“Harbinger of a New Era”? Evaluating the Effect of India's Right to Education Act on Learning Outcomes
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“Harbinger of a New Era”? Evaluating the Effect of India’s Right to Education Act on Learning Outcomes Dhruva Bhat May 2017 M-RCBG Associate Working Paper Series | No. 76 The views expressed in the M-RCBG Associate Working Paper Series are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business & Government or of Harvard University. The papers in this series have not undergone formal review and approval; they are presented to elicit feedback and to encourage debate on important public policy challenges. Copyright belongs to the author(s). Papers may be downloaded for personal use only. Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business & Government Weil Hall | Harvard Kennedy School | www.hks.harvard.edu/mrcbg “Harbinger of a New Era”? Evaluating the Effect of India’s Right to Education Act on Learning Outcomes Dhruva Bhat Presented to the Department of Economics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Bachelor of Arts degree with Honors Harvard College Cambridge, Massachusetts March 9, 2017 Abstract India enacted the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE) into law in 2010. RTE created a constitutional right to education and included regulations for pupil-teacher ratios, public school infrastructure, education spending, and private school enrollment. I contribute to the literature by estimating the causal effect of RTE on measures of literacy, numeracy and school quality using data from an annual, nationally representative survey of over 600,000 children. I utilize a difference-in-differences approach, controlling for differing pre-trends, student-level characteristics and GDP, as well as grade, state and year fixed effects. I find that while RTE had a positive effect on public school infrastructure and teacher absence rates, it had a negative impact on most measures of literacy and numeracy skills for public school students. I explore possible channels through which RTE could have had this adverse effect and provide suggestive evidence that the fall in learning outcomes was not the result of changes in enrollment, the rise of private schools or changes in school infrastructure. Further investigation into unmeasured variables such as the quality of teachers, curricula and pedagogy is crucial in order to ensure that India can successfully educate its over 400 million children. 2 Acknowledgments This thesis is an expression of gratitude to my many teachers in India and abroad for showing me the value of an education. My thanks to: − my thesis advisor Dale Jorgenson and tutorial leader Jonas Poulsen for their patience, kindness and support, − Trina Ott, for levels of efficiency that I aspire to, − Manjistha Banerji and Pratham for the data, − Professors Jacqueline Bhabha, Michael Kremer, Rohini Pande, Lant Pritchett, and Michael Walton for their inputs and advice, − Jeff Miron and the economics department for the thesis grant, − Greg Bruich, Dani Doyle and others at the economics department for their support, − and those at the J-PAL Chennai office who made time to discuss the Right to Education Act with me. I am also grateful to the various colleagues who provided me feedback over the last year: the other participants of my Ec985 seminar, Nathaniel Donahue, James Graham, Bianca Mulaney and Daniel Tartakovsky. A final note of thanks goes to my friends and family who kept me sane and well- caffeinated. All errors are mine alone. 3 Table of Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................................. 2 Acknowledgments .......................................................................................................................... 3 Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................ 4 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 5 2. Background .................................................................................................................................. 7 2.1. History of education in India ................................................................................................................. 7 2.2. The Right to Education Act ..................................................................................................................... 9 2.3. The education literature ........................................................................................................................ 10 3. Data .............................................................................................................................................. 12 4. Methodology ............................................................................................................................. 16 4.1. Traditional difference-in-differences approach .......................................................................... 17 4.2. Robustness check 1: Parallel pre-trends ........................................................................................ 20 4.2. Robustness check 2: Omitted variables .......................................................................................... 21 4.3. Exploring possible channels ................................................................................................................ 22 5. Results ......................................................................................................................................... 23 5.1. Effect of RTE on learning outcomes ................................................................................................. 23 5.2. Robustness checks ................................................................................................................................... 24 5.3. Effect of RTE on school quality measures ..................................................................................... 29 5.4. Channels for RTE effects on learning outcomes ......................................................................... 31 6. Discussion .................................................................................................................................. 32 6.1. Has RTE not been implemented by states? .................................................................................... 35 6.2. Has RTE resulted in more unprepared students going to school? ....................................... 35 6.3. Has RTE strained school resources? ............................................................................................... 36 7. Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 38 Appendix ......................................................................................................................................... 40 References ...................................................................................................................................... 54 4 1. Introduction In 1960, more than a decade after India gained independence from Great Britain, only 32% of children below the age of fourteen were in school. Five decades and several different education policies later in 2008, 6.9% of children were still out of school (Das 2013) and 84.4% of rural children could not read even basic words (ASER 2008). It was in this context that in 2009, India passed The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (henceforth referred to as “Right to Education Act” or RTE) to provide all children between the ages of 6 and 14 the constitutional right to education1. The Right to Education Act was enacted into law in 2010 and declared to be revolutionary. The minister for Human Resource Development described RTE as the “harbinger of a new era2.” The media was similarly laudatory, with The Times of India proclaiming in a headline after the passage of the law that “from today, every child has a right to education3.” This act was not just about getting kids in school; the Prime Minister asserted that RTE was “committed to ensuring that all children, irrespective of gender and social category, have access to […] the skills, knowledge, values and attitudes necessary to become responsible and active citizens of India4.” Seven years after the enactment of the law, this paper is the first to estimate the causal impact of RTE on literacy and numeracy rates of students in Indian public schools. It uses data from the Annual Status of Education Report, a national yearly survey of around 600,000 children that measures basic reading and mathematical 1 As mentioned in the abstract, India had a population of over 400 million people below the age of 18 in 2012 according to UNICEF (https://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/india_statistics.html). 2 “India Passes Free Education Bill” 2009. BBC. 5 August. https://tinyurl.com/rte-bbc 3 “From Today, Every Child Has a Right to Education.” The Times of India. https://tinyurl.com/rte-toi 4 “PM’s Address on Fundamental Right of Children to Elementary Education.” 2010. The Hindu. https://tinyurl.com/hindu-rte 5 skills. Exploiting the fact that one state in India (Jammu and Kashmir) was exempt from RTE, I use a difference-in-differences framework to evaluate the effect of the law. I control for differing pre-trends, GDP, student-level characteristics and state and year fixed effects and find that