An overview of India’s primary school education policies and outcomes 2005-2011

Universal school enrolment of children aged 6 to 14 years has been a commitment enshrined in the Indian constitution since 1950. To attain this goal, the central government has set up a range of programs, such as incentive programs, teacher grants and infrastructure grants, while state governments s...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Chatterjee, Ishita, Li, Ian, Robitaille, Marie-Claire
Format: Article
Published: Elsevier 2018
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49495/
_version_ 1848798010665861120
author Chatterjee, Ishita
Li, Ian
Robitaille, Marie-Claire
author_facet Chatterjee, Ishita
Li, Ian
Robitaille, Marie-Claire
author_sort Chatterjee, Ishita
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description Universal school enrolment of children aged 6 to 14 years has been a commitment enshrined in the Indian constitution since 1950. To attain this goal, the central government has set up a range of programs, such as incentive programs, teacher grants and infrastructure grants, while state governments share responsibility in implementing those educational policy initiatives. This paper reviews the progress of India’s primary schools over the period 2005-2011 as public educational undertaking shifted more from the centre to the states. Using two waves of the Indian Human Development Survey conducted in 2005 and 2011, we track the progress of primary schools in terms of infrastructure upgrade, teachers’ quality, the costs of education, enrolment and learning outcomes. We find that while progress has been made in terms of infrastructure provision and enrolment, other aspects have either seen no progress or have worsened over time, with notably numerical and reading skills of children 8 to 11 years old worsening over time. Better performing states are generally in the South and in the extreme North. However, in terms of learning outcomes, the abysmal results are nationwide.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T20:12:58Z
format Article
id nottingham-49495
institution University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T20:12:58Z
publishDate 2018
publisher Elsevier
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling nottingham-494952020-05-04T19:33:26Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49495/ An overview of India’s primary school education policies and outcomes 2005-2011 Chatterjee, Ishita Li, Ian Robitaille, Marie-Claire Universal school enrolment of children aged 6 to 14 years has been a commitment enshrined in the Indian constitution since 1950. To attain this goal, the central government has set up a range of programs, such as incentive programs, teacher grants and infrastructure grants, while state governments share responsibility in implementing those educational policy initiatives. This paper reviews the progress of India’s primary schools over the period 2005-2011 as public educational undertaking shifted more from the centre to the states. Using two waves of the Indian Human Development Survey conducted in 2005 and 2011, we track the progress of primary schools in terms of infrastructure upgrade, teachers’ quality, the costs of education, enrolment and learning outcomes. We find that while progress has been made in terms of infrastructure provision and enrolment, other aspects have either seen no progress or have worsened over time, with notably numerical and reading skills of children 8 to 11 years old worsening over time. Better performing states are generally in the South and in the extreme North. However, in terms of learning outcomes, the abysmal results are nationwide. Elsevier 2018-02-21 Article PeerReviewed Chatterjee, Ishita, Li, Ian and Robitaille, Marie-Claire (2018) An overview of India’s primary school education policies and outcomes 2005-2011. World Development, 106 . pp. 99-110. ISSN 0305-750X governmental policies; India; infrastructure; learning outcome; schools https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X18300263 doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.01.016 doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.01.016
spellingShingle governmental policies; India; infrastructure; learning outcome; schools
Chatterjee, Ishita
Li, Ian
Robitaille, Marie-Claire
An overview of India’s primary school education policies and outcomes 2005-2011
title An overview of India’s primary school education policies and outcomes 2005-2011
title_full An overview of India’s primary school education policies and outcomes 2005-2011
title_fullStr An overview of India’s primary school education policies and outcomes 2005-2011
title_full_unstemmed An overview of India’s primary school education policies and outcomes 2005-2011
title_short An overview of India’s primary school education policies and outcomes 2005-2011
title_sort overview of india’s primary school education policies and outcomes 2005-2011
topic governmental policies; India; infrastructure; learning outcome; schools
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49495/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49495/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49495/