My Views of NITI Aayog: Health Index 2019-20

 

Prof. Arun C Mehta
Formerly Professor & Head
Department of EMIS
NIEPA, New Delhi 

Background

Ever since the Planning Commission is renamed as The National Institutions for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog it used to compute and disseminate a variety of state-specific indices which includes one each for Education, Health, Water, and Sustainable Development (SDG) Goals. On the one hand, the education index, namely School Education Quality Index (SEQI) is the latest available for the year 2016-17; on the other hand, the SDG index is available for 2020-21. The recently launched (December 2021), Healthy States, Progressive India: Health Round IV is the latest available for 2019-20. 

The available indices help know the status of a state-viz-a-viz other states concerning SDG, health, and education but the indices are of little use to use as an input to ongoing annual plan formulation exercises. For example, the SEQI (also performance Grading Index for 2019-20) is the latest available for the year 2016-17, the same is not possible to use while formulating annual plans the process of 2022-23 under Samagra Shiksha is being initiated soon. 

Most of the indicators used in Health Index: 2019-20 are of the year 2018-19 or even 2015-16 in case of few indicators. NITI Aayog must also intervene to ensure that the data required in computing an index in a year must be available for the same year for which an index is being computed. The time lag in school education data has recently been widened as the same is latest available for the year 2019-20 (as of January 2021).

While observations on School Education Quality Index (SEQI), Performance Grading Index (PGI), and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) are separately been documented, in this note we focus more on the Health Round IV Index: 2019-20. The Health Index of the first three rounds is available for years, 2014-15, 2015-16, and 2016-17 respectively. In addition, SDG3: Health Index has also been looked into.

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Is decline in enrolment in school education in india a cause for concern?

  Is Decline in School Enrolment in India a Cause of Concern?

                                                                                                      ……Yes, it is

By
Arun C Mehta
Formerly Professor & Head of EMIS Department
NIEPA, New Delhi
Email: acmehta100@gmail.com 

Introduction

Because of the limitations in the educational statistics, at the time of initiating the District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) in 1994-95, the Ministry of Education/HRD, Government of India decided to develop a computerized educational management information system with the school as the unit of data collection and district as the unit of data dissemination and the task to develop such as system was assigned to NIEPA, New Delhi which joined hands with the UNICEF and contributed all through the period 1994-95 to 2017-18. It was only the year  2018-19 onwards that the renamed UDISE+ is being managed by the NIC and located in the Department of School Education & Literacy, Ministry of Education but the first of its publication was released on 1^st July 2021 by the then Minister of Education under the title, UDISE+ 2019-20 Report even failed to mention the national institutions which brought the earlier defunct school education statistics managed by the none other than the Ministry of Education to this level which practically has overcome most of the limitations in Educational Statistics in India.

At the time, when UDISE was managed by the NIEPA, New Delhi the time-lag in the educational statistics was brought to less than a year at the national level and the Annual Work Plan & Budget under the age-sis of Sarva/Samagra  Shiksha Abhiyan was being formulated on currents years data both of which have now been forfeited. Other achievements of NIEPA towards strengthening EMIS are also fading and fast becoming history. 

The year 2021-22 annual plans have recently been formulated based on the outdated 2019-20 data unfortunately which is also the latest data. At the time of writing this note, the process of data collection for 2020-21 is in progress and the moot question is in which year’s annual plan, data of 2020-21 will be used. Annual plan exercises are now based on stale data, the allegation which was made on UDISE to gain its control from the national institutions which were also alleged not having expertise. UDISE at NIEPA used to bring out a set of 15 publications in a year all of which has now been discontinued along with the updating of the numerous award-winning internationally acclaimed websites including the schoolreportcards.in.

The Present Article

While how much we gain: A Case of UDISE+ and Is India moving towards privatization of school education: analysis of coverage under UDISE+ 2019-20 has separately been documented, in this note, we confine to analyse the progress of school enrolment in Grades I to XII over time in general and primary enrolment in Grades I to V and other levels of school education in particular and analyse whether the decline in school enrolment in India is a cause of concern especially when all government-sponsored programmes and RTE 2009 are working towards universal school enrolment? Wherever essential, the same is separately been analysed under the government as well as private management. 

Needless to mention that the main source of educational statistics in India, namely UDISE, for different years has been extensively used in analysing the growth which has taken place in school education in India. Data has been obtained from the official websites and is available in the public domain.

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• Is Decline in School Enrolment in India a Cause of Concern?
• Report published in Hindustan Times, December 12, 2021