IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/dia/wpaper/dt200312.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Education policy reforms and the quality of the school system : a field study of primary schools in Madhya Pradesh, India

Author

Listed:
  • François Leclercq

    (DIAL)

Abstract

(english) Reforms of primary education undertaken in Madhya Pradesh since the mid-1990’s have been said to be bringing the state close to universal enrolment, yet they have sparked much controversy and have hardly been the subject of any independent research. This paper presents the results of a field study of public schools conducted in Betul and Dewas districts in 2002. Substantial progress has been made in enrolling underprivileged children, but the quality of education now deserves more emphasis. Indeed, the ‘education guarantee’ offered is incomplete, as the schools under study are affected by low quantity and poor quality of teaching. The potential for better school management created by decentralisation does not actually translate into adequate incentives (e.g. through the new training and inspection system) for the local residents recently appointed as teachers to work effectively. Meanwhile, there is a risk of fragmentation of the school supply between different types of public and private schools limiting the equalising impact of educational development on rural society. _________________________________ (français) Les réformes de l’éducation primaire entreprises depuis le milieu des années 1990 dans l’Etat du Madhya Pradesh (Inde centrale) ont visé à étendre le secteur public par la création de nombreuses écoles et à en décentraliser la gestion, tout en facilitant le développement du secteur privé. Le taux de scolarisation primaire aurait ainsi considérablement augmenté, mais ces réformes ont suscité des controverses aiguës, alors qu’il en existe peu d’études indépendantes. Cet article présente les résultats d’une étude de terrain menée dans les districts de Betul et Dewas en 2002, portant en particulier sur un programme intitulé «Education Guarantee Scheme ». La scolarisation des enfants issus de milieux défavorisés a manifestement augmenté, mais la « garantie éducative » en question est incomplète, la quantité et la qualité de l’enseignement dispensé dans les écoles étudiées étant insuffisantes. La décentralisation de la gestion des écoles (renforçant notamment la formation et l’inspection des enseignants) ne résulte pas pour l’heure en une structure incitative adéquate pour que les habitants des villages nommés instituteurs puissent enseigner de façon efficace. Enfin, la coexistence de différents types d’écoles publiques et privées risque d’aboutir à une ségrégation sociale du système scolaire qui pourrait limiter l’effet égalisateur du développement de l’éducation sur la société rurale.

Suggested Citation

  • François Leclercq, 2003. "Education policy reforms and the quality of the school system : a field study of primary schools in Madhya Pradesh, India," Working Papers DT/2003/12, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
  • Handle: RePEc:dia:wpaper:dt200312
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://dial.ird.fr/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/2003-12.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2003
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Education; school quality; school management; decentralisation; human capital; India; éducation; qualité de l’éducation; gestion du système scolaire; décentralisation; capital humain; Education Guarantee Scheme; Madhya Pradesh; Inde.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H4 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods
    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • O53 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Asia including Middle East

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:dia:wpaper:dt200312. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Loic Le Pezennec (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/diallfr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.