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Child poverty and education by DP Chaudhuri & Raghbendra Jha

A decline of 2.6 million in elementary education enrolments from 2007 to 2010, the years of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan's trumpeted success, needs careful analysis. Enrolment data, based on school statistics, deals with the supply-side only. Census or NSS data , based on household information, gives us the demand-side of school enrolments. The two should roughly match, as they do in half of India, but not for UP, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Rajasthan.

This is not because these states deliberately over report. As Professor Amartya Sen highlighted in his Lal Bahadur Shastri Memorial lecture more than four decades ago, these discrepancies are embedded in the processes of data collection that focus exclusively on the supply side. The culprits are high dropout and wastage that become determinants of school funding for that year.

School enrolment census is in August following the beginning of the school year (usually July) and excludes the dropouts that occur in peak periods of economic activity, i.e., sowing and harvesting seasons in rural India. That most of these children are living in poverty can be verified from the demand side of school education. These children face cumulative disadvantage of poverty, including inability to meet direct costs and opportunity costs. Recent initiatives, such as providing mid-day meals, uniforms and text books to school children, need upgrading and timely delivery, particularly in these states.

A close look at the expansion of elementary education from 2004-05 to 2009-10 across Indian states reveals that the largest expansion has been in precisely the states which used to have large discrepancies in their reporting of educational statistics. Figure 1 provides year-to-year changes in elementary education enrolments, for primary and middle schools for states that account for maximum growth and decline. The proportion of children living in poverty in these states (in 2004-05) is above the national average of one in three children. In Orissa it is one in two. Link it with Pratham's recently released Report for 2010 on learning outcomes and facilities to get the real picture. The message that some of the poor are getting is that the costs of education they have to bear are high and the quality on offer does not justify these! Surprisingly, despite the unsatisfactory quality of schooling on offer in these states, about 70% children in poverty do attend schools. A large proportion of their teachers, however, may not feel obligated to do so. In the rest of India over 90% of children, even those in poverty, do attend schools.

Our estimates of child poverty, based on NSS data, indicate a decline of 18 million from 1993-94 and was 104 million in 2004-05.Concentration of child poverty in the above mentioned four states that account for half the children in India is rather startling. We divided households into four groups: (i) Very Poor: households with monthly per capita expenditure (MPCE) less than half the official poverty line, (ii) Poor: Households with MPCE less than the poverty line but more than half the poverty line, (iii) Non-poor Low: Households with MPCE more than the poverty line but less than twice the poverty line, and (iv) Non-poor High: Households with MPCE more than twice the poverty line. Results comparing the average household size and the average number of children in these four categories of households are given in Figure 2.

In 2004-05, the average size of household among the very poor was 5.5 and 2.6 children lived in it. Among the poor, the household size was 5.8, and 2.4 children lived in it. Among the non-poor low, the average size was 5.1 and 1.7 children lived in it. Among the non-poor high, the average household size was 3.9 but the number of children living in it was only 0.9. Our analysis brings out a disturbing pattern of uneven demographic transition among these four groups of households within a cross-section and also the change from 1993-94 to 2004-05. Decline in school enrolments is mainly due to child poverty rather than demographic transition or over reporting. Policies on child poverty reduction need to be intertwined with those for schooling and also for faster demographic transition.

The inescapable inferences that the poor have larger family size, larger number of children in their households and also have higher dependency ratios compared with the non-poor have implications for schooling.

Child poverty and non- participation in schooling require an orchestrated policy response. It is not just a supply side issue. Earnest implementation of the Right to Education Law would have high social as well as economic growth dividends. Shifting the annual school enrolment census from August to March would dispel the illusion of schooling progress, particularly in the states with poor schooling outcomes.

The authors are with Monash University and Australian National University , respectively.