Premlata Poonia grew up among big dreams. Her father was an educator at a government school who dreamt of transforming rural India through education. He insisted that she receive the best education available. But as part of a farming family with deep rural roots, that education did not come without sacrifice.
To send Premlata to a good school, her family moved to a village 10 kilometers away from Likhmewada, Rajasthan, where her father worked. The better school was worth his draining commute. Premlata worked hard to live up to his efforts and was rewarded by acceptance to Maharani College of Jaipur. To support her at this recognized college in a large city, the family had to move again.
Access to schools is only the first step
Premlata’s isn’t the only Indian family to move in search of better education. This might be surprising, given that dedicated government efforts have ensured that 95 percent of Indian children live within one kilometer of a public school. But access to school is not necessarily access to learning. How much good can access to a school do if teachers fail to teach?
A 2009 World Bank survey revealed that 25 percent of Indian teachers simply do not show up to work, and only 50 percent of teachers actually teach when they do show up. What are the rest doing? Enjoying a cup of chai, reading the paper, or chatting with colleagues.
As a result, illiteracy and dropout rates are shockingly high. In fact, education NGO Pratham reports that barely half of Grade 5 students are capable of reading simple text messages in their language of study. And only about one-third of them can solve a simple division problem. Most students drop out before Grade 10.
Room to Read, a nonprofit organization formed to improve the lives of children in developing nations by focusing on literacy and gender equity in education, indicates that 35 percent of the world’s illiterate people live in India. It estimates that by 2020, that number will rise to 50 percent.
We’ve got quantity. Now let’s target quality
The government is taking reform seriously. From 2009 to 2010, spending on education more than doubled to reach $83 billion. The government also formed a dedicated Rural Education Cell and conducted a seminar to identify problems and develop solutions—which included improving teachers’ education and offering higher quality textbooks and learning aids.
Simple and cheap interventions can have a large impact. Pratham found that being tutored by a local community member equipped with only a week’s training helped public school students achieve double the improvement in test scores that could be attained by switching to a private school.
Other efforts seek to personalize learning to make it more engaging for each student. Supported by the Azim Premji Foundation, 1,500 schools in In Uttarakhand are encouraging teachers to stop testing students on memorizing textbook passages, and to start helping them research and write their own stories and reports.
Premlata is proof that we should be optimistic
Premlata and her family worked hard to claim the right to a good education. She’s been accepted into the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, where a scholarship from the K.C. Mahindra Fellows program will support her MBA in social entrepreneurship.
Although most of her family can’t even pronounce her new school’s name, Premlata is full of enthusiasm for the tools her education will give her to improve their lives. She plans to apply her learning about social entrepreneurship to change opportunities in rural India. It’s her hope that the good education she received will not be reserved for only those able to migrate to better schools. Reforms of India’s educational system need to focus on the quality of local public schools so that all students live within one kilometer of an excellent education.
What challenges do you see for students and educators in rural India? Do you think shifting teaching styles away from memorization will improve educational outcomes? What methods do you think are promising?
About Premlata Poonia:
Premlata Poonia, originally from Likhmewada, Rajasthan, is a graduate of the Maharani College of Jaipur. With the support of the K C Mahindra Fellows Fund Scholarship, Premlata will be attending the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, where she plans to earn an MBA in social entrepreneurship.