Madhya Pradesh portraits collapsing picture in the Educational Development Index [EDI] on the performance and indicators at primary level education asarticulated inthelatest flash Statistics of District Information System for Education [DISE] report 2008­09 released by NUEPA. The DISE survey of 2008­09 in Madhya Pradesh includes 109757 government schools and 22592 private schools in all the 50 districts of Madhya Pradesh.

• Retention Rate at the primary level education decreased from 94.3 in 2007­08 to 75.14 in 2008­09
• Infrastructure ranking of Madhya Pradesh for primary education slipped from 15th  to 19th  in 2008­09.
• No change in the access ranking for primary students in Madhya Pradesh {13 position}.
• The availability of teachers at the primary level of education is below average with index scoring just 0.438 {32 rank} while it is 0.975 for Kerela {2nd rank}
• 17.44 percentages of primary schools in the state are still having single teacher schools.
• Though combined EDI ranking for primary & upper primary level step forward to 25th  position in 2008­09 from 07­08 but overall index for it is decreased from 0.590 to 0.578.

The EDI, which has four variables ­ access, infrastructure, teachers and outcomes ­ assigns scores and ranks to each of them for the primary and upper primary level and then draws up a composite index. Madhya Pradesh slumps in three among these four variables pertaining to primary education. EDI ranges between 0.00 to 1.00.

Access

Easy access of schools ensures more and more enrollment and retention of students in the schools. Under the access indicators, namely, percentage of un­served habitation, availability of schools per thousand child populations and ratio of primary schools to upper primary schools/sections has been used.

In the absence of coverage data of un­served habitation, the ratio of Primary schools to Upper primary schools/Sections has been used as indicator of access at Upper Primary level of education. Lower ratio means more availability of Upper Primary schools/sections for the existing primary schools. In 2008­09, the ratio of Primary to Upper Primary schools/sections had been lowered only by 0.14 from 2.62 to 2.48 which indicates low availability of upper primary schools in comparison to primary section.

Another vital access indicator is the availability of schools per 1000 child population which is static for last three years with the availability of only 13schools/sections per thousand child populations. If we have to follow the student classroom ratio (SCR) equivalent to 40, then school should be minimum 25 schools/sections for per 1000 child population.

Infrastructure

At a time when the government is trying to increase enrollment in schools, especially for girls, EDI has brought to fore the lack of basic infrastructure with enormous downfall in all India ranking of Madhya Pradesh from 15th in 2007-­08 to 19th in 2008­09. Though, we have made progress in the infrastructure development in 2006-­07 and 2007-­09 but 2008­09, showed reverse trend with the ED index decreased from 0.721 to 0.637. It means still quite large number of schools are running in lack of basic infrastructure and facilities. Infrastructure indicators includes average student classroom ratio (SCR)>40, availability of drinking water facility, common toilets and girls toilet facility in schools.

In Madhya Pradesh 26.67% primary schools are having SCR greater than 40 whereas Kerala which holds 3rd position in composite EDI is having average SCR of 7.85% only. Another distressing feature which hampers retention of girls in the school is the absence of separate toilets for girls inschools. There is girl’s toilet only in 47.60 percentages of schools that decreases further to 41.30% in case of primary schools in the State.

Education in Madhya Pradesh schools is limited to textbooks and many of the youngsters who study here, have never even tried their hands on a Computer unlike the students in metro cities like Delhi who have grown up with computers, gadgets, and gizmos surrounding them. The average percentages of schools having computers have decreased to 10.38 in 2008-­09 from 12.36% in 2007­08 while it is 85.84% for Delhi and 80% for kerela.

Infrastructural misery of Madhya Pradesh is also depicted in the level of electricity connection in schools which demonstrate that only 10.74% primary and overall 20.56% schools are having electricity connections. Still there are large number of schools that are located ininterior areas and are devoid of electricity.

Teachers

Other important indicator is the ratio of teachers in the schools. In 2008­09, lack of teachers contributed further to dwindle the supply of quality education to students. The EDI rank on teacher’s index slipped down from 30th position to 32nd position. 17.44% of primary schools in the state are still single teacher schools. In our state 41.47% upper primary schools have less than three teachers while it is less than 15% for Rajasthan, Bihar, Jharkhand and Gujarat; and only Uttar Pradesh (51.15%) scores higher than Madhya Pradesh.

And there is only one percent downfall in the percentage of all schools having Pupil Teacher Ratio > 60 i.e. from 17.53 in 2007-­08 to 16.55 in 2008-­09.

Output

The last set of indicators is related to outcome indicators amongst which gross enrolment ratio (overall, SC & ST) is the most important one. Average drop­out and repetition rates are other important outcome indicators. The Madhya Pradesh shows modest improvement in outcomes with EDI rank stepping forward to 30th from 35th.
 
Though the outcome index shows positive trend both at primary and upper primary level ranking of Madhya Pradesh. But Gross enrollment ratio (GER) at primary level has also depicted ailing feature as it is decreased from 144.71 in 2007-­08 to 143.91 in 2008­09. Contrary to this the gross enrollment ratio at upper primary has shown increasing trend with increment of 3.76 as GER for 2008­09 robust to 64.24 from 60.48 in 2007-­08.

Though the Madhya Pradesh government has taken strides in enrolling children in schools but there have been little efforts in providing quality education to them thus leading to their retention in schools. Retention Rate at primary level is not very encouraging in Madhya Pradesh as it has decreased from 94.30 in 2007-­08 to 75.14 during last year.

The state's commitment in providing quality education to all its children is clear from its mediocre performance delivery with no change in composite EDI rank at Upper Primary level (26th rank) and even combined position at primary & upper primary EDI escalation of one point from26th rank to 25th position.

Thus it seems the State is striving more and more for expanding higher education in Madhya Pradesh, however, the very foundation of higher learning, the primary education is still one of the major challenges for the government. The state still demonstrates slow pace in terms of performance on four basic variables used in computing Educational Development Index [EDI] at the primary level. But in­spite of only 4247 new government primary schools has been opened in 2008­09. And share of government schools to total school is increased by 0.20 percent only. Until and unless, the easy access, basic infrastructure & availability of quality teachers in not pledged at the primary level, the goal of universalization of education would remain a distant dream.
-----
Info pack has been prepared by Seema Jain of Vikas Samvad under Vikas Samvad Infopack Series/July 10/74

1. The District Information System for Education, DISE that was initiated in seven states in 1994-95 has now expanded to cover all 35 states and UT’s. It provides information on various schools based inputs & processes as well some indicators related to outcomes.
2. National University of Education Planning and Administration