In the run up to Budget 2010, we take up the accountability initiative and turn the spotlight on education. We start by debating whether this budget will be the definitive budget when it comes to education.

Bloomberg UTV's Hindol Sengupta talks to Madhav Chavan, Founder, Pratham & Anit Mukherjee, Fellow, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP) and  Vikas Vasal, Executive Director of KPMG.

Edited excerpts:

If there is one thing that the minister must do to ensure that he sets the agenda for the next decade in education what would that be?

Chavan: They started UPA 1 by talking about outcomes over outlays and I think that’s completely lost including in the Right to Education Act and so on.
They have to start by stressing outcomes above all. None of that, you know we built so many schools, that’s not outcome that’s still input. So they have to really come forward and talk about the quality of learning and what kinds of goals they want to achieve and this are the outcomes, we want to have so that the country has educated skills and knowledgeable manpower.

Talking about efficient use of money, what can the minister do to ensure the money that goes to education is efficiently used?

Mukherjee: There was an initial surge in the allocation in the first few years of UPA 1 and since then the allocation for Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) has more or less stabilised. The states’ share has surely gone up. Now what we have seen is that the money has been pumped in but the way in which the money has been utilised has more or less remained the same. Whereas in the initial years what we needed to do was to build more schools or build more classrooms which has been done, which means the low hanging fruit has been picked; now the difficult part is the quality of education. So, the government did the right thing initially but now it need to do things right.

As regards the quality of education, how do we do it?

Vasal: I think there are couples of steps that the government needs to take and foremost is the outcome. I don’t think there is going to be any major structural reform happening this year even though there are lot of expectations from individuals and the industry vis-à-vis the government. The government has its own challenges in terms of meeting the fiscal deficit. Secondly, the government has to roll back the stimulus packages, so you might see something happening on that account as well. So it will be issue of revenue versus expenditure and when we talk about expenditure, I don’t think there is going to be any additional allocation happening this time on education. So we may have to be more focused, as my colleagues on the panel have said, on the outcome rather then outlays and inputs. In terms of the quality of education, if you look at the corporate world, we are facing an ironical situation. At the top level, there is a complete scarcity of skills sets. The media reports are saying that in spite of the slowdown, the salary packages are going up at the senior level, especially the professional. At the same time if you look at the bottom end, you see the exact opposite, where people are unemployable. So I think we have to focus at the mass level in order to impart those skills. It should not just be grade school or graduation degrees but we should look at imparting those skills that make them employable for the corporate India.

Is there a 3 Idiots paradigm which rings through in India today? That we are not able to give the right to education, give it efficiently, give it effectively and give it in the manner in which the maximum number of catchment areas of students where they are able to absorb it?

Chavan: I like to put it another way. What we are trying to do is we are trying to given education. When you do that from the central point of view saying I want to give education to so many million peoples then you are the provider. But actually now education is just not a need, it’s a demand. So people want to access the education and the govt has to create avenues so that they can take education without waiting. I think we are going about it the other way say that I will provide.

We have to move it away from here. I’m not saying make it a free market of education but at least open up ideas. For example, I will challenge this question why does somebody have to go to school. I stand for the right to education but say if I want to pass my tenth grade, why I have to go to school. If somebody in my village can coach me and I can appear for an exam and get a certificate why do you want me to go to school?  I think those avenues have been not been looked at and what is happening is because we have a certain supply and all the idiots are in that supply so that it is a bottle neck, which needs to be opened up.

It is happening in the vocational skills sector where the government is saying we will finance if the independent body assists the trainee. So it is actually opening up the doors, so that more people can access a vocational skill and you can do that all in education actually.