If you compare the sector with private sector investments in education in other countries the answer would be a resounding “NO”.
If you compare with OTHER SECTORS in India like Telecom, Airlines,Banks, Insurance which have been through a regulated opening up process again the answer would be a resounding “NO”.

So lets not call the half-baked initiatives that exist in India today as “privatisation”.

And as for the comments that privatisation would benefit the profit-seekers and the rich - havent we heard these before when
- telecom was being opened up
- airlines were being opened up
- insurance was being opened up
- banking was being opened up

The question really is can India learn from its OWN success stories in other Sectors and replicate quickly or do we have to agonize sector-by-sector and come to the same conclusions?

The whole mechanism of Education and Health care is not working in India.

Why privatization should get priority in primary education the reason is as follows:
Whenever I travel by train I buy a bottle of Aquafina, or Kinlay .
Both are American MNC making and selling purified drinking water for the elite Indian so class educated middle class, who can afford to buy that.

I really can not trust the drinking water of the Indian Railway stations or even in that case Indian Airport also they are so unhygienic.

My dear friend even after sixty years of independence the govt is not in a position to give safe drinking water and sanitation, how can you think about giving quality primary education.

If you go by Maslows Need Hierarchy, Roti( Wheat) , Kapra( Clothing’s) , Sanitation come in the Physiological need, primary education will be coming in the Safety need one step ahead of Physiological need

Mr. Chidambaram said about 200 Mn Indian are still below the Poverty level.
The basic mind set of the Indian has to change, a total paradigm shift in attitude is required and which is next to impossible.

If you can keep a part of your population illiterate it is beneficial to the political parties, you can brainwash them easily works as a captive vote bank.

Educations give deep analytical power which is dangerous for our political parties to win elections.

A section of the population should be blind so you can have captive vote bank for political parties.

At least the public-private cooperation should be there in the primary education.

Mr. Azim Premji’s education foundation is doing an incredible job.
Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal is also planning to come out with basic schools.

I agree with you all, education gives a tremendous dividend in the long run, though your investment may be minimal.

b) In urban and quasi-urban and erstaz-urban areas there has been a mushrooming of ‘pre-nursery’, ‘nursery’ and 10+2 (recognized) schools and in the long run ‘market factors’ will decide their survival. Most of these schools have been started by first-timers with the aim to make a fast buck and commercial considerations in most of the startups gets primacy over quality of education. High fees and add-ons take a heavy toll on the parents disposable income.

c) Professional and Graduate education has seen a revolution of sorts in UP. Overnight most of the MLAs and MPs have become educationists setting up a chain of such Institutes. Thanks to the innovative channelisation of MPLAD and MLA Constituency FUNDS, erecting massive physical infrastructure has been no problem. But time alone will tell how many of the ‘public-men-educationists’ would attain the status of mini-Madan Mohan Malviyas.

AKS

There are basically no advanced, industrial economies in the world with such a model in existence - at . That should perhaps tell you something. The China example is perhaps instructive too.

Again, I’m ignorant here as to the precise cultural arrangments of Indian society, but I imagine, as someone with some background and knowledge of the sociology of education, is that the problem is cultural and has to do with what parents expect of their children and has little to do with schools. Privatizing education would probably simply lessen the incentive for many children to go to school, especially amongst the poorest and most marginal members of society. A voucher system is somewhat better in that it will help a segment of the poor population, but a considerably larger percentage - who come from background, remember where education is not necessarily valued, will find themselves consigned to the “losing,” dysfunctional schools - if in school at all - as they and their parents won’t care enough to fight for their places in a high performing school. And anyway, the high performing schools can only offer a limited number of places. Public systems are not perfect, but they do at least provide the potential to offer an equitable education to every member of society, even those coming from the most unfavorable backgrounds. This is something a private system can’t claim to do, because it abandons those who don’t care enough about their education - which in a society like India, I imagine, would be a very large number of people. Schools are tools for social engineering if you will. In a sense, they are like the military in the role they play. Its why its one of the few institutions communist societies are effective at producing good education systems and achieving high literacy and numeracy rates.

Perhaps something you should consider is charter schools - basically the government funds education, but the schools themselves are given a lot of freedom to set curriculum/define the schools mission. This is basically the system in Britain and Sweden (and it might be elsewhere) - parts of the United States, particularly cities have this system.

Very well-written article on the state of primary education in India.
The public-private differences in quality can be seen everywhere. In hospitals,
business organisations and also in primary schools.

A few practical measures of determining quality of schools is the quality of faculty and “performance” of the school in the board exams. My impression is that the quality of faculty in majority of the primary schools, is very poor. Couple with this the bad working conditions, poor pay and reluctance of poor parents to send an earning member (student) to the school , you have a recipe for a disaster which is exactly the state of affairs.

However, things are slightly better off in higher education where private players have entered the field of Engineering & MBA and continue to supply graduates to the service sector. Yes, quality & high fee is a problem over here in private colleges but students who would have had no choice 20 years earlier to study engineering if he had not got selected in IIT or RECs , atleast have a “choice” today of fulfilling his dreams.

In the field of primary education, schools like DPS have today entered the rural heartland of Jharkhand & Chattisgarh as joint ventures with some local notable benefactors and are producing better outcomes.

Finally, even after 60 years of independence, the fundamental need of the hour for majority of India still remains “roti,kaapda aur makaan” where primary education is a luxury with a large opportunity cost for many!

Our country needs to solve these basic problems first. That will generate a demand for primay education where private players can participate. Otherwise , if the state wants to make primary education compulsory , it should revamp the faculty & infrastructure to generate better outcomes.

Salty

However, what is the solution - to ask the govt to step away, or to ask it to do its due? I am all for private expenditure, but only after we’ve got our taxpayers worth. Clearly, the govt. should be spending more on education. Ironically, I believe that the debate on privatization leads us to the former approach, and an unintended consequence of that is that the govt. is actually encouraged to spend even less by passing the buck to the private sector.

Yes absenteeism is indeed a problem. But you cannot divorce that problem from its underlying causes (poor pay, no job security, and generally pathetic work conditions). Indeed, turning to an all private system that professionalizes the teaching tradition, has the further unintended consequence of making money the sole motivation (rather than job satisfaction). This last is affecting our higher education system, by focusing teachers’ attention away from teaching towards lucrative industry-focused research.
This is discussed in an upcoming UNESCO volume (I’m happy to provide the reference if you like).