Yet, the evidence is very much there. After all, China far outperforms India on educational indicators such as enrolment and efficiency, despite having a largely public primary system. Clearly, you don’t need a private system to achieve high quality and provide universal access to education.

Closer to home, Abi at Nanopolitan shows how publicly funded Kendriya Vidyalaya schools outperform even private schools at the CBSE exams. In 2007, KV schools (of which there were 860), had a pass percentage of 95.6%. Jawahar Navodayas, had a pass percentage of 96.4%, private schools had 91.8%, and other government schools had 70.3%. Clearly, not all public schools are the same!

This seems to be the season for good posts on schools in India. Continuing with the arguments made in his previous post, Dweep produces yet another, very readable, post on the usefulness of public schools. Questioning, yet again, the ‘evidence’ offered in favour of privatizing primary education.