The 2016-17 Economic Survey of India puts the crux of the problem of education in a succinct manner in their report. The summary below points towards the two primary problems of the education sector and suggests a few remedies to improve the system.
Problem 1: Low learning outcomes
We often hear of people having a matriculation or graduation degree, yet unable to deal with basic problems presented to them. This is a consequence of low learning outcomes. This is a pertinent concern that is often heard in the discourse of school education. The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), 2014, and several other studies have repeatedly pointed this out. While improvements in access to education and retention in school have been mapped in these reports, the learning outcomes for a majority of children are still very low.
Problem 2: Teacher absenteeism and poor quality of teachers
It is understood that the main cause of this low learning outcomes is disinterested and absent teachers. This sizable contributes to the extremely poor quality of education in several schools across the nation. Coupled with the shortage of professionally qualified teachers, the situation assumes a grimness that India needs to address urgently.
It is seen that the share of teacher component in total Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) budget has been increasing over the years from 35 per cent in 2011-12 to 59 per cent in 2014-15, the problem of teacher absenteeism and the shortage of professionally qualified teachers continues to plague the education scenario.
Solution 1: Biometric attendance
Often used in the private and corporate sectors, and in the contemporary situation in all governmental premises as well, biometric attendance system provides a good solution. It can be hoped that teacher absenteeism can be curtailed through the placement of this system. The system can be tweaked to explore to capture the daily activities as well – especially in primary schools, where teachers must press their attendance for each scheduled class, lecture, session etc, making it unique from the present system – where only coming and going of the personnel is monitored without any control on the activities during working hours. This record may be shared with the parents, and put in the public domain as well – to help everyone become more vigilant of the teachers’ activities.
The report suggests that “a pilot project in one district of every state may be commenced for six months to be expanded to all districts in three years”.
Solution 2: Adequate teaching aid and recorded lectures
The primary schools should be backed with adequate teaching aids, recorded lectures, etc. to fill in for absentee teachers and at the same time raise the quality of information available to the students. The report also warns that the “the scope of implementation should leave room for flexibility at the local level so the same do not end up as top driven ‘Model Schools’”.
Solution 3: Revised evaluation tool
It would be pertinent to set an evaluation method in schools where the biometric devices are made available. This will help understand how useful the interventions are and how the children are being benefited. It would also help build learning outcomes, which would assist in further dissemination of this methodology and strengthening of the education system, ensuring education for all.
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Petrol in India is cheaper than in countries like Hong Kong, Germany and the UK but costlier than in China, Brazil, Japan, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report showed.
Rising fuel prices in India have led to considerable debate on which government, state or central, should be lowering their taxes to keep prices under control.
The rise in fuel prices is mainly due to the global price of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel) going up. Further, a stronger dollar has added to the cost of crude oil.
Amongst comparable countries (per capita wise), prices in India are higher than those in Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Countries that are major oil producers have much lower prices.
In the report, the Philippines has a comparable petrol price but has a per capita income higher than India by over 50 per cent.
Countries which have a lower per capita income like Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Venezuela have much lower prices of petrol and hence are impacted less than India.
“Therefore there is still a strong case for the government to consider lowering the taxes on fuel to protect the interest of the people,” the report argued.
India is the world’s third-biggest oil consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and so prices retail fuel at import parity rates.
With the global surge in energy prices, the cost of producing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products also went up for oil companies in India.
They raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre in just over a fortnight beginning March 22 but hit a pause button soon after as the move faced criticism and the opposition parties asked the government to cut taxes instead.
India imports most of its oil from a group of countries called the ‘OPEC +’ (i.e, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Russia, etc), which produces 40% of the world’s crude oil.
As they have the power to dictate fuel supply and prices, their decision of limiting the global supply reduces supply in India, thus raising prices
The government charges about 167% tax (excise) on petrol and 129% on diesel as compared to US (20%), UK (62%), Italy and Germany (65%).
The abominable excise duty is 2/3rd of the cost, and the base price, dealer commission and freight form the rest.
Here is an approximate break-up (in Rs):
a)Base Price | 39 |
b)Freight | 0.34 |
c) Price Charged to Dealers = (a+b) | 39.34 |
d) Excise Duty | 40.17 |
e) Dealer Commission | 4.68 |
f) VAT | 25.35 |
g) Retail Selling Price | 109.54 |
Looked closely, much of the cost of petrol and diesel is due to higher tax rate by govt, specifically excise duty.
So the question is why government is not reducing the prices ?
India, being a developing country, it does require gigantic amount of funding for its infrastructure projects as well as welfare schemes.
However, we as a society is yet to be tax-compliant. Many people evade the direct tax and that’s the reason why govt’s hands are tied. Govt. needs the money to fund various programs and at the same time it is not generating enough revenue from direct taxes.
That’s the reason why, govt is bumping up its revenue through higher indirect taxes such as GST or excise duty as in the case of petrol and diesel.
Direct taxes are progressive as it taxes according to an individuals’ income however indirect tax such as excise duty or GST are regressive in the sense that the poorest of the poor and richest of the rich have to pay the same amount.
Does not matter, if you are an auto-driver or owner of a Mercedes, end of the day both pay the same price for petrol/diesel-that’s why it is regressive in nature.
But unlike direct tax where tax evasion is rampant, indirect tax can not be evaded due to their very nature and as long as huge no of Indians keep evading direct taxes, indirect tax such as excise duty will be difficult for the govt to reduce, because it may reduce the revenue and hamper may programs of the govt.