Rethinking Schooling for the 21st Century

the expansion of access to schooling and the democratisation of aspiration. In
a study of several countries witnessing similar tendencies, Dore (1976) coined
the term ‘diploma disease’. South Asian societies display this affliction in an
acute form, with sustained competitiveness from the earliest grades reinforcing
regimentation of children through pedagogic and other means. The recent
fashion for outcomes-based approaches in education policy (associated with the
OECD/PISA paradigm) is, if anything, further accentuating such pressures.
The growth of private education has meanwhile challenged some older social
policy norms, such as the imperative of protecting education from the intrusion of
profit-seeking private enterprise. Across South Asia today, there is a proliferation
of chains of schools operated by large commercial concerns, some domiciled
overseas. They thrive in a market marked by the perceived under-supply of highquality
education — whereby ‘quality’ is taken to connote forms of curriculum
Across South Asia
today, there is a
proliferation of chains
of schools operated
by large commercial
concerns, some
domiciled overseas
and instruction capable of transforming children
into globally competitive units of production. This
conception of quality typically implies a heavy
reliance on imported, decontextualised curricula,
teaching materials and pedagogical approaches
— as well as the use of English as the medium of
instruction. Private tuition constitutes another
(related) instance of a commercial boom in the
education sector. Sen (2010, p. 14) found that at
the primary level in West Bengal, 57 per cent of
students were receiving private tutoring. Rana et al. (2005) estimated the costs
of private tutoring for students in government primary schools in West Bengal
at 21.5 per cent of the total costs of educating a child (p. 152). Nationally, a 2008
market survey of companies offering coaching estimated the size of the sector
at US$6.4 billion and predicted annual growth of 15 per cent over the subsequent
4 years (Vora and Dewan, 2009, cited in Bray and Lykins, 2012, p. 60).
The meanings ascribed to child-centredness or the promotion of ‘global
citizenship’ in commercial educational enterprises are a matter deserving of
further research. Amongst other things, the commercialisation of education
in South Asia is associated with the multiplication of internationally-affiliated
schools, stretching an already wide social gap between the higher middle classes
and their less privileged compatriots. Governments have generally been reluctant
to interfere in the functioning of such schools by regulating them. Thus, while
policy documents may claim all-round progress towards the achievement of
equity as envisaged by SDG 4.7, fast-moving changes in the political economy
are exacerbating entrenched inequities. Educational and curricular planning
thus confronts fundamental social, economic and political challenges to the
realisation of a more balanced, inclusive and humanistic vision of schooling —
with formidable vested interests opposing meaningful change. Research into the
relationship between culturally entrenched inequalities, more recent discourses
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Chapter 5: South Asia