On a recent trip to rural Bihar, I spent several hours talking with headmasters and cluster officers about how to improve children’s learning in primary school. Their responses were primarily complaints directed at others. Complaints about the administrative tasks expected of them; about the Right To Education Act’s no-detention policy; about parents and their limited interest in the school and about students who rarely attended school.
At no point did the conversation steer towards classroom transactions. No one talked about pedagogical strategy or the futility of focusing on the syllabus and prescribed textbooks when most children in the classroom have fallen far behind grade level expectations.
For decades, India’s education policy has concentrated on increasing education inputs-infrastructure, qualified teachers, mid-day meals-with the underlying assumption that more inputs will result in improved learning outcomes. So busy are our education administrators in the provision of inputs that they have little time or incentive to focus on the classroom. A recent time-use study of block education officers in Bihar, Himachal Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh conducted by Accountability Initiative found that officials spent less than 10% of their time on classroom-related activities.
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