Tug-of-war over a $500-mn World Bank loan to transform school education

World Bank says loan will boost public-service delivery without enabling privatisation; experts against handing over primary education to non-state entities, find project goals dissonant

On June 24, 2020, the World Bank cleared a $500-million (about Rs 3,700-crore) loan to improve the quality and governance of school education in six Indian states. The Strengthening Teaching-Learning and Results for States Program (STARS) was to support India’s focus on addressing the learning outcome challenge and help students acquire skills to better prepare for jobs of the future — through a series of reform initiatives.

In less than a month of the announcement, the project and the loan have raised considerable concerns across the country. Many experts say handing over of primary education to non-state entities is not the way forward; they emphasise that the goals of the project seem internally inconsistent and do not adequately address challenges arising from India's socio-economic divide. The Covid-19 crisis has also underlined concerns about overt dependence on information and communication technologies (ICTs) and the digital divide it leads to.

Since the approval of the loan, the World Bank has responded by assuring consultations with stakeholders. It has redrafted the project document to address concerns, including some related to equity and diversity. However, as the project moves forward, it is only the beginning of a long journey for those implementing it and those demanding its rehaul.

The STARS project

The programme aims to improve learning-assessment systems, strengthen classroom instruction and remediation, facilitate school-to-work transition, and strengthen governance and decentralised management.

These are done by identifying and funding components of the Union government’s flagship school education programme Samagra Shiksha, and in partnership with six selected states – Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Odisha, and Maharashtra – to scale components of Samagra Shiksha.

The cost of the programme is $3.35 billion, of which the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) is to finance $1.79 billion, states are to contribute about $1.06 billion over the period of the project’s operation, and the World Bank is to finance to the extent of $500 million (15 per cent) over a six-year period after approval.

Prior to the Rs 3,700-crore loan being sanctioned for strengthening of primary education, over 1,400 academicians, practitioners, and teachers’ unions had raised concerns about its mandate.

These concerns have not just been about the details of the project plan. They are about broader issues like handing over of government schools to non-state providers who would take over school operations and management while retaining government teachers and outsourcing services like teacher-training and school leadership. There were concerns about seeking support of management firms and NGOs, and also introducing school vouchers, a direct benefits transfer that would allow parents to choose between public and private school for their children.

Shabnam Sinha, lead education specialist, World Bank, in an emailed response to Business Standard, explains that STARS is about strengthening public-service delivery, and not about enabling privatisation. “The project provides for ongoing engagement with “non-state actors” which will enable states to partner with a range of not-for-profit agencies, including non-governmental agencies, philanthropies, and others, to strengthen the public education delivery systems.”

She emphasises that all non-state actors would be not-for profit-entities as required under the Right to Education Act.

Is handing the system over to non-state actors the way ahead?

Concerns around non-state actors may seem to stem from the age-old ideological battle of “public education vs privatisation.” According to Kiran Bhatty, senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, issues of privatisation, especially in primary education, are never just ideological.

“There is a real problem with privatisation of schools in India. A large number of students cannot afford the usual private schools. The low-fee private schools usually tend to be of low quality.”

While the project aims to address poverty and improve governance mechanisms or systems in public schools to deliver better teaching or learning, Bhatty explains that handing over the system to non-state actors is not the way ahead.

“The project mentions improving governance and decentralisation, but what it means is reducing governance tasks and improving efficiency by involving private or non-state actors. That is not improving governance of the public system. That is asking non-state actors to come in and improve the management of the public sector,” she says.

According to her, to strengthen public education and to improve the governance of the public sector, there is a need to build capacity in the public sector and within service delivery.

Anurag Behar, CEO of Azim Premji Foundation, believes that non-state actors could contribute on many aspects and levels so long as they are completely committed to public education. These could range from capacity development of teachers and education functionaries to curriculum and text-book development.

He adds: “This requires the non-state actor to have deep and real expertise in education, not merely have money, good intentions, or ‘management’ skills. It also requires humility to accept that the complexity and scale of education is such that one can only make a small contribution; no one knows the answers for all places, and given the social-human process that education is, it requires continuous work.”

Other concerns have been about equity issues and how the project would include specific concerns of marginalised and vulnerable children, facing discrimination which directly impacts their education. The World Bank has addressed these in detail in the new project document.

World Bank’s Sinha says: “The project will support the creation of a holistic behaviour change and communication strategy in every project state. This will involve developing communication models targeting marginalised groups, parents, and communities to prevent social discrimination at the school level.”

Anjela Taneja, education lead at Oxfam India, says: “The specific socio-cultural-political aspects remain inadequately addressed because even if there are mentions of specific communities, these do not do justice to the specifics of each category. Also, it is unclear how structural gaps in inequality between the rich and poor will be addressed.”

Non-strategic use of technology and the voucher system

Many components of the project depend on leveraging information and communication technologies. An analysis on STARS by Oxfam India concludes that unless the project aims to massively invest in basic government school infrastructure, any use of ICT in classrooms remains unrealistic at a system level.

According to UDISE data, in 2016-17, about 35.6 per cent of India’s elementary schools lacked electricity connection. Only 36.8 per cent of secondary schools had a working computer, and no information was available about computer access at the elementary school level.

On the question of the use of technology in school education, Rukmini Banerji, CEO, Pratham Education Foundation, explains that the Covid-19 crisis has created a good landscape to experiment and understand what works and what does not, and build infrastructure accordingly. One of the challenges she foresees is grasping and adapting to the variations that emerge.

“We cannot do in June what we decided to do at the beginning of April because situations are changing so rapidly. It is time to understand what features work right now and what will work later.”

She explains that this is a time to ask tough questions. “What technology can reach the children, and what are the learning possibilities that can emerge? How can existing resources collaborate and serve the last mile? It is a time to think about how one might reach every single child in a scenario where there is variable access to technology. Also remember that a combination of continuous human interaction is needed along with appropriate inputs.”

There have been concerns about direct benefits transfers for school choice, or the ‘voucher’ system. This would allow parents to choose between public and private schools for their children. Many believe that this is not a step in improving public schools, and pushes parents to private education. However, the proponents of the voucher system say that it offers parents the choice to pick schools according to their preference.

According to Parth Shah, president of the Centre for Civil Society, the success of an idea depends on many variables, and in the understanding of local context and constraints in implementation. Whether or not vouchers will work in India depends on the design and implementation of the idea.

He says there is a need to focus on state capacity and bringing systemic reforms in government schools while at the same time giving people choice and allowing private schools to make meaningful contributions. This could go a long way in improving the immediate and overall education system of the country.

“The low level of state capacity and the challenges of the kind of systemic reforms needed to make a state deliver high-quality education to all make vouchers a compelling idea. Using public funds to empower poor parents to have the same means as the rich in the country is the biggest argument for vouchers.”

Learning states and lighthouse states

World Bank’s Sinha explains that the STARS project represents the Bank’s strategic shift from supporting large national programmes like Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan to focused engagements with select states — Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, and Rajasthan.

“This approach will enable increased focus on on-ground delivery, increase accountability for outcomes and allow states to customise their approach based on their unique challenges and stakeholder inputs,” she says.

The six selected states have been put into two categories. The first is of ‘Learning States’ (Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Odisha — each of which needs more support to improve reform initiatives). And the second is that of ‘Lighthouse states’ (Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, and Rajasthan — to scale up their reform initiatives and strengthen areas that need support financing).

There have been questions on the selection criteria of the states. In its response to Business Standard, the World Bank clarified: “The six states were selected by the MHRD based on their national Performance Grading Index (PGI) and on geographical representation.”

The selected states have welcomed the project, as it works within the mandate of Samagra Shiksha. According to A Shajahan, secretary, general education, Kerela: “Criticism is always there with the introduction and intervention of new schemes and we take it positively. Why should we be afraid if there is some money coming in for modernisation and strengthening the capacity of an existing system? We are working within government policies.”

Why are World Bank loans criticised?

The $500-million loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) has a final maturity of 14.5 years, including a grace period of five years. Before its sanction, there was criticism of the World Bank and other such agencies involved in education projects.

According to Behar, the World Bank and many agencies received a pushback because relative to overall public expenditure on education, such loans or aids were very small. He explains that many of these agencies have often pushed damaging flawed educational ideas, such as large-scale standardised testing, and reductionist teacher accountability.

“The agencies involved use the ‘discretionary’ nature of the funds to place conditions that further their own agendas (and/or ideology) rather than what is really needed for the system,” he says.

Jayati Ghosh, professor of Economics at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University, and one of the signatories of the letter calling for postponement of the loan, says: “Loans that allow World Bank to influence policy in directions not determined by the government are always undesirable. They add to the debt burden while forcing additional expenditure and privatisation. Public education does not need this kind of intervention, which has had a very unhappy past record in India.”

STARS will continue to engage with stakeholders

In an oped in The Hindu on June 29, CPR’s Bhatty, and independent researcher Martin Haus wrote about the need to overhaul the project. They explained why state capacity could not be built by giving a larger role to non-state actors and by increasing the use of technology.

They said: "... there are some preconditions for effective governance within the public sector that must be met before either technology or non-state actors can be useful.”

Taneja says: “The entire project is not bad. That is why the opposition was to delay the loan and restructure the project, particularly the areas that need to be explicitly addressed and looked into.”

The project was approved on June 24 without a formal discussion (on an “absence of objection” basis), though members of the World Bank board raised concerns directly with the World Bank management, as a response to the letter from the Indian civil society. The Bank has now committed itself to a wider consultation with the civil society and given an assurance that no project funding would go to for-profit private education providers.

On the question of the way ahead, the World Bank has been responsive to concerns and criticisms. Sinha says STARS will continue to engage with stakeholders from across civil society — sector-focused NGOs, teachers’ associations, parent groups and academia — during the implementation phase as well to refine detailed interventions and identify innovative approaches

“The World Bank will develop a stakeholder engagement plan (SEP) to provide, in a systematic and structured way, engagement with various stakeholders across various states,” says Sinha. She also emphasises the involvement of vulnerable groups, parents and families so that their voices are heard and incorporated in the consultation process for the STARS project.

For those working on implementation and monitoring of this project, and for those who are demanding nuance and accountability from states and the World Bank, this is only the beginning.