Nearly Failed Education System of Bihar: School Education.

Bihar once used to be a hub of education, with universities such as Nalanda & Vikramashila. Ancient Bihar attracted scholars from all over the world. It produced towering scholars from all fields of studies — religion, politics, mathematics, economics, and many others. Some of those scholars and their works were so influential that they changed the world — the whole world knows Gautam Buddha, Mahavira, Chanakya, Aryabhata, Nagarjuna (gave the concept of shunyata) and the list goes on!

But today, the story is upside down. Bihar has the lowest literacy rate in the country; high dropout rate from schools; shortage of qualified teachers; lack of schools; lack of fundamental infrastructures at schools. And these are not just it — there are also the ghosts of socioeconomic problems that make the matter worse.

Also, the bad governance: Bihar has seen some dark era: a time when government gave it the last priority. Just to illustrate the point, government allocated ~1.5% of the SGDP to education in 2001 (source — The Times of India) & that is how it remained most of the times in RJD’s regime. This is no less than a crime — a state where about 80% population lives in the rural areas with very little or no access to quality information, government should have prioritized education. Because of this low priority, enough schools were not built, enough teachers were not recruited, curriculum was not updated*, and things that should have happened didn’t happen. This ignorance caused massive problems (that the next government inherited) which are still deeply rooted.

Bihar has the 6th largest chain of schools in India; there are more than 80,000 schools in the state! It might make you wonder if the state has so many schools how come it is not doing well in education? Well, this number may sound exciting, but it tells us nothing. We should dig deeper to understand this better. Some important questions that you would like to ask –

1. Are 80k+ schools enough for a state with population over 120 million (12 crores)? And what are proportions of primary, upper primary, secondary, and senior secondary?
2. Do these schools have enough teachers in them? And how many of them have the necessary qualification?
3. Do these schools have the necessary infrastructure — building, classrooms, benches, washrooms, drinking water, etc.?
4. What is the promotion rate of students? What is the drop out rate?
5. The ghosts of socioeconomic problems.

Let us look at these points one-by-one.

According MHRD data of 2015–16, there are total 84,236 schools. Whereas Madhya Pradesh & Rajasthan — both states with population lesser than Bihar — have 1,50,762 and 1,08,428. Along with these two, there are other states that have better population to school ratio than Bihar.

When we further dig deeper, we realise that Bihar has a massive shortage of senior secondary (intermediate) & secondary schools. There are only ~3900 senior secondary and ~3700 secondary schools; both combined make less than 10% of the total schools in the state! The chart below represents the average number of students per school — Bihar & India.

Data Source — MHRD Website

From the chart — we need more secondary schools, and even primary schools. Let us say even overcrowded schools are fine. But in what condition these schools are — do they have enough teachers? Do they have the basic infrastructure such as a building, enough classrooms, toilets, etc.?

Let us look at the conditions of the schools –

Data Source — MHRD Website

In addition to a poor student to teacher ratio, teachers per school ratio is far below when compared with high performing states such as Kerala & Tripura. We need more teachers, esp. in secondary & primary schools.

I dug up some other interesting data. Though this data is only about primary, upper primary, and schools with classes 1–10th, it paints a really good picture, because this category constitute about (80,166 schools) 95% of total number of schools in Bihar.

Data Source — BEPCSSA, Bihar Gov

Now that I have shared the data, I do not really have to say much here. I will high re-write the important observations nonetheless –

1. About 9% of the schools do not have the school building.
2. More than 70% schools do not have class teacher for each class.
3. About 65% of the schools do not have principal’s room available.
4. About 10% school do not have separate toilets for girls — How would girl students be comfortable attending schools? And how their parents would be comfortable sending them to school?
5. Mid-day-meal is a massive government scheme. But in more than 25% schools, we do not have kitchen facility. Where does the cooking happen? In open? Or a classroom is reserved for the purpose? In any case, it is a big hindrance in the process of learning!

If we become a little bit more granular about the available facilities: according this data by Bihar government (in conjunction with UNICEF), there are about ~1400 schools that have only one classroom. Also, of all the classrooms — there are about 4,22,129 classrooms in 80,166 schools; that means 5–6 classrooms per school on an average — about 25% of the classroom do not meet the basic criteria prescribed by government. This means theses classrooms go not have enough benches, blackboards, window, or maybe the sufficient area.

What is the socioeconomic ghost that I mentioned earlier? I need not write much about it; let us look at the charts below –

Data Source — BEPCSSA, Bihar Gov.

Data Source — BEPCSSA, Bihar Gov.

You can see that number diminishing number of girls as they move upward.

Data Source — BEPCSSA, Bihar Gov.

Data Source — BEPCSSA, Bihar Gov.

Here also you can see that except for ‘general’, every other number has gone down.

Data Source — BEPCSSA, Bihar Gov.

I could not find much data for this, but you can see that SC & ST are doing worse than the general & OBC; also, among Muslims the dropout rate is the highest.

Just in case you think this data is old: The number of schools grew from ~71,000 in 2010–11 to ~84,000 in 2015–16. That is about 14% improvement in 5 years, yielding ~3% yearly growth. The yearly population growth rate is also about 2.5% in Bihar!

The students of Bihar are known for their diligence. Despite the lack of access to quality education, students from Bihar perform disproportionately well in UPSC & JEE. You just have to look, and you will find tons of inspiring stories. It is a bad luck of students of Bihar that they do not have an education system that they deserve. So long as we do not have schools, basic infrastructure, quality teachers; RTE & NEP will just be a piece of rhetoric and nothing more.

I remember until 2005 English was not a compulsory subject; students were introduced to ABCs in class 6th. And this has become a curse, a bane to students of that time — and it still haunts. I have been haunted for a very, very long time! By the way, it is still not compulsory & millions of students are put to disadvantage everyday.

Sources —

BEPCSSA — http://www.bepcssa.in/en/dt/A%20Snapshot%20of%20Bihar%20Elementary%20Education.pdf

MHRD — http://mospi.nic.in/statistical-year-book-india/2017/198