Is it possible to make every child in India as competent as an ant?

India has close to 370 Million children (Age 0-15). Out these 84 Million children are not in school which is same as almost the whole population of West Bengal (90 Million) is out of school and this is equivalent to Mumbai’s population 12 times. Now, what about the children who are in schools? Are they getting the education which is their right to deserve (Right to Education)? Primary-school enrolment is nearly universal. But, learning is not. Half of fifth-grade pupils (ten-year-olds) cannot read a story designed for second-graders, according to Pratham’s Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) Report 2018. Just a quarter can do simple division. More than half of children enrolled in Class 5 can read at least a standard 2 level text. 1 out of 4 children leaving Std VIII without basic reading skills. The percentage of all children in standard 3 who can read at standard 2 level has climbed up slowly over the past few years. This figure has increased from 21.6% in 2013 to 23.6% in 2014 to 25.1% in 2016, and finally to 27.2% in 2018. Learning may be getting better but the phase is very slow.

The Challenge:

Is it possible to make every child in India as competent as an ant?

Potential Solution:

Providing incremental Aadhar card benefits to the lower middle class and the poor will incentivise parents to build competency in their children by sending them to schools and ensuring that their children get better scores.

India has 22% of the population living under global poverty line and close to 300 million middle-class people in India. Internationally, an income of less than $1.90 per day per head of purchasing power parity is defined as extreme poverty. By this estimate, about 12.4% of Indians are extremely poor. The new poverty line is an income of Rs.32 for rural India or Rs.47 for urban India per day. Aadhar card initiative helps the poor to sustain their daily life though various subsidies like rice, wheat and LPG.  

Hypothesis:

Incremental/Additional benefits in Aadhar card for building competency in children shall improve the education quality in the country and thus the competency of the nation.

Story Board:

The story board shows the attitude difference of the parents in a poor family towards the education of their children. Before the introduction of the card, the parents were not serious about their kids’ education but after the introduction of the benefits, the parents give more emphasis on their kids’ education. This support from home eventually leads to a improvement in the students' scores.

Prototype:

The prototype here will be a regular Aadhar card with same aadhar details provided by the Government. However, the Aadhar card+, the one that I`m proposing will be colour coded such a blue, yellow, green based on the eligibility of various levels of benefits. Details on the levels are given below in the low cost experiment.

Low Cost Experiment:

There are 2 levels in this low cost experiment. Level 1 is survey and level 2 is implementing it in a small village with very low population. 

Before we conduct the experiment, as a background, we need to ensure the scoring system is justified in the schools and it needs to be standardized across all classrooms in the village/block through a standardized competency measuring rubric/tool. Focus should be more on life skills and competency than rote learning skills.  We also need to do a baseline assessment to understand where the students’ average scores are at present. We also do the assessment to few control schools where the experiment will not be happening to gauge the impact of the experiment. Prior to the experiment we need to link students’ scores in the block to the Aadhar card and based on the scores the benefits will be increased. For example, families of the students who scores more than 80% gets level A benefits (Green Card) ; 60%-79% gets level B benefits (Yellow Card) ; 40-60% get level C benefits (Blue Card) ; below 40% gets no additions benefits (regular white Aadhar card) 

As a low cost experiment (level 1), we can test the hypothesis with a survey in one block/village in any backward district in any state. The surveyors will visit the communities in villages where the school enrollments are very low and the education quality is extremely poor. The surveyors shall float the idea and ask the citizens that if such benefits would arrive, will they be interested in sending their children to schools and support in improving the quality of their education.

The cost of the experiment for the first level (survey) will be the travel cost of the surveyors to the villages. We can tie up with colleges who can send their students as a part of their course.

The second level of the experiment at a block level would be more expensive than the first level. To keep the costs low, we can test it in a block/village with 1 or 2 schools and where the population is quite minimal. The benefits of Level A, B and C shall cost us additional 2-3Kgs of rice/wheat per family that is eligible for the benefits. Even if we assume 200 families get the benefits of 5Kgs additional rice/wheat apart from their regular subsidy (at Rs. 25/kg cost for Govt.) the total cost would be Rs.25,000 for rice/wheat and additional Rs.10,000 for travel expenses of the survey team.

The success of the hypothesis can be measured by the average increase in the students competency score when compared to their baseline. We can measure the same with a control group where the incentives were not introduced to get deeper understanding on the difference in the growth between the experimental and control group.