The Learning Crisis

Yogesh Khosla
Sustainable Development Goal 4 requires all countries to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.” World Bank’s WDR-2018 has, therefore, chosen to focus on the most important determinant of development i.e learning in schools. The Report throws light on the reasons for learning deficits and makes policy recommendations for rectifying the shortcomings. This piece is a window into this important Report- in the Indian context.
The Report titled “Learning: To Realize Education’s Promise” presents a dismal picture of learning outcomes in low and middle income countries. India, which takes pride in being the fastest developing country and aspires to be world leader, is found to be depressingly low in learning outcomes. In 2016, only half of Grade 5 rural students could read text at the level of Grade 2 curriculum. 85% of Grade 2 rural Indian children could not read a single word of a short text and could not perform a simple two digit subtraction problem. In 2015 in New Delhi, average Grade 6 student performed at Grade 3 level in Maths. It is seen that learning deficits are magnified over time. In learning outcomes, India is at the lowest rung in the company of countries like Uganda, Ghana and Malavi.
Politicians talk about education only in terms of inputs- number of schools, number of teachers, teacher salaries, school grants, but rarely in terms of actual learning. Report clarifies that schooling is not learning. While schooling is the time a student spends in classrooms, learning is the outcome- what the student takes away from schooling.
Why Learning Doesn’t Happen:
Children do not arrive ready to learn:  Poor children have the highest learning deficits which hurts them the most. In nearly all countries, students’ family backgrounds- including parental education, socioeconomic status and conditions at home- remain the largest predictors of learning outcomes. Malnutrition, illness, low parental investments and the harsh environments associated with poverty undermine early childhood learning.
Unskilled and unmotivated Teachers: Teachers are the most important determinant of learning. High quality teachers are in short supply in low-income countries. Across six countries in the Sub-Sahara region, 40% of primary teachers are not as knowledgeable as their students should be. In Bihar only 10.5% of tested government school teachers are able to solve a three digit by one digit division problem and show the steps correctly. According to recent data on 1300 villages in India, nearly 24% of teachers were found to be absent.
School Management Skills are low: Higher management quality and school leadership are associated with better education outcomes. Yet, in many developing countries effective school management is missing. Moreover, lack of autonomy prevents head teachers or school management committees from improving service delivery. In Uttar Pradesh, a quarter of Village Education Committee members surveyed did not even know that they were members. Ineffective school leadership means that school Principals are not actively involved in helping teachers solve problems, do not provide instructional advice, and do not set goals that prioritize learning.
School inputs have not kept pace: Devoting enough resources to education is crucial for improving quality. Inputs often fail to reach classrooms and fail to affect learning if they reach. Technological interventions also fail in many low income/ developing countries due to various reasons.
Strategies to Enhance Learning:
To realize education’s promise, we need to prioritize learning, not just schooling. To achieve learning for all, WDR recommends three complementary strategies:
Assess learning to make it a serious goal. Lack of good measurement means that education systems are often flying blind. Information itself creates incentives for reforms, but many countries lack the right metrics to measure learning. India’s District Information System (DISE) is designed to provide report cards for districts, but of 980 data points reported, none covers student learning. In addition to a good classroom Formative Assessment system, state/region level learning assessment based on samples needs to be implemented.
Act on Evidence to guide innovation and practice. As evidence of the learning crises has grown so has the understanding of what enhances learning. Cognitive neuroscience has evolved dramatically and reveals new insights into how children learn. Using this knowledge, schools in many parts of the world are innovating in approaches to pedagogy, professional development, and the use of new technologies. What stops us from using the evidence from Israel and Kenya which shows that increasing class size by 10 students reduces test scores by four times.
Align actors to make the whole system work for the goal-learning for all. If all stakeholders and different parts of education system fail to work together, learning outcomes will fall far short of what is required. Advocating systems approach, WDR identifies elements where incoherence and misalignment is generally seen.
(The author is former Principal)
feedbackexcelsior@gmail.com

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