Literacy provides a base for further education.

They have given 1/3 weight to average years of schooling to variables related to education. Most of the developed societies have more than 12 years as average schooling for their citizens. The fast-growing societies of East Asia have nearly achieved an average of 10-12 years of schooling for their adult population. It is from this position of strength that they are facing the rest of the world in the era of globalisation. India with 2.5 average years of schooling for adult population is yet is to cover a lot of ground. These are the observations made about Changing structure of Education in Punjab. Some issues and policy recommendations. The book under review analyses in detail the educational progress in Punjab. The state has made substantial progress in establishment of schools, colleges (general and professional) and universities. The establishment and development of chain of institutions and institutional structure matches the level of development of the state. But the utilisation of this structure is much below the desired level. The enrolment in Punjab at the primary level stood at 94.43 per cent in 1981, but declined to 85.07 per in 1991 and rose to 91.82 per cent in 1998. The state is nowhere near achieving 100 per cent enrollment or universal primary education in the near future. There is a high dropout rate at various levels 91.82 per cent of the school going age children are enrolled at the primary level. The children dropout rate in to the extent of 22 per cent before completing primary education. Thus, 71.62 per cent of schoolgoing children at the present level would attain minimum education to be called literate. It is a cause of serious concern which needs investigation. The dropout rate is very high and rises with the level of school education. This rate in Punjab is 28 per cent at the middle level and 42.03 per cent at the high school level. Thus, only 29.90 per cent school-going children can complete high school education. The dropout rates are high among girls compared to boys. There are many reasons for this. The oneteacher or two-teacher primary schools, schools without buildings, and without toilet facilities and incapable of retaining the students enrolled. Many poor parents cannot afford to send their children to schools. The absolute number of primary school teachers declined between 1991 and 1998 (a liberlisation phase) whereas this number increased at other levels of schools. This indicates the deliberate neglect of primary education at the level of administration. The total collapse in management and the inspection mechanism reflected in headless schools (in thousands) and an irresponsible transfer policy leading to overstaffing in urban schools and understaffing in rural schools have contributed in a big was to make education structure as non-serving and non-functional. The system of higher education (up to 1998) consists of five universities, colleges of general education (206), teachers training colleges (20), engineering colleges (18), medical colleges (6) and veterinary and agriculture colleges (3).

The system has been built to provide an ordinary graduation degree and 91.16 per cent of the total students in higher education fall in this stream. The remaining 8.84 per cent are in the professional stream. In spite of the policy of reservation for Scheduled Castes, the SC students constituted 9.70 per cent of the total students in 1991 and 9.71 per cent in 1998. The system is unable to raise the proportion of SC students in higher education and end discrimination against them. Evidence shows that advanced countries spend 5-6 per cent of their income (GNP) on education while India spends 3.4 per cent and Punjab 2.31 per cent of its income (SDP). Education being in the social sector, it remains largely public funded. This is also the case in India. But in Punjab, public funds for education are generally disappearing. The state is ranked 22nd (and Haryana 25th) among states and union territories in the matter of per capita public spending on education. The sad part of the story is that the share of education in public (government) spending is falling. Between 1990-91 and 1997-98 at constant prices of 1980-81, the overall educational expenditure of state has grown at annual rate of 1.43 per cent against 3.63 per cent growth rate of net state domestic product and 6.17 per cent growth rate of the state budgetary expenditure. The process of withdrawal of state funding in education has created a two-fold crisis in education. One, it has created a financial crisis for public-funded institutions such as colleges, universities and schools. They have met this situation partly keeping certain number of teaching posts as vacant and compromising with educational standards. Some of the institutions have opened self-financing and profitable courses charging very high fee. The situation has been exploited by certain private institutions in IT and medical courses making mockery of the whole situation. The quality control mechanism has been made non-functional and students are charged fee at exorbitant rates without providing them quality education matching the fees charged.

Punjabs education growth report The growth and expansion of school education in Punjab during the past two decades has been tardy. As a result, the targets of total literacy and universalisation of elementary education are yet to be achieved. Moreover, the state policy to upgrade schools, mainly on political considerations, without providing matching facilities, has further disturbed the educational equilibrium.
Further, the state educational infrastructure is not adequately equipped to solve problems such as non-enrolment of children, fake enrolment, irregular attendance and high dropout rate rural areas.

The single-teacher schools, two-teacher schools, schools without headteachers and schools without buildings, libraries, laboratories, playgrounds, drinking water, toilets and proper electricity facilities are some of the other irritants. In rural areas, the impression is that science and commerce education at the senior secondary level has collapsed. The education system of the state, instead of being well-integrated, lacks coherence. The proliferation of multiple schooling affiliated with different boards has given birth to a dangerous trend. The gap between different school systems has increased so much that the people have started considering government schools as of have-nots. The influential sections have started withdrawing their wards from schools, both in rural and urban areas. The ever-increasing share of scheduled castes students in school enrolments at the primary level in Punjab is a pointer to this fact. The present education system in Punjab seems to have become an instrument of social stratification rather than that of cohesiveness. This emerges from a recent study undertaken by Prof Vishwa Mittar, Dr Sukhwinder Singh and Dr Jaswinder Singh Brar of the Department of Economics. It has been published under the title Changing Structure of Education in Punjab: Some issues and policy recommendations by Punjabi University, Patiala. Between 1993 and 1998, 22 per cent of those enrolled actually dropped out before completing the primary stage. During the same period, 42 per cent did not complete high school. Consequently, the number of students declined sharply with the rising levels of education. In 1998, there were 31.90 lakh students at the elementary level, 7.77 lakh in high/senior secondary level, 2.43 lakh in higher education and 18,000 were enrolled in higher level professional courses and 28,000 in lower level professional courses. However, the share of Scheduled Castes students out of the total students enrolled in general colleges was 6.43 per cent in 1971 and 11.04 per cent in 1991. But this share decreased to 9.36 per cent in 1998. The share of Scheduled Castes girls in higher education is abysmally low. Further, expansion of higher education, particularly professional and technical education, has taken place overwhelmingly in the private sector. This is a most important manifestation of commercialisation of education and growth of for profit institutions. However, Punjab does not have any worthwhile state plan to limit or regulate the enrolment of students, quality of education, and fee structure to be charged by such institutions. The study points out that Punjab spends less on education on per capita basis too. Among all 32 states and union territories in the country, Punjab ranks 22nd from the top in 199798, and 17 from the top in 1990-91. For 1997-98, the per capita spending on education was the highest for Lakshadweep (Rs 2157.14) and the lowest for Bihar (Rs 308.65). In case of Punjab, the per capita public spending on education was Rs 525.28 Interestingly, the per capita spending of Punjab was even less than that of the all-India average (Rs 535.21) in 1997-98, which was above the all-India average level during 199091.

The per student public spending on education in Punjab was Rs 2597 in 1997-98. The per student-public spending in case of various levels of education was elementary education (Rs 1027.60), secondary education (Rs 6754.18) higher education (Rs 7582.53) and technical education (Rs 14868.32) during 1997-98. The study also provides information on educational spending by households on their wards. The per household annual expenditure on elementary education was Rs 911 in government schools and Rs 2098 in private schools in 1993-94. Moreover, households having income less than Rs 20,000 per annum spent Rs 819 on education in case of government schools and Rs 1330 in case of private schools. The study says that local bodies should be involved on a large scale in managing education. There is a need for drafting a sound recruitment, promotion and transfer policy with strict adherence.