THE GIST of Editorial for UPSC Exams : 17 october 2019 (Let’s focus on demand for education (Mint))

Let’s focus on demand for education (Mint)

Mains Paper 3: Economy
Prelims level: Poor Economics
Mains level: Relations between education and economy

Context

•  Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty draws insights from various ground-level experiments that involve field trials in poverty-stricken areas.
•  They offer policy advice based on their learnings.

Highlights of the applying to education in India

•  India should go beyond the mere supply of schools, getting children into classrooms and focus on the demand for education.
•  The generation of demand is not always easy, especially in remote areas that aren’t exposed to the modern economy.
•  School enrolment depends on the returns that families foresee on their investment.
•  A study was conducted in three randomly selected villages in northern India.
•  Exposed to job opportunities for women at business process outsourcing (BPO) centers, families began to re-evaluate their returns and the school enrolment of girls went up significantly.

Quality of education

•  Education quality is essential for demand to rise, and supply lacunae act as a hindrance.
•  Due to the exposure via the internet, demand appears to be increasing, but the government’s supply of education is at odds with new patterns of demand.
•  Very few state-run schools in India are English medium while education in English is what the country’s have-nots are increasingly looking for.

Conclusion

•  India needs to work on both demand and supply. And the latter may still be what it’s best equipped to reform.
•  Policy-wise, India needs to work on both demand and supply. And the latter may still be what it’s best equipped to reform.

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Prelims Questions:

Q.1) Which of the following best describes Hayabusa2?

(a) An asteroid sample-return mission of the Japanese space agency, JAXA.
(b) NASA’s mission aimed at studying Bennu Asteroid.
(c) A Russian Spacecraft which carries people and supplies to and from the International Space Station.
(d) A habitable artificial satellite in low Earth orbit.

Answer: A
Mains Questions:
Q.1) How developing education system is the key factor lies India’s economic development. Comment.