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Carrots for Teachers

For quite some time now, India’s education system and policy has been in a state of torpor and seems to be waiting for little short of a miracle to shake itself out of the rut it’s in. While it is clear that the education sector has historically suffered from underfunding, this is only part of the story. What is as important as the resources we pour into the machine is what we are able to extract from it. And here, as a quick comparison of reading levels for primary school students across India shows, we have an almost perfect status quo across three years (see Figure 1). The number of children unable to solve a simple arithmetic problem (not shown here) also shows a very similar pattern. This is all the more disturbing since absolute allocation to education has increased in the recent past, though it is still significantly short of the normative target of 6% of GDP. Clearly, we need to look beyond the monetary aspect and take a closer look at service delivery, or the quality of teaching if we are serious about making a tangible difference in education outcomes, especially if we take into account that a large part of the education budget is dedicated to teacher salaries.

Source: www.asercentre.org 

The problem of making teachers more accountable in order to raise the quality of teaching is not a problem endemic to India. Recognising the falling standards of the public education system in the US, President Obama and the Dept. of Education launched the Race to the Top programme in 2009, whereby states wanting access to programme funds must, amongst achieving other targets “improve teacher and principal effectiveness based on performance”. This has spawned extensive debate on assessment of teacher efficacy and how to best incentivise teachers. Teacher compensation in the US is a function of individual qualifications and experience and is generally negotiated by unions. Hence, the concomitant lack of performance based pay has led to claims that the current policy pushes high performers out of the profession and pulls in low performers. Performance incentives for teachers thus have two main objectives: to reward better performance with better pay and to retain better performers in the teaching profession. The most common way of assessing teachers is through examining student performance, the premise being that students of effective teachers would show greater improvement in test scores. While this seems like a sensible hypothesis, we should not take it at face value. Studies from across the globe have shown mixed results, though most of them corroborate our proposition. The difference in these results most likely emerges from the form of incentive given to teachers, study design as well as local conditions.

A 2009 paper by Muralidharan and Sundaraman looks at this problem in a very detailed manner. It describe the results of a randomised evaluation of a teacher incentive programme conducted in government-run primary schools (for two academic years 2005-06 and 2006-07) in rural Andhra Pradesh. 500 schools were chosen randomly and split into 5 groups of equal size.

Group Incentive

Category

 Description
A Individual Teachers to receive bonus based on performance of their students
B Group Teachers to receive bonus based on performance of all students in the school
C Supplies Schools received cash grants for supplies
D Teacher Schools received cash grants for an extra teacher
E None Control group

 

The average cash bonus for teachers was approximately 3% of a typical teacher’s salary. Students were evaluated at the beginning and end of the academic year and surprise visits were made during the year to assess teacher and student attendance and teaching methods. At the end of the evaluation period, researchers saw that students in Group A and B schools did better than those in control group schools for all classes in consideration. Individual school characteristics (size and infrastructure) or student demographics apart from household income levels did not seem to have a bearing on the results. Interestingly, children’s grades in science and social science also improved despite the fact that only mathematics and language teachers had been offered bonuses, indicating the presence of positive spillovers. There was also some evidence of change in teacher behaviour – while attendance rates did not alter significantly, interviews revealed that school teachers in Group A and B were more likely to have set class and home assignments, taken extra classes and paid more attention to weaker students. Teacher incentives also turned out to be more cost effective than cash grants to schools: while incentives and cash grants both cost an average of Rs.10,000 a year, students in teacher incentive schools “showed test score gains that were three times larger than students in schools that received a grant or an extra teacher.” Finally, while Group A and B school performance had been evenly matched in the first year of the study, individual incentives worked better than group incentives in the second year of the study.

This study thus sends a strong message that individual incentives work; however, implementing a merit pay system is not as easy. Firstly, the context specific nature of a randomised evaluation study means that it is not easy to generalise these results. More importantly, before thinking about adopting this on a broader basis, we need to have standardised notions about how much improvement should entitle a teacher to make the grade, literally. Also, if we accept the fact that tests are not the best indicator of student ability, how can the same test score in turn be a gauge of the teacher’s performance? The biggest problem now is that if teachers themselves are not in favour of such a policy (if the mass protests by unions in the US are any indicator), they will have an incentive to subvert the “top-down push” for evaluation.

With the implementation of the Right to Education, making teachers accountable has never been more essential for India. The push for an evaluation system for teachers definitely has great appeal to academics and policymakers and has shown positive impacts on learning levels in studies; however it is unlikely to create much of an impact unless we can create a comprehensive and smooth rollout strategy which has never really been India’s forte. It is perhaps time to get down to the drawing board.

Anirvan Chowdhury is a Research Associate with the Accountability Initiative.

Performance based fund allocation for Ministries: Will it Work?

The Planning Commission recently announced that financial allocations to ministries in 2011-2012 will be based on their performance. An Indian Express article entiled “More for ministries that did well” reports that fund allocations will be made following a performance review of each ministry by the Cabinet Secretariat. But how exactly is ministerial performance going to be measured?  Since 2009, under a directive from the Prime Minister’s Office, central government departments have been implementing a new “Performance Monitoring and Evaluation System” (PMES). At the heart of the PMES is a relatively simple concept – “what gets measured, gets managed”. It marks a shift away from traditional practices of measuring expenditures as outcomes to a more rigorous system of evaluating the performance of government departments. Steered by the Cabinet Secretariat’s Performance Management Division, the PMES is designed to help government departments define, measure and monitor their progress against defined targets and indicators.

How does it work?
At the beginning of each year (1 April), government departments have to develop a Results Framework Document (RFD) which is essentially a performance agreement signed between a Minister and the Secretary of a particular department. In the RFD, departments have to address three basic questions: i) what are the main objectives of the department for the year? ii) what actions are necessary to achieve these objectives and finally iii) what are the success indicators necessary to evaluate these actions. The matrix that results from this exercise is locked into an online MIS system which is then tracked through the year. The department’s progress against these set targets is first reviewed after 6 months and finally evaluated at the end of the year (31 March). Till date, 62 line ministries have signed up to the RFD and their RFDs can already be accessed online. Under discussion is also a controversial proposal to link 40% of a Secretary’s salary to the department’s performance. If implemented this would introduce a system of performance based pay never before seen in the history of Indian administration. Since the program was launched each central government department has been evaluated twice.

Linking Fund Allocations to Performance

The Planning Commission’s decision to link ministerial performance under the RFD to fund allocations is an interesting move. It has been reported that ministries that have failed to meet their RFD targets will receive lower fiscal allocations with greater funds being channeled towards ministries that have been meeting their targets. The focus is clearly on efficiency in fund utilisation. With large sums of money earmarked for implementation of the RTE and MGNREGA and potentially the Right to Food (if the bill is passed) it will be interesting to see how this new results and performance based system will pan out.

Mandakini Devasher Surie is a Research Analyst with the Accountability Initiative.

Cash Transfers Vs. Subsidies…. the Argument Continues


Cash transfers, whether conditional or unconditional, are getting a lot of attention in India these days. The success of cash transfers program in the some parts of the world, especially Latin America, and not so much of success of India’s own schemes and welfare programmes, have led many to think about cash transfers more seriously.

Unfortunately, there is not much empirical evidence on the success of  cash transfer programs in the Indian context. One simple reason is that there aren’t many in the first place. There are a few cash transfer programs at the central and the state level but the lack of concrete data and rigorous evaluation of these programs has meant that we can’t really say much about the effect of these cash transfer schemes, in general. We know a lot about the problems in say, distributing food through public distribution system but that does not necessarily mean that the cash transfer programs will work.

A recent paper in EPW, ‘Small but Effective: India’s Targeted Unconditional Cash Transfers’  (by Puja Dutta, Stephen Howes, Rinku Murgai, December 25, 2010, Vol. XLV, No. 52) compares a cash transfer program (pensions to elderly, widows, disabled) with a non-cash transfer program (PDS) on basis of parameters like coverage, targeting and compliance, and draws some interesting conclusions.

Government pensions are provided to the poor mainly a) elderly, b) widows, and c) severely disabled. These pensions make up at the most 4% of total spending by the central government on various safety net programmes. On the other hand, subsidized food programmes constitute close to half of the spending on safety net programmes.

Coverage:

The analysis in the paper shows that the coverage of the pensions is very low. Even among the poorest quintile, the coverage reaches only 10%. Lack of awareness, lack of knowledge about the application process, complexity of the process might be some of the reasons for such low coverage. On the other hand, coverage of the PDS is much higher, reaching to more than 30% among the poorest quintile.

Targeting:

The pension scheme is meant for elderly/ widows who are poor. The authors’ calculations suggest that the scheme is progressive in the sense that proportion of pension recipients decline as we move up the wealth quintiles. The targeting performance of the PDS is also quite similar.

Compliance/ Leakage:

The authors identify five possible types of non-compliances in case of the pensions and try to get an estimate of leakage due to each of these reasons (with a focus on the state of Karnataka).

The types of non-compliances are 1) duplicate records, leading to overpayment or under payment to fraudulent pensioners, 2) ‘missing’ pensioners i.e. genuine pensioners, who are ‘missing’ (either moved or died), 3) the recipients might not receive pension in full, 4) they might have to pay bribes at the time of joining or during the year to receive the pension, and 5) the recipients may not be eligible.

In Karnataka, the pension recipients’ list is computerised. Each recipient’s record contains name, father/ husband’s name, post office, as well as an identifier, which is meant to be but may not be unique for each household. An algorithm was run to assess the closeness of different records. Only 0.2% of records were virtually identical. 1% of records had very high similarity score (0.9 and above), and 6% a high score (0.8 or above). The authors assume that 1% of the records as duplicates (hence 1% leakage).

To get an idea about the extent of missing pensioners, the authors, through a survey team, tried to find all the individuals enrolled in the scheme. In 9% of the cases, the enrolled individual could not be found (hence 9% leakage).

The authors also collected data on amount of pension actually received by the pensioners. They found that on average, pensioners receive 96% of their pension (hence 4% leakage).

Those who applied for pension, but unsuccessfully, paid an average Rs. 200. Assuming that the successful recipients paid the same bribe on average, it adds 2% to leakage (see the paper for calculations). It was also found that 8% of pensioners had paid a median amount of Rs. 100-200 in the last 12 months to various officials to receive the pension. This adds less than 1% to total leakage.

This gives us about 17% leakage.

On the other hand, it has been reported that the consumption of grains from the PDS shops was only 46% of the grains supplied to them in 2004-05. Leakages vary from state to state. In Karnataka, the corresponding ratio is 64%.

To summarise, the PDS coverage is much higher. Both do well in terms of targeting. But the pensions fare way better when it comes to the extent of leakages.

Now the relevant question is: What would happen to leakages if the coverage of the pensions goes up? The answer depends on reasons for low coverage in present. The authors put forth two possibilities: a) low levels of discretion in the pension scheme i.e. once enrolled (may be after paying bribes), payments follow more or less automatically.  There is little scope for diversion of funds. On the other hand, for the PDS, ‘every extraction of benefits from the system requires effort and is a potential rent seeking opportunity’; b) both the payments involved and the number of recipients are small, and hence not worth targeting for corrupt individuals.

Both are plausible and have very different implication for leakages if the pension schemes are scaled up. Hence the authors suggest progressive scaling up of these schemes, combined with effective monitoring, which might be a tad easier for the pensions, where the data indicates that the leakages are likely to be concentrated in specific areas, and relatively easier to spot in administrative checks and surveys, especially after computerization.

Ambrish Dongre is a Senior Researcher with the Accountability Initiative.

Centrally Sponsored Schemes: One too many?

Recently, Rural Development Minister, CP Joshi announced that only members of parliament would be entitled to inaugurate roads under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY). The rural roads scheme is part of a slew of Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSSs) which include the MGNREGA, ICDS, PMGSY, NRHM, SSA etc. What are Centrally Sponsored Schemes? Essentially these schemes are special purpose grants extended by the Central Government to States to encourage and motivate State governments to plan and implement programmes that help attain national goals and objectives, for instance, extending clean drinking water and sanitation to every habitation, eradicating polio and tuberculosis, making primary education universal for every female and male child, and so on. CSSs are formulated by concerned Ministries and Departments and implemented through counterpart State level departments and para-statal bodies identified for the purpose.

However in recent years serious questions have been raised about the effectiveness of these schemes. A recent op-ed in the Indian Express titled “Scheming too much” notes how the government is more concerned about taking credit for and branding these schemes (you must have heard the ads on the radio and in the papers!) and less concerned about whether these schemes translate into improved outcomes on the ground. The big question really is whether centrally sponsored schemes are really the best vehicles for delivering basic social services. To try and examine some of these questions in 2009, the Accountability Initiative and CDF-IFMR wrote an analytical piece entitled from “From Outlays to Outcomes: Getting Development from Development Expenditures” which was published in the India Review. 

Are Centrally Sponsored Schemes defunct or are there ways in which the schemes can be designed better so that development expenditure actually leads to improved outcomes on the ground. Write in with your views!

 

CHRI: Preliminary Comments on the Draft RTI Amendments

The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), the nodal agency for the implementation of the RTI Act has proposed a series of amendments to the RTI  (Regulation of fee and cost) Rules 2005 and the Central Information Commission (Appeal Procedure) Rules, 2005. Specifically, the amendments seek to restrict the number of words that an applicant can use while filing an information request under the RTI Act 2005.In addition, to curbing the word limit, the new rules also seek to restrict the questions filed under the RTI to one subject matter. DoPT invited citizens and organisations to send in their comments on the draft rules by 27th December 2010. The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative has drafted preliminary comments on the amendments and submitted these to the government for consideration (see attached).

Specifically, CHRI recommends the following:

  • Extending the timeline for public consultation on the draft Rules by at least one more month to enable effective participation of citizens who are not Internet‐literate;
  • Publicising the text of the draft Rules in popular English and regional language dailies along with an explanation as to why changes are being made in the existing set of RTI Rules;
  • Publicising the consultation exercise through radio and TV channels to reach out to a wider cross‐section of the citizenry;
  • Issuing an assurance publicly that the number and types of objections received in relation to every draft Rule/sub‐Rule and cogent reasons for rejecting any of them will be published along with the notification of the final version of the Rules;
  • Acting upon the said assurance with due diligence at the time of notifying the final version of the draft Rules; and
  • The draft Rules applicable for the second appeal process may be made applicable to complaints as well.

For a detailed account of CHRI’s recommendations to the government, click on the document attached with this blog post.

Transparency in Legislative Processes

Mandakini Devasher

Every year the Parliament considers and debates a large number of draft bills. Whether it is the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill, the Whistleblowers Bill, the Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill or the UIDAI Bill, these draft laws have major policy implications. However, information about these bills is usually acquired by media and civil society groups post-facto – giving very little time for groups to study their contents and respond. While some Ministries have become quite good at putting up draft bills on their websites and inviting public comments, this is not an established or mandatory practice. In most cases the work of acquiring and disseminating information on draft laws and bills has been taken up by civil society groups such as PRS Legislative Research. The lack of transparency and public scrutiny in the drafting of bills has in recent times been a subject of intense criticism particularly over major bills such as the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill. At the height of the controversy over the nuclear bill, journalist, Siddhartha Varadharajan criticised the government for trying to push through a “complex legislation with the potential to affect the lives of tens of millions of people” with “stealth, subterfuge and the barest minimum of consultation”.

In many countries, pre-legislative scrutiny is an established process through which citizens are encouraged to give their comments and feedback on proposed legislation. In the UK, new pieces of legislation are often published a whole session before their intended introduction and passage. Draft Bills are normally examined by a joint-committee of MPs who invite comments from individuals and organisations. In India, the debate on pre-legislative scrutiny is slowly gathering speed. At a recent meeting organised by the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) and Inclusive Media for Change (IM4C), the need for greater citizen engagement and oversight in the process of drafting legislation was centre stage. The meeting brought together civil society organisations such as Satark Nagarik Sangathan, CHRI, JOSH, Pardarshita, Association for Democratic Reforms etc along with noted activists such as Aruna Roy, Nikhil Dey, Shekhar Singh, Usha Ramanathan, Vrinda Grover, Maja Daruwala and others. Participants agreed on the need for establishing a robust mechanism for pre-legislative consultation and discussed different ways and means by which this could be achieved. Some of the major themes that emerged from the meeting were as follows:

  • Exploring existing mechanisms and spaces for people’s participation in legislative processes was highlighted as a key first step. In this regard, Section 4(1)(d) of the RTI Act  – which mandates public authorities to disclose all relevant facts when formulating policies  – was discussed as a good starting point.
  • In addition to spaces for consultation participants also discussed the necessity of procedures for mandatory debate and discussions on inputs received from the public.
  • The need for greater focus and attention on subsidiary legislation and the framing of rules at the state level was also discussed. Participants spoke of the fact that in many states,  governments often frame rules are which are contrary to the spirit and intent of laws. The high application fees charged by many states under the RTI Act is a clear example of how state rules can often subvert a progressive law.
  • Participants also voiced the need for striking a balance between widespread public consultation and parliamentary and executive privilege.
  • The need to engage with MPs and MLAs, proactively sharing information with them and strengthening their research capacity and support was highlighted as another area for action.

In terms of taking the debate further it was suggested that civil society action could be oriented around three broad areas:

  • Improving existing rules and procedures: Bringing in amendments to government rules and procedures that restrict pre-legislative scrutiny such as the Parliamentary Rules of Business, Cabinet procedures etc.
  • Strengthening Section 4 of the RTI Act 2005 and ensuring effective implementation of  Section 4(1)(d) of the RTI by public authorities at all levels of government.
  • Potentially drafting a separate law mandating pre-legislative consultation and bringing together provisions under existing laws and rules.

For more information about the meeting and the move towards greater pre-legislative scrutiny read the NCPRI-IM4C press release and approach paper attached with this post.

Mandakini Devasher is a Research Analyst with the Accountability Initiative.

Has RTE Made a Mistake by Eliminating Contract Teachers and Making All Teachers Regular?


The extensive use of contract or para teachers in government primary schools is regarded as one of the most important policy innovation in the education sector in developing countries. But this policy has been highly controversial, with both supporters and opponents arguing their sides eloquently. Indian policy-makers seem to have taken the side of the opponents, as indicated by the provisions of the recently implemented ‘Right to Education’ Act. The RTE categorically states that there would be no contract teachers in the schools. All teachers would be regular teachers.

Before taking any sides, it would be nice to look at the empirical evidence. Unfortunately, there is hardly any rigorous work in the Indian context. But the two papers- ‘The Relative Effectiveness and Costs of Contract and Regular Teachers in India’ by Paul Atherton and Geeta Kingdon, and ‘Contract Teachers: Experimental Evidence from India’, by Karthik Muralidharan and Venkatesh Sundararaman, analyzing the effect of contract teachers on learning outcomes, which were presented at the 6th Annual Conference on Economic Growth & Development (Dec. 16- 18, 2010), Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi, fill this gap.

These papers provide a strong and rigorous evidence of the huge positive impacts of contract teachers on student achievements. Both papers rely on different methods (non-experimental vs. experimental), and their underlying data comes from different states (UP- Bihar in case of the first, and Andhra in case of the second), which also suggests that the effects are likely to be very robust.

Empirical Challenges:

We are interested in figuring out the effect of contract teachers on student learning outcomes. So a simple regression would be

Y = β0 + β1.Contract Teacher + Ω.Other Controls + µ

But the coefficient β1 in the above setting is likely to be severely biased. The reason is that assignment of contract teachers to schools is likely to be correlated with the characteristics of the school. For example, the contract teachers may be assigned to the schools in remote areas. In that case, the dummy of contract teachers is picking up the effect of being a remote school as well. And there is no way we can figure out the size of that effect. We can merely guess its sign. Similarly, even within a school, the assignment of contract teachers to the kids may be non-random. For example,contract teachers may be assigned to weaker (or stronger) students. Then the dummy is picking up the effect of teaching to a particular type of students. In short, the ordinary least squares regression is not really useful in describing a causal relation between contract teachers and learning outcomes.

The above problem can be solved by either randomly assigning contract teachers to schools (as done by Muralidharan & Sundararaman) or controlling for unobserved school characteristics which are correlated with assignment of contract teachers and learning outcomes, by using school fixed effects (as done by Atherton & Kingdon).

Results:

I will merely discuss the result without going into the details of the dataset, the regression equations or the size and significance of the coefficients.

The results point in the same direction- Contract teachers are more effective than regular teachers. The evidence also indicates that the effect of contract teachers remains even after a reduction in the class size (and in the pupil-teacher ratio) due to addition of a teacher. Further, relatively disadvantaged students, and those who are in lower grades (such as grade 1, 2) are the ones who benefit more from contract teachers.

Why?

Why do contract teachers perform so much better than the regular teacher? A plausible reason would be the nature of their contracts- the contracts are annually renewable. Further, the contract teachers are hired locally. Thus, they belong to the same community, society, and thereby face strong accountability pressures. Further, being local implies the ‘social distance’ between the teacher and the student is also lesser.

Policy Implication:

The combination of low costs, superior performance measures than regular teachers on attendance and teaching activity, and higher positive impact on student learning indicates that the use of contract teachers could be a very cost-effective way of improving primary education outcomes in the developing countries. But it is not as straightforward as it seems. One can not rule out the possibility that once in large numbers, the contract teachers might demand permanent jobs and would be so granted just before the elections (as happened in Himachal Pradesh, the first state to recruit contract teachers). Then in the long term, there may not be any cost-effectiveness of contract teachers.

Nevertheless, the above evidence clearly indicates that one needs to seriously think about the recruitment, contractual terms and remuneration of teachers in the government schools. And this applies not just to teachers but to all government services.

Muralidharan and Sundararaman suggests one possible course of action- to hire all new teachers as contract teachers at the school level, and create a system to measure their performance over a period of time (six to eight years for example) that would include inputs from parents, senior teachers, and measures of value addition using independent data on student performance. These measures of performance could be used in the contract-renewal decision at the end of each fixed-term contract (or to pay bonuses), and consistently high-performing contract teachers could be promoted to regular civil service rank at the end of a fixed period of time. Continuous training and professional development could be a natural component of this career progression, and integrating contract and regular teachers into a career path should help to address most of the concerns above, including the political economy ones.

Ambrish Dongre is Senior Researcher with the Accountability Initiative.

PAISA Track – The Curious Case of Missing Passbooks in Madhya Pradesh

Under AI’s flagship project, PAISA a pilot survey tracking expenditures at the school level was launched from 4th – 9th December in Sagar district of Madhya Pradesh. Over a two day period, over 20 surveyors covered 40 schools seeking information from headmasters on the grants received under the Sarva Shikha Abhiyan and the expenditure incurred over the last two financial years.The findings of the survey were quite interesting. In many cases, surveyors were unable to access grant related information because headmasters were not in possession of their passbooks. This was surprising given that these are public documents and should be available in the schools themselves. In the attached article, Swapna Ramteke a PAISA Associate with the Accountability Initiative shares some of the experiences of the survey and the curious case of the missing passbooks! The article is in Hindi.

 

PAISA Track – Field Notes from Jaipur


I’m trying to find a story, but it’s in vain because here there is no such thing. There is no mega narrative, no such concern that seems to encapsulate life or the imagination of its people. If at all there is but a murmur of a machinery grinding slowly, faltering here and again, but nevertheless asserting its monotonous rhythm. I’m sitting in a training centre located 30 kms from Jaipur city, barely 500 meters from the highway. The training is a prelude to the PAISA survey – tracking expenditures under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan – that we will be undertaking in Jaipur. On the right of me as far as I can see are fields and what appears to be promises of tomorrow – nascent urban centers. They seem misplaced, almost as if they have been thrust into a space, which insidiously rejects them. Behind the training centre are more fields, here and there womankind makes jagged appearances, houses crop up in no discernible order.

In such a setting the only thing that captures the imagination is the setting itself, but slowly the stories tumble forth. Women hired as health workers, ASHA are being trained in a nearby room. At tea I begin a conversation with a couple of them. Their story is similar to the ones of so many others consecrated in acronyms but made to perform a service more taxing then the measly allowance they are paid. They are rancorous, claiming they cannot continue, Rs 200 per delivery is pittance, unjust and extractive. I’m forced to agree the cost of the position is more than the compensation. Concerned with their plight but aware of my own limitation I offer them the only solace I can – some namkeen, which they reject.

Act two, for our mock pilot we visit a nearby senior secondary school. As expected we reach early, and spend the first ten minutes watching the children cleaning their school, waiting for the Head Master (HM) to arrive. He finally does, and I am elated. We walk into the school once more and the HM invites us in. The volunteers take their places and I proceed to let them introduce themselves. They give him the letter of permission and he scans it and looks back at us awaiting what can only be a further explanation. They falter, but somehow manage and he appears convinced. The survey begins. The HM answers the first few questions with ease and I think it is going to be a breeze. Not quite, soon he drifts and we switch sections trying to keep up with the names of grants he begins to rattle off. The volunteers’ lose their way and I attempt to bring them back on track. I ask him the year in which he received the grant and he explains that it is for the last financial year. I’m relieved, and by now the volunteers also find their bearings. They take down the list of grants this time, but soon we realize that despite all his organization the HM is thoroughly confused. It is not his fault; the poor man cannot locate the passbook of the school account which makes it hard for him to tell us the amount that was deposited in school’s account and how much was withdrawn under each head. He nevertheless doesn’t share our lack of enthusiasm and continues, never faltering in losing the thread of his previous thought. Despite this all we manage to piece together the required information.

The oft-repeated story is recounted once again. We determine that the school received its share of grants in the last quarter of the financial year giving the HM very little time to incur expenditure. Consequently, most of the expenditure was incurred in the current financial year. The grants for this year were disbursed like the previous year in the month of November but until now the expenditure has not been incurred under any of the heads. One reason for this has been that the HM was not aware of the time when the grants were debited to the school account. Apart from the financial difficulties, the cropping up of a multitude of private schools it appears has had an impact on enrollment and retention. There were a total of 72 children from classes 1-8 with one child in class 4! Advantage – Neo liberals.

Act three, we visit a nearby KGBV, another acronym,  the love between bureaucrats and acronyms runs deep; the use of acronyms allows them to add however many names to a title, appeasing the leaders of today and those who have lost their relevance with the passage of time. KGBV’s or Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalays are schools set up to encourage girls’ education, especially of those girls who cannot afford to travel long distances to attend schools. As such then, hostel facilities are also provided in each of these schools. Upon entering the gates we encounter a group of girls playing what I can only understand could be gulli danda. I’m struck how the term doesn’t seem to be too far from what it encapsulates, maybe the powers that be can take a lesson. Once we enter however the game abruptly ends, the girls crowd around us, greeting us but maintaining their distance, sporting their shy grins and hiding their faces every time one of us attempts to make eye contact. They invite us in, and we ceremoniously accept. This always strikes me about village life, if you look like an outsider, people always invite you in and then ask you where it is you are from. Credibility is rarely established on the threshold.

Once in the hostel we are struck by its very structure, it is likened to a large house with two floors and a spacious courtyard. The girls giggle all the while, they seem to be as amazed with us. Unconcerned with their giggles, we ask for their permission and begin our investigation. We visit each of the rooms, which the girls proudly showcase. They are large enough and the accommodation seems to adhere to standards, the toilets are reasonably clean like the kitchen which is also well stocked. Pleased with the state of affairs we chat a bit with the girls, humoring them and asking them a string of general knowledge questions. The girls respond animatedly, some of them shirking off their initial reticence. The games and questions carry on for another fifteen minutes and then with the first hint of dusk we scramble to leave. We bid them goodbye and take what now a symbolizes memory- a group picture. After urging them once again to study hard we finally bid them adieu.

I’m sitting in the training centre again, where time is somehow slower, staring at a curtain trying to establish if it truly is ghastly- they have a term for this cloth now which I’m forgetting, perry cotton or something to the effect- wondering if tomorrow the machine will creak as much.

Gayatri Sahgal is a Research Analyst with the Accountability Initiative.