Making ‘Quality Education Accessible’ to All: Policy Perspective on School Education in Punjab
Kamlesh Narwana () and
Angrej Singh Gill ()
Additional contact information
Kamlesh Narwana: Panjab University Rural Centre, Kauni
Angrej Singh Gill: Panjab University Rural Centre, Kauni
A chapter in Covid-19 Pandemic and Economic Development, 2021, pp 181-193 from Springer
Abstract:
Abstract The school education system of Punjab is at the crossroads amid four important policy and context changes, viz. neo-liberal economic reforms, National Education Policy 2020, a decade of implementation of RTE Act and ‘covid-19’ shocks. In this context, this policy brief, based on various datasets (like DISE, NSS, ASER), critically examines the school education scenario in Punjab. The study highlights that the dismal learning outcomes, crumbling teacher education and questionable working conditions of teachers emerge as major challenges in the context of improving the quality. Also, the private schools, which have proliferated significantly during the neo-liberal reforms era with parental inclination, have led to reproduce social inequalities. Moreover, given that burden of the private school education in terms of household expenditure is very high which makes these schools increasingly unaffordable, it becomes imperative to regulate these schools with comprehensive policy and perspective by specifying stringent guidelines and regulations, particularly in terms of fee structure. Besides the policy brief also highlights an urgent need for adopting a multi-pronged strategy for efficaciously improving the quality of education at government schools. The closing down of physical classrooms and its replacement with ‘online education in distance mode’ has further widened the prevailing social inequalities as students from underprivileged sections are suffering the most. To revive education in the post-Covid period, the policy brief emphasizes that the Covid-19 predicament can be visualized as an opportunity to construct an inclusive education system, inter-alia, by beholding the public trust in government schools.
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:
There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-981-16-4442-9_15
Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9789811644429
DOI: 10.1007/978-981-16-4442-9_15
Access Statistics for this chapter
More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().