role of international aid agencies in educational development in india

Role of International Aid Agencies in Educational Development in India

Dr Michael Ward, Senior Education Adviser, DFID IndiaNUEPA M.Phil/PhD Programme, www.schoolofeducators.com

What is Aid?

What is Aid?• A transfer of resources on concessional terms

– on terms that is more generous or softer than loans obtainable in the world’s capital markets – from rich countries to poorer countries.

• Aid is Official Development Assistance (ODA) and is monitored and reported on by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)

• For the DAC, aid qualifies as ODA on three criteria: must be undertaken by official agencies, such as DFID; must be for economic development and welfare; and must have a grant element of 25% or more – i.e., 100% grant or soft loan.

How much aid does India receive?

Aid to India

Aid Flows in India in constant prices, 1999=100

0

20000

40000

60000

80000

100000

120000

3rd plan-1961-66

4th plan-1969-74

5th plan-1974-78

6th plan-1980-84

7th plan-1980-85

8th plan-1985-90

9th plan -1992-97

10th plan-1997-2002

Rs.

cro

res

Aid agreed Aid receipts Repayments (principal & interest)

Sector Shares of Aid?

Sector shares of aid

Who gives aid to India?

Who gives aid to India?

• Multilaterals, such as the World Bank, just over one third

• Bilaterals – mainly Japan and the UK, but also Germany, just over one third

• Smaller bilaterals• Foundations, such as the Gates

Foundation• International NGOs

History of aid to India• Foreign aid has for the most part been used for part-

funding Plan development expenditures. • During the 1980s, external flows covered about 18

percent of India’s total Gross Budgetary Support for central government ministries’ development programmes and assistance to the states, and were around 10% of the total public sector investment per annum, though this has been declining in the 1990s

• Total external aid as a percentage of GDP fell from 1.4% in 1991-2 to less than 0.5% in 2001-2, amounting to USD 3.57 billion.

• With the continued rapid growth of the economy, aid had

fallen to little more than 0.1% of GDP by 2006/7. • Accordingly, although aid initially made an important

contribution to the government’s investment programme, over the past ten years this has become much less significant, and in GDP terms its quantum is now tiny.

Aid to Education Priorities

• Post-independence and during 1960s and 70s, focus on skills – ‘manpower development’

• US and UK support for IITs and Universities

• During the 1980s growing recognition that poor quality and partial coverage of basic education was robbing millions of people in India access even to literacy and numeracy

Changing education aid priorities

• World Conference on Education For All in Jomtien, Thailand, 1990 was a watershed for aid to education and developing countries

• It pledged the attainment by 2000 of Universal Primary Education

• Following Jomtien, international community, led by World Bank increased emphasis and funding of primary education, most, but not all, major donors followed suit

Changing education aid priorities

• Dakar EFA, April 2000

• Millennium Declaration and Millennium Development Goals, September 2000

• Paris Declaration on Donor Harmonisation, 2004

Primary Education in India

• National Policy on Education 1986 renews commitment to have all children in school

• Operation Blackboard• Jomtien, 1990• Programme of Action in 1992• Aid to education in India increased

greatly after 1990 and focused on primary education

• GoI changed its views regarding aid for primary education and developed APEP, BPEP and ultimately DPEP

Primary Education in India

• DPEP supported by World Bank, EC, UK and Netherlands focused on the most educationally backward districts:

- Increased access;- Improved equity – gender, SC and ST- Improved quality

At its height DPEP covered half the country. 85% of DPEP costs funded from aid.

Elementary Education in India

• 86th Constitutional Amendment Act (December 2002) making education a fundamental right for all children aged 6 to 14 years

• Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan designed to make the Act a reality

• Right to Education Bill (December 2008?) to secure the gains of SSA and make states accountable for free and compulsory education

• World Bank, DFID and EC $2billion for SSA (10% of the total expenditure 2001/02 to 2009/10)

Why does India want aid for education

• In the 1980s and 1990s, India faced real financial constraints

• India wanted to learn from other countries

• Technical assistance was necessary for key areas such as curriculum, materials development, assessment

• Joint supervision of education programmes, with external scrutiny, helped to increase the rigour of programme management and implementation

Benefits of aid to education in india

• GoI is responsible for policy, but aid funded programmes have helped to shape the direction and enrich this, particularly in terms of programme design.

• APEP, NFE (UNICEF), Shiksha Karmi Project (1987) and Lok Jumbish (1992) in Rajasthan (Sweden and UK), Mahila Samakhya (Netherlands and now UK), Bihar Primary Education project have all contributed to the design of DPEP and SSA

Benefits of aid to education in india

• Financial support in the 1990s made expansion of primary education possible

• International support for Jomtien, Dakar and MDGs have impacted on priorities in Indian education

• Joint Review Missions are effective vehicles for policy dialogue, supervision and reflection on what is working, involving the Centre and States

• Focus on access giving way to emphasis on quality, technically supported by donors – aid accelerates the pace of change

Changing modalities of aid to education

• Early years: stand alone projects, such as development of a single institution (IIT)

• Broad-based projects: teacher training and textbooks

• Programmes• Sub-sector programmes• Sector Wide Approaches

Aid Form Conditionality Earmarking Accountability

BoP Support Macro None or nominal None or nominal

Debt Relief Macro and budget None or poverty virtual fund (e.g. Uganda)

Government systems

General Budget Support

Macro and budget None or nominal Government systems

Sector Budget Support

Sectoral To sector or within sector

Government systems

Projects using Govt systems

(Sector and) Project

Project Government system

Projects using parallel systems

Limited by low ownership?

Total Donor

CHARACTERISTICS OF FINANCIAL AID

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Future of aid to education in India

• India is an aid paradox: it has lots of poverty and a low quality basic education system, having high rates of non attendance and low achievement levels but aid is tiny relative to the Government’s own fiscal effort and economic growth and middle income status will make it hard for donors to justify aiding the country.

• India is a country where aid to education is effective, much more so than many other developing countries

Some research questions: a PhD in aid to education?

• What has been the impact of aid to education?

• How is it that primary education has been prioritised and now secondary education, but not literacy or early childhood?

• What international experience and best practice has been brought in and adopted by developing countries through aid?

• Has aid been able to influence or enrich India’s education policy?

Some research questions: a PhD in aid to education?

• Has aid helped to leverage allocations to education?

• Has aid helped to improve the quality of education?

• Between the tax payer in a rich country and the poor child in India there stands two enormous bureaucracies – the aid agency and the recipient government – how much of the tax payers’ dollars have benefited the poor child inside or outside a school in India?

role of international aid agencies in educational development in india

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