Why education is aspirational in India? Explains Shaveta Sharma Kukreja of CSF
India/February 21, 2023/by
According to an FSG report, 87% of urban low-income parents prefer to send their children to low-fees private schools over government schools.
Affordable Private Schools (APS), which educate nearly 50% of children in India according to an FSG report, are contested to fix the failings of public education systems. But, these schools are believed to be doing more harm to the quality of education than good. In India, these low-fee schools have an estimated market size of $5.2 billion, with 87% of urban low-income parents preferring to send their children to such setups over government schools. “Education is aspirational in India, and because private schools offer to be English medium, they are the first choice for most parents,” Shaveta Sharma Kukreja, CEO, and managing director, Central Square Foundation (CSF) told FE Education Online.
CSF aims to upgrade the education ecosystem of government schools by providing ed-tech solutions such as Rocket Learning, TicTacLearn, Top Parent, Chimple, and EdTech Tulna, an evaluation index to promote quality education.
As per the FSG report, most parents associate government schools with poor education equality and a lack of facilities. Not to mention, private schools are able to advertise education supports such as computer education, it provides to children. “Parents think their children will have better employability prospects if they study at a private English medium school and learn computers. However, currently, there are no metrics available in India to check the learning outcomes of private versus public schools. In fact, learning outcomes for the cost of education in low-fee private schools are similar to government schools,” she explained.
Moreover, children in India currently are behind in foundational literacy and numeracy, as highlighted by the ASER 2022 report, due to the focus of education policies thus far on infrastructural development. However, the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 is believed to have paved the way to shift this focus to the quality of education. “CSF, along with the government of India, is working towards bridging this gap with the help of its educational programmes such as NIPUN Bharat in over 12 states which include Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, and Kerala, among others,” Kukreja said.
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