attention needs to be paid for improving pedagogy improving teaching skills and fostering greater partnership between the state and schools; so that this merit goods sector, become a safe way to reap demographic dividend and fruits of globalization.