Why do government schools underperform?

Imagine yourself as the administrator or principal of a government school. You are not accountable to the parents who have trusted you with their child’s education, or even to the children. Good feedback from parents won’t get you a promotion or save you from a transfer. You are answerable to your bosses in the Department of Education (DoE). You respond to the targets they set for you. The DoEs, in turn, stipulate targets based on mandates set by Education Ministers at the state or national level. Education Ministers often chase goals that are most ‘visible’ to the public, such as schools’ infrastructure and facilities. Learning, which is invisible until it is far too late, rarely makes the list.

The government’s own record of achievements in school education makes this plain. It celebrates a 3.3% increase in enrolment of children with special needs and 19.4 lakh additional children enrolled at various levels. It points to higher procurement budgets under the mid-day meal scheme and the Cabinet’s approval of 85 new Kendriya Vidyalayas. Not one of them asks whether a child can read.

When your job is judged by inputs rather than learning outcomes, you deliver inputs. You build buildings, upgrade old ones, install toilets, order computers, serve mid-day meals, and hit enrolment quotas. You lose sight of learning. The same incentive problem explains why teaching standards in government schools remain poor. Teachers face weak incentives to improve learning outcomes. Even when actors are capable and driven by good intentions, the rules of the game in government institutions push them to behave in ways that do not align with the interests of parents and children.