This post may not carry much heft, indeed any meaning at all. Yet, I must share with the few readers who visit this space the kind of pleasant shock I got from reading an advertisement in The Economist of June 30, 2012.
It was loaded with information, and most pleasantly, not of the kind – clearing your hair off 98.79% of dandruff, or your mouth off 97.25% of germs etc. Even better, it did not claim that there is a verdant area of 100 acres dotted with air conditioned class rooms, international faculty for teaching at pre-nursery levels, indoor Olympic size swimming pool, tennis courts and polo grounds.
Yes, a post on an advertisement, which was surprisingly honest enough, particularly in these days of “paid advertisement” masquerading as news, to tag itself as an advertisement.
It was about something less significant – a comparative study of effectiveness of preschool education (for children 3-6 years of age) in 45 countries, India included unmercifully. It was commissioned by Lien Foundation [1]. For once, even as much a cynic as I am, I had to grant this advertisement and the study it referred to a certain amount of honest appreciation. I could be wrong.
The research program aimed at developing an “index to rank preschool provision across 45 countries, encompassing the OECD and major emerging markets”, The four categories from which a consolidated score has been arrived at are: “Availability”, “Affordability”, and “Quality” of the preschool environment in a country, and “the broad ‘social context’, which examines how healthy and ready for school children are.” Is that not comprehensive enough? I think it is.
The advertisement carries a table from the report and this post will point out some striking enumerations. The table showing the reified index has countries scoring as high as 91.8 (out of 100) and as low as 21.2.
Now, to some starker truths. The top three countries are Nordic – Finland, Sweden, and Norway. That is no surprise. OK. UK scores 87.9, entitling it to the 4th position. You must admit at least a raised eyebrow. Keep raising the eyebrow: Israel falls in the bottom half, ranked at 23; UAE matches the US – coming in at 24 – decimal point to decimal point, at 60.3; they are joined, in the bottom half, by Canada (26), Australia (28), and Singapore (29).
There are further surprises galore: Vietnam beats China, 41 (31.3) / 42 (30.7). Brazil beats both of them and that eternal education powerhouse Ghana fits in snuggly between Brazil and Vietnam. Philippines, ranked 43, beats Indonesia at 44 by a huge margin on the index, 30.5 to 22.1. Before I give the least surprising factoid, Czech Republic and Chile have usurped higher ranks than they are “entitled” to based on their GDP, perhaps because “preschool provision for all families” has been instituted as a “legal right”.
Now, to conclude my observations on this advertisement, which by the way did not look or read like one, the least surprising fact: India is at 45 with an index of 21.2.
What a fantastic advertisement it is, for the Lien Foundation as much as for India!
Raghuram Ekambaram
References
<!--[if !supportLists]-->1. <!--[endif]-->http://www.lienfoundation.org/aboutus.html
4 comments:
Metaphors of education held by the west are different fro ours.and the ranking in my opinion is not valid..it is like converting dollars to rupees and finding out who is richer.
these comparative studies have no meaning...if this were true our nation should be full of idiots.
DS Sir, I would tend to agree with you, though not in such strong terms of certainty. My reason for differing is such reified comparative numbers are used for chest thumping and are decried when they point to situations of chest beating. This treatment asymmetry does not sit well with me.
Also, the comparison is for preschool education and how our society appears to ignore it. It does not say anything about the nation's intellectual strength, savants v. idiots. That will be another reified measure altogether.
Regards,
RE
But, Raghuram, I'm not able to understand the rationale behind such studies. What do they want to prove? Does it really make any sense to anyone?
Matheikal, I do not treat such comparisons too seriously; yet, I believe it shows the the basket of services the government offers to its citizens and the relative importance of education in that basket. This is near zero in the case of India. That is something to be aware of.
The question is, if the government's education budget, while being comparatively thin vis-a-vis other countries at about the same level of development, is highly skewed towards higher education to the total neglect of primary education, will it contribute to the nation launching itself on a curve of increasing inequality? I tend to believe yes. This is how the study gains importance in my thinking.
What chances are you giving the less well-off to climb the ladder of sustainable prosperity? None. It is equality of opportunity that is sought to be addressed in these studies, albeit not directly.
I am now trying to include the advertisement and you would read that the US's rank is mainly because the opportunities for preschool education are not available to the poor (mostly blacks and perhaps Hispanics too). That nation is not leveraging its brain power effectively. This comes out of the study. I also mentioned how the Czech Republic has done what we keep talking about - making education a government provision at the starting level. These things come out in the study, the Ex. Summary of which I have read.
There is nothing to be proved. But, there are things, mostly discomforting, one can discern.
RE
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