Push and pull in Indian educationAshima GoyalContemporary India is a society of startling contrasts ‚ 35 percent of its populace cannot read or write, but it is rapidly acquiring a global reput-ation as a reservoir of technical skills. Have India‚s failures in education been due to poor supply of education ‚ the absence of push ‚ or has a persistent shortage of jobs led to low demand-pull for education? There are arguments for improvement in both areas. But the delivery of quality education, where push meets pull, requires urgent attention. The huge size and youthful structure of its population can be India‚s comparative advantage. It has 20 percent of the world‚s under 24-year-olds, of whom one-third are below 14 years of age. Almost 50 percent of the national population is of working age. Historically countries with such high percentage of working age population have done well. If people are equipped with skills and jobs. These considerations are the crux of the matter. India‚s substantially higher annual rate of economic growth during the past decade is creating more jobs ‚ there is already a shortage of technical skills. In the first quarter of 2005, Infosys and TCS have recruited more than five times the annual graduate output of the six IITs. The British neglected primary education, and successive Indian governments have failed to remedy this lacuna during the past half century. Therefore a massive expansion of education facilities is required. In particular complete availability of primary education will improve equity in Indian society and force a multiplication of institutions of higher education.Rapid advances in infor-mation and communication technologies (ICT) have allowed the world‚s populous but underdeveloped nations to access foreign labour markets. Although technical change sometimes compensates for scarce resources, abundance of a resource can also stimulate technology innovations to utilise it. Greater labour availability induces more labour-intensive technical change. Further developments in ICT will continue to create more jobs in India because of the huge cost savings they offer western corporate majors through outsourcing.Of course India‚s history of pronounced illiteracy within some castes and classes implies they will not immediately be able to access the best jobs, but ICT growth will create a range of jobs. It generates a multiplier effect in terms of supplementary jobs, with one job in ICT creating four supportive jobs. High growth in manufacturing is also bolstering the boom in ICT related jobs, creating more broad based labour demand. So there will be more opportunities for all types of personnel and inducement for the young to acquire and expand their skill-sets. Higher returns on investment in education will inevitably translate into a rise in demand for education all down the education chain. Experience of enhanced wages from acquiring varying degrees of skills will prompt illiterate parents to insist upon education for their children. Since they will also get jobs, it may not be necessary for them to force their children to work. First generation literates may not be able to make it into IITs, but they will get better jobs than their parents. So much for demand. What about expansion in the supply of education? Here there has been massive government failure. Fortunately the private sector is becoming involved in a big way. For example, large ICT firms are becoming interested in education because their future depends on trained manpower. But private education won‚t be affordable for all the poor. Therefore government has to remain active in education at all levels. But major improvements are required in government institutions through provision of appropriate incentives for teachers and students.Quite obviously village schools have functioned poorly. This is one reason why 60 percent of the population is still employed in agriculture. Moreover teacher absenteeism at 25 percent on any given day is higher than in most countries of the world. Research indicates that better infrastructure and activism of parent-teacher associations is the most effective antidote to teacher absenteeism. In this connection it is self-evident that teachers unions have harmed teacher discipline. Stronger local accountability and parent activism would be an effective counter. Moreover it needs to be noted that mothers‚ education improves school attendance to a greater degree than those of fathers. As pull factors make women more willing to send their daughters to school, in time this will strengthen beneficial dynamic tendencies within the economy. To this end schemes such as a mid-day meals and free education for one girl child are excellent initiatives. In sum, more resources and a variety of inputs are required to free Indian schools from their focus on book knowledge which was required to produce Macaulay‚s babus in colonial times. As the education system expands, quality must accompany quantity. If school curriculums emphasise relevant learning and the development of innovative abilities required to seize future opportunities, it will require less push from parents as children will be pulled into schools across the country. (Dr. Ashima Goyal is professor of economics, Indira Gandhi Institute for Development Research, Mumbai)