Yogi Adityanath’s Focus On UP Government Schools Is Paying Off, Asking Teachers To Mark Attendance Online Should Be Viewed In A Larger Context

The Uttar Pradesh government has backtracked on its decision to implement an online attendance system for teachers in government schools. This was preceded by widespread protests by government school teachers and contractual teachers known as 'Shiksha Mitras' in the state. 

The online attendance mandate entailed teachers compulsorily marking their presence in the schools between 7.45 am and 8 am and sharing their location to verify the same.

This proposal was opposed by a bevy of teachers' organisations claiming that it did not take into account the problems teachers posted at remote locations with low connectivity might face along with other issues such as lack of adequate paid leaves available to the teachers.

The decision was taken back for further consideration after a meeting between representatives of the protesting organisations and state’s Chief Secretary Manoj Kumar Singh. 

Ideally, one would expect the Ministers and the Principal Secretaries from the state government's Department of Primary Education and Department of Secondary Education to take cognisance of the protests.

However, the Chief Secretary himself intervening only shows that in Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s scheme of things, education in government schools is on high priority. 

Ever since the incumbent Chief Minister took the reins of power in his hands, the state government has consistently focused on improving education standards in government-run schools in the most populous state of India with a high developmental backlog.

In fact, the decision to implement mandatory online attendance for teachers was also based on the idea of curbing absenteeism among teachers posted in government schools away from district and block headquarters. 

And there is a precursor to it. 

After coming to power in 2017, Yogi’s tenure has seen frequent inspections of government-run schools. This is considering the fact that the two neighbouring states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have been infamous for teachers in state-run schools not turning up at their duty locations, sometimes even for years. 

Apart from renovating thousands of state government-run schools across UP, the state government also introduced the policy of direct benefit transfer of Rs 1,200 each year to the bank accounts of every primary school pupil’s parents for procuring stationary and other essential paraphernalia.

In many state government-run programs, it is often seen that while those at the highest levels of power show great interest in conceptualizing them, the attitude towards their on-ground implementation tends to be lackadaisical.

Contrary to this trend, the Yogi government's efforts to enhance the government schooling experience in the state's vast rural areas appear to have successfully improved primary and secondary education. This improvement is evident from the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) for 2022.

ASER consists of a series of extensive surveys conducted by a group of educationists supported by Pratham, a non-governmental organisation.

The outcome of these surveys encapsulates the status of ‘enrollment’ and ‘learning outcomes’ among the school going children across the country.

In the case of UP, some of the charts and tables provided in the ASER 2022 are worth considering here:-

1) Enrollment

In tandem with the pan-India trend, in case of UP as well ASER notes a drop in "the percentage of children not enrolled in school across the age group of 11 to 16 (covering upper primary and secondary)". This alternately indicates a rise in the number of children enrolled right at the base (pre-primary and primary schools).

However, what is more notable is the increase in the percentage of children in the age group of six to 14 enrolled in government schools.

After seeing a drop in 2014 to 41.1 per cent during the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party (SP) government, the enrollment in government schools increased again after Yogi Adityanath-led BJP came to power in UP in 2017. After rising to 44.3 per cent in 2018, the enrollment in state run schools jumped sharply to 59.6 per cent in 2022, returning back to the 2006 levels seen during Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) government.

A look into the nuances further shows that enrollment in government-run schools in UP has outpaced that in the privately-run schools if one looks at the base age group of three to eight (pre-primary and lower primary) given in Table 2 and Table 3 given below.

Come 2022, the percentage of students aged eight in the government-run schools jumps sharply to 61.3 per cent against 30.8 per cent students of the same age enrolled in privately-run schools.

One might argue that this rise in enrollment in government-run schools in UP as a whole post 2014 should be a point of worry as it supposedly indicated a drop in people's expendable income and thus their increasing inability to send their children in privately-run schools.

However, if we look at the table given below showing the percentage of children in the age group of six to 14 enrolled in government-run schools, the enrollment in government-run schools is found to be much higher in states like Sikkim, Gujarat and Maharashtra which have a higher per capita income (PCI) as compared to that of UP.

However, specifically in case of UP, it can also be viewed as the confidence in government schooling going up, with the state government's efforts to streamline school education in the state through 'Mission Kayakalpa', direct benefit transfers (DBTs) for purschasing stationary, and now the inclusion of the state in the PM-SHRI schools programme to develop model government-run schools.

2) LEARNING OUTCOME

ASER assesses students between the age group of five to 16 in government as well as private schools to ascertain their 'reading ability' and 'arithmetic skills'.

As per ASER 2022 findings, students from the privately-run schools in the state continue to outpace their counterparts in the government-run schools. The gap between reading abilities of students in government-run schools and privately-run schools in Class III and Class V was especially found to be wide.

The government-run school students are seen to have improved their reading abilities only in Class VIII with 62.6 per cent being able to read a Class II text against 82.8 per cent from the private schools who were able to read the same.

This, as seen earlier, was also the case in terms of the percentage of students enrolled in government schools that year. In the same year, a marginal rise in the number of children outside schools was also seen (See Table 1 on Page 235). It was the Yadav-led SP government in power then.

In case of the ability to read English, the gap between the government-run school student's abilities and those from the private schools remains wide. Here as well, a drop can be seen in the ability to read English among Class V and Class VIII students across both category of schools in 2016 before it jumps up substantially in 2022.

When it comes to arithmetic skills, a similar pattern repeating from the reading abilities can be seen here as well.

"The ability of children to do division calculations is taken as a proxy for basic math levels. In this case, Uttar Pradesh has the most interesting trend over time," the 2022 report notes.

3) INFRASTRUCTURE

The report shows that there has been a considerable improvement in hygiene practices such as increased separate washrooms for female school students, improved drinking water availabilty, sharp rise in the library facilities and an increase in the number of schools with active electricity connection.

Notably, the report also observes a steady decline in the percentage of government-run school students from different academic classes sitting together. This indicated an increase in the number of classrooms for each academic class, which is essential to maintain quality of education.

In the context of the state government's insistence on location based digital attendance for government school teachers, the ASER 2022 report shows that the Yogi government has its ears to the ground.

The drop in the percentage of teacher's attendance is even more glaring.

For instance, percentage of teachers present in upper primary schools on the day of survey team's visit across the state in 2022 was seen at 80.4 per cent against 87 per cent seen in 2018. This should naturally explain as to why the state government is keen to implement digital attendance at the earliest.