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skilling India’s 260 million school-going children and dren cannot read class I textbooks and 27.8 percent can’t
40 million in tertiary education is a mere $970 per year. solve can’t recognise two digit numbers. With tens of mil-
Against this, per capita expenditure on education in the US lions of under-educated teens spilling over into tertiary ed-
is $61,000, UK $46,000 and Japan $39,000. ucation institutions, the consequence is dire. According to
Way back in 1967, the high-powered Kothari Commis- Aspiring Minds, a Delhi-based personnel recruitment and
sion recommended that the annual expenditure (Centre placement firm, over 70 percent of engineering and 80-85
plus states) for educating India’s children should “not fall percent of arts, science and commerce college graduates are
below” 6 percent of GDP. That target has never been at- unfit for employment in Indian and foreign multinational
tained. Since India wrested political independence from op- companies. Little wonder that the average productivity of
pressive British rule in 1947, national expenditure on public an American and Chinese shop-floor worker is 10x and 7x of
education has averaged 3.5 percent of GDP. his Indian counterpart. Similarly, in agriculture per hectare
Sustained underinvestment in human capital develop- yields, the US and China are many multiples of foodgrain
ment — the direct outcome of abandoning India’s tradi- yields in Punjab, India’s most efficient agriculture state.
tional free enterprise economic development model and The root cause: substandard and/or poor quality public
adopting the Soviet-inspired public sector enterprises education.
(PSEs)-driven model which resulted in perennially loss- Nevertheless even if employee productivity of Indian
making PSEs becoming a millstone of the Indian economy industry, agriculture and the services sectors compares
— has had terrible consequences. Over 300 million adults in unfavourably with OECD countries, there’s no gainsaying
21st century India are comprehensively illiterate. Moreover, that absolute and per capita GDP growth has improved
learning outcomes in primary education in rural India — significantly, especially after the historic liberalisation
which grudgingly hosts 60 percent of the population — as and deregulation of the Indian economy in 1991. In 1990,
recorded in the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) India’s GDP was $320 billion and per capita income was
of the authoritative Pratham Education Foundation — are $1,190. Currently, the country’s GDP is $3 trillion and per
rock bottom, especially in government primary/elementary capita income is $11,000 (unadjusted for inflation). Al-
schools. though it’s a well-kept secret within the academy and the
According to ASER 2019, 46.6 percent of class III chil- media dominated by champagne socialists and Cadillac

FEBRUARY 2022 EDUCATIONWORLD 35