- India has 93,000 elementary schools with computers; the US has 110,000
- 19% of primary schools in India have a single teacher (that’s one in five schools!)
- 25% of schools in India had electricity in 2004, increased from 21% in 2002
- 87% of schools in India are in rural areas
- Education expenditure rose from about 3% of GDP to 4% between 1980 and 1991, but it has remained stagnant at 3.8% over the past decade despite the meteoric rise of India’s GDP in that same time span.
The last stat sticks out to me. I’ve seen from personal experience how underfunded schools in India are, and the challenges are real. In fact, the challenges are also there for even relatively well-funded private schools that I’ve seen.
Neil Patel, of the Siksha Foundation, discovers figures that describe the Indian education scenario can be ‘mindboggling’.
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Why does the last point of statistics stick out. The percentage expenditure on education has remained static. And because the countries GDP has increased, it means an increased expenditure in absolute terms!!
vinod,
interesting question. i don’t know whether you’ve read the post, but the context would be better understood if one keeps in mind the stated long-term objective (formulated first in 1968) of the goi to raise spending on education to 6% of gdp. one could say resources were a constraint before 1991- what are the constraints now?