Education and Inequality in India

A Classroom View

Manabi Majumdar, Jos Mooij

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780415495349
• eBook ISBN: 9781136680540
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Universalization of primary education has been high on the policy agenda in India. This book looks at the reproduction of social inequalities within the educational system in India, and how this is contested in different ways. It examines whether the concept of `education for all' is just a mechanically conceived policy target to chasing enrolment and attendance or whether it is a larger social goal and a deeper political statement about the need for attacking entrenched social inequalities.

Drawing on original data collected in the two states of Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal, the authors present the multiple ways in which social class impinges on the educational system, educational processes and educational outcomes. The book goes on to explore issues around autonomy and accountability via an analysis of the position of teachers within the educational hierarchy, and by looking at the various possibilities of making teachers accountable. Recommendations related to the necessity for a larger debate and normative framework are made, including whether private schools should play a role, and whether it is necessary to move from government action and responsibilities to a broader concept of public action. The book presents in interesting contribution for students and scholars of South Asian studies, as well as Education and Public Policy studies.

1 Introduction

Education and inequality

In the course of our fieldwork we have talked with many children and adolescents about their experiences in school and their ideas about the relevance of education more generally. It only seems appropriate to start this book with the thoughts of one of them, a teenage boy living in Kolkata.

No matter what controversies swirl around the question of education, we have to acknowledge its importance. Education assists the development of our capacity for making intelligent and informed judgement. … It is true that even with education it is hard to get a job; that is why household heads sometimes think it wasteful to spend on their children’s education … But why assume that schooling will automatically guarantee a regular job in an organisation? Rather, it provides basic support for becoming active in life. … Education serves the role of a mirror; just as a mirror reflects the reality in front of it, education mirrors our inner development.

(Interview November 2009)

During our conversation, this boy had informed us about his educational history. After his family had found it impossible to pay for his education, he managed to seize the slender ‘second chance’ to complete his school education through the open school system.¹ At the time of our discussion, he combined a temporary job with distance education. This was certainly not easy, especially since he had simultaneously to fight poverty, academic challenges and social indifference around him. Yet, as we see from the quote, he not only developed an understanding of the meaning of education, he was also able to explain this very eloquently.

There are many children like this boy who have started to experience and appreciate the power of learning. Many of them will be referred to later in this book: a Bengali girl from a very poor background growing up in Hyderabad and now working as a teacher in an ambitious NGO school; teenage girls who work as domestic help but are allowed to go to afternoon classes and work with great concentration on their assignments; energetic and dynamic boys and girls in a government school begging the teacher to tell one more story. Indeed, what often struck us were the positive attitudes towards schooling that many of the children we have met during our research hold. Given the harsh social and economic conditions of their parents and communities that make it difficult for them to reap education-related advantages, it remains remarkable that they see concrete instrumental and intrinsic values of education. There is no doubt that some children enjoy being in school and what they are taught.

At the same time, during our fieldwork, we saw many dispirited children: children in the corridor outside the classroom, just sitting there and waiting to be attended to; children almost falling asleep in the classroom. We observed instances of, and heard stories about, routine beating and other forms of physical abuse. We also came across many children who rarely or never go to school. They, or their guardians, felt the school was of little use. Examples of the opposite, an extreme faith in the benefits of schooling, are also in abundance. There are millions of children who, on a day-to-day basis, complement the hours spent in school with additional hours spent in a coaching centre where they are drilled for the annual examinations. We heard of stories of children who were put under so much pressure to score high marks that they were no longer able to cope and committed suicide.² Obviously, there are also many children for whom schooling is not fun. Throughout our fieldwork, we have seen many instances of poor teaching, extreme exam-orientation, inequity and injustice in the school system in India.

It is exactly this conundrum that motivated our study on primary schooling: how is it possible that an activity that can be so enjoyable and creative is often organised in such a way that it becomes a mindless drill? How is it possible that an institution with so much empowering potential often fails so miserably?

We started this chapter with a quote from a youngster in Kolkata who refers to education as a mirror. He himself may not have been aware of this, but this mirror metaphor has been used more often, sometimes along with the window metaphor. Education, according to an American educationist, ‘needs to enable the student to look through window frames in order to see the realities of others and into mirrors in order to see her/his own reality reflected’ (Style 1996: 35). In our study, we often wondered what kind of mirror or window school education is in reality, and for whom. We are convinced that school education has the potential to open windows and provide critical reflections to all children, whether from privileged or disadvantaged backgrounds. By training capabilities and analytical skills, it can help children to expand their horizons; it can also give them the insight that life can be lived in many different ways, and that there may be good reasons to question ‘wisdoms’ they were used to accept uncritically. In actual practice, however, this is often not what happens. What we saw, and what Sleeter (2009) also noted, is that schools are often a mirror for the children of the middle class and elite, who see the dominant worldview reflected in the curriculum, while it is a window frame for students of non-dominant groups who get a peep into the world of the dominant society. Unfortunately, more often than not, primary schools, through their policies and everyday classroom practices, their curriculum and their textbooks, reproduce the background social inequalities within which the school is embedded.

The main theme of this book is this reproduction of social inequalities within the educational system in India, and how this is contested in different ways. This theme is explored at various levels, ranging from the educational system as a whole to the classroom and the textbooks. This means we address questions such as: What are the main mechanisms through which schooling reproduces social inequalities (of gender, caste, class or religion) within the government-run public schools, and between public and private schools? What has been the impact of policy efforts to redress inequities in access to quality education? What has been the role of teachers in reproducing inequalities, and how do pedagogic practices and curriculum content reinforce social hierarchies? But also, what kinds of counter-practices exist that can make the system of primary education more enabling and equitable? Throughout our investigation, our analysis is primarily grounded in the empirical. It is on the basis of our observations in classrooms and elsewhere and our discussions with many people involved in the educational system that we try to unravel the forces and processes that, on the one hand, tend to stabilise background inequalities within the school system and, on the other hand, generate, with more or less success, counter-pressures and practices working in favour of greater equity in education.

This theme of how background social inequalities are operative within the school system is not new. It has been widely researched before by many scholars. We believe, however, that in the current context this theme assumes a new significance for at least two reasons. One is the concerted effort all over the world as well as in India to achieve universal elementary education. This has led to a mass entry in the education system of groups who were so far excluded from schooling. Has this entry of the previously excluded groups been a beneficial development? What impact has it had on the relationship between education and the reproduction of social inequalities? The second reason has been the simultaneous phenomenon of ‘elite flight’ from government schools in favour of private schools. In India, this has resulted in a situation such that in large parts of the country government-run primary schools are populated almost exclusively by children from less privileged backgrounds. What has been the effect of this segregation? What kind of learning takes place in the various kinds of schools? New questions can, hence, be raised in this old debate.

In the remainder of this introduction, we will first locate ourselves in the theoretical debate about the social role and purpose of education. The second section provides a brief introduction to some of the important dimensions of the relationship between education and inequality in India. In the third section we describe the methodology of our study, while the fourth section introduces the reader to the various chapters of the book.

Education as control and education as freedom

There is a rich literature on the idea of educational development, its political purpose and the practices of advancing it. Many scholars, using diverse theoretical perspectives, have framed the issues in different ways, and have developed different interpretations as well as normative and political positions. There is no way in which this section can do justice to this debate. At the same time, as a backdrop to the rest of the book, there is a need to explain our own position, and therefore to discuss and reflect upon some of the other positions, though in a necessarily in-exhaustive manner.

At the risk of oversimplification but as a heuristic device, we start by contrasting two broad schools of thought: one that sees education as a tool for social domination and control, and the other that regards education as a liberating force and a correlate of social justice.³ Both schools of thought have influenced our study thoroughly, although they are very different indeed. The proponents of the first view hold that the purposes or promises of education are not straightforwardly benign or equitable, let alone the policies and institutions that claim to actualise them. This view foregrounds the power structure within which educational programmes, institutional delivery, and even the education discourse are framed, and highlights the processes through which education is rendered as a tool of cultural and ideological domination. The advocates of the second view, on the other hand, see mainly benefits – intrinsic and instrumental (Drèze and Sen 1995) – of education. At the individual level, education leads to an expansion of human capabilities. This may be liberating or empowering; it may also lead to more job opportunities and a higher income. Collectively, this expansion of human capabilities can lead to benefits such as, for instance, a healthier population, economic growth or a more democratic society. Many of these advocates see education therefore as a basic human right that should be guaranteed to all people.

The first school of thought includes seminal writings by Apple, Bourdieu and Passeron, Bowles and Gintis, Illich, Kumar, and Willis. In different ways, these authors argue that educational institutions play an important role in the reproduction of an unequal social order. They prepare children/students to become workers in a hierarchical and stratified capitalist production process (Bowles and Gintis 1976; Willis 1977). Schools discipline and control, and therefore make young people lose their capacity to think and act independently (Illich 1970). They define what is valuable knowledge, and hence ‘whose knowledge is of most worth’ (Apple 2000; Kumar 1991). Because they impose the same standards and criteria to all students, they not only reproduce but also justify existing inequalities, exactly because it is much easier for elite children to meet these so-called objective, neutral standards than it is for children of less privileged backgrounds (Bourdieu and Passeron 1977). In a number of recent studies on the education scenario in India we find echoes of similar reasoning. Jeffrey et al. (2008), for example, argue that education has to be understood as a contradictory resource, that is to say, a resource that, in principle, can provide marginalised children and adolescents with certain freedoms but that may also draw them more firmly into systems of inequality.⁴

The second school of thought, drawing upon authors such as Nussbaum and Sen, regards education, in principle, as a positive force. Nussbaum (2005, 2008) and Sen (1999a, 2009a) have conceptualised education in terms of human capabilities. Being knowledgeable and having academic skills is itself a capability that can enrich people’s lives. Apart from that, education is important for the expansion of other capabilities. Being well-educated helps people to make better choices with regard to nutrition and health; it can also help them to participate more meaningfully in public debates and democratic processes. Good and just societies, according to these authors, should therefore contribute to the expansion of the capabilities of all people – irrespective of gender, caste, class or other divisions. For Sen, capabilities may not necessarily lead to certain outcomes. His point is, rather, that they open up possibilities, and therefore create more freedom, to decide what kind of life one values and wishes to live. Education, in this approach, is hence fundamentally linked to both social justice and freedom. This capability framework goes well together with the idea of education as a human right. Because education is so important for developing human capabilities, every child has a right to decent education – irrespective of whether this education pays off economically.⁵

Implicit in these debates about the social function and purpose of education are different conceptualisations of the role of the state. The idea of education for social and political control focuses squarely on the power dynamics operative within and around the state apparatuses. The education policies of the state are, therefore, not considered to be straightforwardly positive or even neutral. Instead, it is argued that apparently egalitarian policy rhetoric and actions to spread education for all are usually fraught with contradictory intents, and, even if not, are bound to have outcomes that are basically reproducing the status quo. The idea of education as a progressive force, on the other hand, assumes a more benign state working more or less in the general interest, or in any case the possibility that societies, through a process of democratic deliberation, can decide what kind of schooling they value, and how that should be provided.

Both perspectives have limitations, and it is for that reason that they, in a way, can be seen as complementary. The first view, focusing on control and hegemony, is often somewhat silent about whether and what kind of counter-forces may emerge – say, in the form of public action or policy activism. It assumes not only that education is a powerful tool for socialisation into a given social milieu or position within that milieu, but also that state institutions have the capacity to shape and mould educational institutions to the extent necessary. In other words, the hegemonic potential of educational institutions is taken for granted, and the possibility of counter-hegemonic forces remains underemphasised and under-theorised. The capabilities framework, on the other hand, may lead to a somewhat unsuspecting and benign view of the role of the state or the democratic process. This framework comes with a risk of taking insufficient notice of the power dynamics operative within the education apparatuses, in its policy framing and in the processes of implementation. So, while dominance may be taken as sheer predominance in the first school, thereby foreclosing any possibility of a democratically informed school reform, the second may easily overemphasise the feasibility of such transformation.⁶

As mentioned already, our own conceptual framework draws upon the ‘reproduction and control’ school as well as the ‘capability and freedom’ perspective. The position that we try to argue and develop throughout this book is that, while a particular school system and its underpinning values may serve primarily the reproduction of an unequal social order, the possibility of going against this mainstream is not foreclosed. It remains possible that there are smaller or larger pockets in which school education enhances basic human capabilities and freedoms, even though, more often than not, such freedom may fade quickly owing to a myriad of forces of power and hierarchy that define the social context and content of education. Our understanding is not just that both perspectives are relevant and that it is an empirical question which of the two is more practically adequate in explaining a particular situation. Rather, it is an acknowledgement of the social construction of reality: it is in a social process that education is made a tool in the reproduction of an unequal social order, or an instrument that advances freedom and social justice – or something in between. Ours is, hence also a political standpoint: that education can be liberating, that schooling can contribute to social justice and greater equality, compels us to comprehend how this can be achieved, that is, how the second perspective can be made more real.

This book aims to contribute to such insight. By scrutinising some of the mechanisms that play a role in the reproduction of inequality, and by highlighting some of the ways in which educational inequalities are challenged, this book aims to contribute to an understanding of how the liberating force of education can be achieved. We do not assume – and here we differ from most EFA activists in governments, NGOs or international organisations – that this potential is automatically present, that it only needs to be actualised or uncovered. Rather, it is the result of contestation, democratic jostling, social justice activism – forms of ‘positive power’, in the terminology of Apple and Christian-Smith (1991: 7), which sometimes have the potential to challenge the ‘negative’ powers that be.

It is this understanding of the (potential) role of education in development that informs our notion of educational quality. In line with the argument above, we regard educational quality not only in terms of academic skills that children may acquire – although these are certainly important – but also in terms of the extent to which schools contribute to the expansion of capabilities and freedoms of all children. This means that quality is fundamentally linked to social justice and equality – and not in opposition to the latter, as it is sometimes conceptualised.⁷ Its meaning, hence, extends far beyond the achievement of good exam results or the fulfilment of particular managerial or efficiency targets.

Education and inequality in India – a brief overview

Obviously, there is a historical context that needs to be taken into account to understand the contemporary school system in India. In a brief and rather simplified way, the historical trajectory of educational development in India can be summarised with reference to a few distinctive phases: the colonial period, the period of nation building in the first decades after independence, and the subsequent phase in which India became increasingly integrated in a globalised economy. In each of these phases, education has played a different role.

The colonial project of education was to train a selected number of people as clerks for the colonial administration. The Macaulay’s Minute on Indian Education (1835) that largely shaped the colonial education policy mentions explicitly the objective of creating ‘a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern, – a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect’.⁸ This project, by and large, su...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface
• List of abbreviations
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: Education and inequality
• 2 Segmentation and segregation: The reproduction of inequality in the schooling system
• 3 State action and inaction in elementary education: Paradoxes within the policy process
• 4 Teachers’ professionalism and social class: Ambivalences in the life of government school teachers
• 5 Teachers and children: Interactions in the classroom
• 6 Pedagogy at the grassroots: About teaching practices and assessments
• 7 Quality and equality: Interpreting textbooks
• 8 Contesting inequalities through activism
• 9 Some afterthoughts
• Bibliography
• Index