Delhi's Education Revolution

Front matter

P am a

Delhi's _ Education Revolution

Teachers, agency & inclusion

Contents

Acknowledgements Dedication

List of figures, table and box List of abbreviations

2 Education policy and politics in India and in Delhi

Dedication

“For my son Kian” (KA) & “For our silver anniversary” (ML)

List of figures, table and box

Figures 1.1 Map of Delhi 3.1 Structural flow of in-service teacher training for government primary school teachers 3.2 Training session by a mentor teacher

Introduction

There has been pronounced international progress in getting more children into school over the past decade, yet education quality remains a serious concern. In many countries, children — predominantly those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds ~ are still experiencing poor-quality education which reduces their likelihood of achieving their learning potential (UNESCO, 2014; World Bank, 2018). As part of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) agenda, governments across the world have committed to delivering inclusive and equitable high-quality education for all children (United Nations, 2015). While the purposes and objectives for SDG4 were agreed upon, disagreements over the meaning of ‘quality and ‘equality’ remained (Unterhalter, 2019). The conflict hinged on narrow versus broad conceptions of these terms and the institutional histories of different organisations and governments that supported different interpretations (Unterhalter, 2019). The idea of quality had been linked with a narrow range of learning outcomes or benchmarks in the early UNESCO Education for All (EFA) Steering Committee and expert-led reports. However, by the later meetings (in 2014, 2015 and 2016 in Muscat and Incheon) quality had come to be associated with equalities and values such as sustainable development, global citizenship and skills for decent work (Unterhalter, 2019). The Incheon Declaration included a full and substantive statement of quality, reviewing the range of processes that contributed to this (World Education Forum, 2015), and the Framework for Action on Education 2030 reviews teaching practices needed to ensure quality (UNESCO, 2015).

In the Indian context there is increasing concern about the quality of education that the system can provide (NUEPA, 2014). According to the EFA 2014 report, one of the key challenges facing the Indian education system is the quality-related deficiencies at each stage, resulting in an unsatisfactory level of student learning. The phenomenon of underachievement among pupils depicts the quality-related deficiencies of the education system (Jain and Prasad, 2018, 12). Research shows that children do not have school-ready competencies in cognition and language, revealing the poor quality of the curriculum, deficiencies of the teaching-learning process and lack of quality teachers. If the foundation for children at school is weak, the possibilities for later educational interventions are reduced. Therefore, importantly, ‘appropriate interventions need to be formulated and implemented to remove quality-related deficiencies at school-level’ (Jain and Prasad, 2018, 12) and the education facilities should be equal for all, as quality education is the right of every student (Jain and Prasad, 2018).

This chapter gives the education policy and political background for the whole volume. While the book focuses on Delhi, it is important to understand Indian education policy as a broader context for what happened in the Indian capital and how education policy has been affected by wider national political priorities. The chapter therefore broadly reviews Indian education policy priorities including the politicisation of textbooks that have in effect contributed to the education crisis the country is facing. This is underpinned by an exodus of the middle and lower-middle classes to private provision (Lall, 2013). Policy changes across governments since the economic reforms in 1991 have culminated in the NEP of 2020. However, to date, national education policies have not successfully improved the quality of Indian government schools. Certain states, mostly in the south, have done better than those in the north. Recent reforms in Delhi have proved a notable exception. The chapter will also introduce Delhi NCR - India’s capital of over 18 million residents which faces some of India’s biggest economic and educational challenges.

The success of the Delhi education system run by the AAP government is examined in light of the national policy priorities. After the landslide victory of AAP in 2015, AAP seems to have visibly transformed Delhi’s ailing school education system (Sahoo, 2020). The government allotted new funds to education, introduced new teacher-training courses and student learning programmes such as Mission Buniyaad and improved schooling infrastructure and cleaning (Sahoo, 2020; Praja Foundation Report, 2019; Lall et al., 2020). Online survey results from 2020 revealed that due to an improvement in the standard of education of Delhi government schools, 61 per cent of the respondents from

70 constituencies of Delhi prefer sending their children to government schools rather than private ones. Further, 82 per cent of respondents said that the quality of education and related facilities has been enhanced (Hindustan Times, 2020). There are also critical voices. According to the India DIU, which scanned the reports relating to the 70 promises made by the AAP manifesto in 2015, AAP fulfilled three out of a total of seven education-sector-related promises made in the manifesto.?

Indian education policy from Nehru to today

Following independence in 1947, Indian school curricula were imbued with inclusiveness and emphasis on the fact that India’s different communities could live peacefully side-by-side as one nation. Drawing from Nehru’s vision, and articulating most of his key themes, the Kothari Commission (1964-6) was set up to formulate a coherent education policy for India. According to the Commission, Education was intended to increase productivity, develop social and national unity, consolidate democracy, modernise the country and develop social, moral and spiritual values (Sharma, 2002). To achieve this, the main pillar of Indian education policy was to be free and compulsory education for all children up to the age of 14. The commission stated: ‘One of the important social objectives of education is to equalize opportunities, enabling the backward or underprivileged classes and individuals to use education as a lever for the improvement of their condition’ (Kothari Commission, 1964, 66, cited in Thamarasseri, 2008). Other features included the development of languages (Hindi, Sanskrit, regional languages and the three-language formula), equality of educational opportunities (regional, tribal and gender imbalances to be addressed) and the development and prioritisation of scientific education and research. India’s curriculum had historically prioritised the study of mathematics and science rather than social sciences or arts. This was subsequently actively promoted, since the Kothari Commission argued that India’s developmental needs were better met by engineers and scientists than historians.

Subsequent Indian governments regarded education policy as a crucial part of their development agenda. Emphasis has traditionally been placed on universality, pluralism and secularism rather than quality and excellence. Education has been a prime focus in India’s development plans ever since independence. It is included as a part of the Directive Principles of State Policy in the Constitution, which states that ‘the State shall endeavour to provide within a period of ten years from the commencement of this Constitution, for free and compulsory education for all children until they complete the age of fourteen years’ (Article 21A, Constitution of India).? India’s education infrastructure has developed some of the best higher-education institutions in the world (such as the Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institutes of Management’), but at the other end of the scale severe problems have persisted with basic education provision in rural and tribal areas (Nambissan, 2006).

In 1986 Rajiv Gandhi announced the New Education Policy (NEP) intended to prepare India for the twenty-first century. The policy emphasised the need for change: ‘Education in India stands at the crossroads today. Neither normal linear expansion nor the existing pace and nature of improvement can meet the needs of the situation’ (paragraph 1.9, NEP, cited in Shukla, 1988, 2). According to the NEP, the goals set out by the Kothari Commission in the 1960s had largely been achieved: more than 90 per cent of the country’s rural population were within a kilometre of schooling facilities and a common education structure had been adopted by most states. How far these objectives had actually been met is up for discussion, as the Kothari Commission had aimed at universal primary education, which India had not achieved. The prioritisation of science and mathematics had also been effective. However, change was required to increase financial and organisational support for the education system, to tackle problems of access and quality. The problem with literacy levels also remained, as, despite the increased number of schools, literacy levels differed widely from state to state. The NEP was intended to raise education standards and increase access to education. At the same time, it would safeguard the values of secularism, socialism and equality that had been promoted since independence. To this end, the NEP stated that the government would seek financial support from the private sector to complement government funds. The central government also declared that it would accept a wider responsibility to enforce ‘the national and integrative character of education, to maintain quality and standards’ (Shukla, 1988, 6). The states, however, retained a significant role, particularly in relation to the curriculum. The key legacy of the 1986 policy was the start of overt privatisation. While private schools already existed, government education was seen as the main provision (Kingdon, 2017).

Economic reforms and post-reform education

In 1991 India embarked on major nation- and sector-wide economic reforms.* Early in 1992, when education policy was reexamined, the NEP was regarded as a sound way forward for India’s education system, although some targets were recast and some reformulations were undertaken in relation to adult and elementary education (Ram and Sharma, 1995). The new emphasis in 1992 was on the expansion of secondary education, while the focus on education for minorities and women continued. According to Corbridge et al. (2005, 80), India had ‘failed lamentably’ to meet its performance targets, and the reforms made this all too visible. Sound policy goals (regarding access and literacy) and the effect on the ground of these policies were not congruent in many Indian states.” In the 1990s, government education provision needed to be expanded, resulting in quality being traded off for quantity, as new institutions were opened with declining allocations being spread thinly. Equity was also sacrificed, as the budget allocations for scholarships and welfare programmes ‘waned’ quickly (Tilak, 2018). The revised NEP (1992) suggested an expansion of the scope of Operation Blackboard to provide three reasonably large rooms and three teachers in every primary school and to extend the scheme to the upper-primary level (Tilak, 2018). However, in 1993, when the All-India Educational Survey (NCERT, 1997-8) was conducted, more than 20,000 primary schools in rural India, 17.1 per cent of the schools, were still found to be running in open space, nearly 2,000 in tents, 16,000 in ‘thatched’ huts and another 48,000 in kutcha (makeshift) buildings (NCERT, 2009; Tilak, 2018, 122). Most of these schools remained closed during rainy days as well as on severe winter and summer days (Tilak, 2018). With respect to the provision of ancillary facilities, the overall situation was unsatisfactory — for example, more than 60 per cent of the primary schools and 40 per cent of the upper-primary schools did not have drinking-water facilities (Tilak, 2018, 123).

The new education agenda looked at private provision to remedy the learning deficit. The required budget cuts, agreed to as part of the structural adjustment programme, did not allow the government to increase public spending on education to the level required to radically reform the system (Tilak, 2018).° It was argued that the expansion of education through the private and not-for-profit sectors would in turn allow for parental choice, congruent with the neoliberal reform policies on which the government had embarked. Private provision was not new, as the NEP agreed under Rajiv Gandhi had already started to encourage the growth of that sector. However, the post-1991 government shifted its focus from the allocation of public resources to mobilising non-governmental resources, then to alternative methods of cost recovery and the privatisation of education. Private institutions began to increase in number, at the cost of the growth of public institutions. This was broadly in line with the new economic policies, adopted by the government from the beginning of the 1990s, that favour privatisation and ‘down-sizing’ of the public system (Tilak, 2018).

Field surveys in the 1990s also began to report a surge in parental demand for private education, and this was accompanied by a new phenomenon: small fee-charging private schools (often referred to as ‘low cost’) emerged for the less privileged (De et al., 2005, 131-3). With the dwindling quality of government provision, it appeared that low-income groups were not only desiring education but were willing to pay for it (Tooley et al., 2010).” The new phenomenon was welcomed by education bureaucrats, since the government system was struggling with both access and retention issues, and many felt that the new private schools could be allies in achieving the universalisation of elementary education (De et al., 2005). Enrolment in private unaided schools thus rose most sharply following the economic liberalisation that raised incomes in the early nineties (Venkatanarayanan, 2015). In 1993-4 enrolment in the private upper-primary schools increased in proportion from 11 to 22 per cent (Tilak, 2018, 527).° Between 1999 and 2003, studies (PROBE Team, 1999; Tooley and Dixon, 2003) reported a ‘burgeoning’ sector of low-cost private schools. At the same time, the rise of private schools led to inequalities in differentiated schools (which use a variety of techniques to meet the needs if students with a wide range of abilities) and stratified schools (whose student bases vary in terms of social and economic standing) (Mehendale and Mukhopadhyay, 2020).

Béteille (2001) has argued that the middle classes have long supported differentiated schooling,’ which would equip their children with better credentials, thereby giving them an edge when seeking employment. Middle-class parents had previously supplemented public schooling with tuition and made sure their children accessed higher education. One could argue that before the emergence of so many private schools, the main differentiating factor between the social classes was the length of schooling and whether or not a person went to university./° With the middle classes choosing to buy out, the poorer sections of society had no option but to take whatever the state provided. This led to a trend in deteriorating public education institutions at the school level, which meant that more and more aspired to leave the system, creating a vicious circle (Nambissan, 2006; Nambissan and Ball, cited in Lall and Nambissan, 2011, p.207).

The idea of ‘quality’ of education being related to learning outcomes, which found a place in Indian policy documents as early as 1986 (Sarangapani, 2010). The explicit operationalisation of ‘quality’ as measurable learning outcomes came to occupy the centre stage of policy and public concern with the publication of the Annual Status of Education Survey and the corresponding Annual Status of Education Reports (ASER), which started in 2005. Student academic learning scores as the ‘outcomes’ or indicators of quality, and ASER gathers information on other variables, providing hypotheses on their relationships to quality (Kumar and Sarangapani, 2004; Sarangapani, 2010; Mukhopadhyay and Sarangapani, 2018). Overall, the idea of ‘outcomes as quality’ and the concepts of efficiency and accountability have formed the basis of a new discursive regime, which is most significantly visible in the policy discourses that have veered towards the efficacy of the private (or the market) over the state in the provisioning of — and gradually even the financing of — school education (Mukhopadhyay and Sarangapani, 2018).

A related concept that has been influential in shaping the new discursive regime of quality is that of ‘accountability’, which comes to the foreground of educational discourse through a number of approaches, most of which engages with education in the Global North.” In India one strand of research has emphasised the strong interlinkages between the education system, especially teachers, and the political system in different Indian states (Béteille, 2009; Bhattacharya, 2001; Kingdon and Muzammil, 2013). The discursive framing of ‘accountability’ here has come to be one that stresses the need for policy solutions to address the problem of ‘unaccountable’ government school teachers who have been responsible for the poor quality of learning in the government schools, especially when compared to the private schools (Mukhopadhyay and Sarangapani, 2018). Besides accountability, the concept of ‘efficiency’ underlying the ‘outcomes as quality’ idea has received prominence, with this approach to quality being used to compare the provisioning and outcomes of state schools versus private schools in a number of studies. These studies claim that private schools, even unrecognised low-fee private schools, provide better inputs in terms of both basic infrastructure facilities such as toilets and desks and teaching-learning processes such as teachers’ presence and time-on-task (Goyal, 2009; Kingdon and Teal, 2007; Muralidharan and Kremer, 2006; Tooley and Dixon, 2006). The concepts of ‘efficiency’ and ‘accountability’ underline the importance of ‘value-for-money’ in the delivery of public services such as education and are reflected in a number of India-wide and Delhi government policy texts. The centrality of the efficiency of the ‘private’ over ‘public’ (government) is evident in the policy solutions being proposed — not least with the Delhi government promising to make its government schools as good as private ones (Mukhopadhyay and Sarangapani, 2018). However, education ‘quality’ is not the only issue tackled by India’s central and state governments. Much of what has been written about India’s education reforms centres on the school textbooks — as discussed below.

Background to textbook revisions in India

A key issue in Indian education policy has been the politics of textbook content. In India, education is a responsibility of both central and regional government, meaning that different types of textbooks can coexist across different states, depending on which political party is in power and regardless of the government in Delhi. At the centre, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) is a key institution, as it defines the official guidelines for curricular development and develops model textbooks within different school subjects (Flaten, 2017). The NCERT also develops curriculum frameworks which are used in schools across India, affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) (Naseem and Stober, 2014). It is thus in charge of determining curriculum standards for the whole of India. Over the past few decades, the NCERT textbooks have been revised as successive political parties have come to power at the centre (Lall, 2008; Lall and Anand, forthcoming 2022).

The textbooks that had been conceived in the 1960s and 1970s were political instruments to help construct a united India in the Nehruvian tradition; the elites accepted that for India to be united, it needed to be secular (Guichard, 2013). In the late 1990s, the NCERT textbooks published in the early 1980s were criticised as ‘Marxist’, and between 2002 and 2004 they were replaced by new textbooks under the Hindu nationalist BJP-led NDA government (Lall, 2008; Guichard, 2010). The rise of the BJP to political power at the centre as part of the NDA coalition in 1998-9 meant an end to the separation of religion and education in government schools.” Under the BJP’s logic of majoritarianism, the Indian nation had to be reconceptualised as Hindu (Lall, 2008; Lall and Anand, forthcoming 2022).

Textbook politics

In 2000 the NCERT published the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) for school education based on the Hindutva ideological agenda under the slogan ‘Indianise, nationalise and spiritualise’. The policy engendered a massive textbook revision that justified an anti-minority outlook. The BJP appointed scholars to rewrite the history textbooks because the old textbooks were secular (as well as out of date) and did not focus on Hindu achievements (Guichard, 2010). The main product of history, as a part of education, was highlighted as the development of the ‘national spirit’ and ‘national consciousness’ by instigating pride among the youngest generations regarding India’s past or distinctive religiophilosophical ethos, presented as Hindu (Lall, 2008, 176).

The textbook revisions were contested by a petition to the Supreme Court, brought by three activists who argued that the NCERT had not followed the correct procedures of consultation with the states and that it was attempting to introduce religious teaching, which is forbidden by the Constitution. However, the petition was rejected by the Supreme Court.” The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA)'* government that came to power in 2004 had to deal with the inherent problems in the education system as well as needing to reverse the Hindutva-inspired changes introduced by the NDA. Only a few weeks after the elections, on 12 June, the new government ordered a panel of historians to be constituted to advise on the issues of communalisation and inadequacies of the history textbooks of the NCERT. The panel acknowledged that though there are different interpretations with regard to historical facts, at a school level, history teaching should reflect the current scholarly consensus. New post-2004 NCERT textbooks were produced, but not adopted universally. Delhi, for example, developed its own textbooks under the Congress leadership of Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit. Then, when the Congress-led coalition introduced the third set of textbooks, ministers of the states where the BJP was in power refused to accept the new curriculum and the change of textbooks. Notwithstanding these cases of resistance, the NCERT textbooks have symbolic importance, as material coming from a central institution: they constitute the official discourse and enjoy greater visibility and credibility than textbooks produced by the State Textbook Boards (Guichard, 2010).

In 2014 the BJP came back to power, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi winning an absolute majority. Between 2014 and 2016 the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) was occupied by officials who routinely consulted influential members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak

Sangh (RSS, a Hindu nationalist organisation). Due to these connections right at the top of the MHRD, the Sangh Parivar’? (‘RSS family’) was able to push for significant changes to the school textbooks that had been drafted during the Congress period after 2004 to return to a pro- Hindutva agenda in the name of cultural nationalism (Sharma, 2016). Textbooks in Delhi, however, were set by the AAP-led government and did not follow the Hindutva agenda. AAP claims to be secular and inclusive, and as such the curricular and textbook revisions in Delhi have to be seen as an opposing act to the BJP’s national Hindutva agenda.

The section above has shown how education is politicised, as curricula and the content of textbooks have been redrafted across India. Delhi became a notable exception, replacing the Hindutva-inspired books just four years after they were rolled out. This book engages less with the politics of curricular and textbook content (covered in Lall and Anand, forthcoming 2022) and more with the reforms pertaining to access, quality and equality across Delhi schools.

Key education reforms - access and quality across India

Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009

In the last two decades India has put in place policies and legislation to improve the quality of elementary education and access to it. SSA has been operational since 2000 and aims to universalise elementary education in India. The SSA Framework ‘provides a broad outline of approaches and implementation strategies, within which States can frame more detailed guidelines keeping in view their specific social, economic and institutional contexts’ (Government of India, 2012, 7). In 2009 the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan scheme was launched to enhance access to secondary education and improve its quality (Government of India, 2012).

India passed the RTE Act into law in 2009. The legislation was made to achieve the vision of Article 21A, which was inserted into the Constitution of India by the Constitution (Eighty-Sixth Amendment) Act 2002, which stated, ‘The State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age six to 14 years in such a manner as the state may, by law, determine’ (Government of India, 2012, 7). For the first time, there was now a constitutional right to education that included regulations for pupil-teacher ratios (PTRs), public school infrastructure, education funding and private school enrolment (Tilak, 2016). It also imposed the reservation of 25 per cent of seats in private schools for the economically weaker sector.

SSA and the RTE Act have successfully managed to increase enrolment in the upper-primary level (classes VI-VIII), but not achievement (Bhattacharjee, 2019). Nationally, between 2009 and 2016, the number of students in the upper-primary level increased by 19.4 per cent. According to U-DISE data, the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in 2016- 17 for classes I-V was at 95.1 per cent (Government of India, 2019, 63). However, the data for later classes indicates some serious issues in retaining children in the schooling system. The GER for classes VI- VIII was 90.7 per cent, while for classes XI-XII it was only 79.3 per cent and 51.3 per cent, respectively, indicating that a significant proportion of enrolled students begin to drop out after class V and especially after class VIII. In absolute numbers, an estimated 6.2 crore (62 million) children of school age (between six and 18 years) were out of school in 2015. According to U-DISE, in 2018-19 the GER in elementary and secondary were 91.64 per cent and 79.55 per cent, respectively (Government of India, 2020'%). There are also massive discrepancies between states. For instance, in the age group of six to 10 years the enrolment was more than 97 per cent in Odisha but less than 80 per cent in Andhra Pradesh (Kundu, 2019). While the states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan have seen a steady increase in their enrolment numbers in the upper-primary section, Madhya Pradesh, Assam and West Bengal saw a significant decrease in the same period, due to a lack of access to basic sanitation facilities (Bhattacharjee, 2019).

One of the most important contributors to higher enrolment is sanitation; there is a positive correlation between access to basic sanitation facilities and higher enrolment rates. This has led to an increase in female student enrolment as well as female teacher retention (Kundu, 2019). As sanitation and hygiene improved there was a decrease in sick days and therefore students and teachers stayed in school. Female teachers are also more likely to be present in schools with clean toilets (Kundu, 2019). In this regard, government programmes such as ‘Clean India: Clean Schools’, which focus on adequate water, sanitation facilities and the overall hygiene of a school, have contributed to better implementation of the RTE (Kundu, 2019).

While SSA and RTE had a positive effect on state-school infrastructure and teacher absence rates, they did not improve literacy and numeracy skills for students in government schools due to teaching quality, curricula or pedagogical methods, as shown in ASER surveys in 2013 (Bhat, 2017; Muralidharan and Sundararaman, 2013; Mukerji and Walton, 2016) — issues that will be discussed further below. The issue of education quality was picked up again in India’s 12th Five-Year Plan (2012-17), which promised to ‘place the greatest emphasis on improving learning outcomes at all levels’ (Government of India, 2013, 21). The MHRD also backed the drive to raise the standards of learning, as seen in the emphasis given in its Joint Review Mission report of July 2012 to measuring learning and to ensuring good learning outcomes. While the solutions typically sought for remedying low achievement and for achieving quality involve increasing the physical resources of schools, raising teacher—pupil ratio, improving teacher certification and increasing teacher salaries, the failure of such input-based approaches is well documented internationally (Altinok and Kingdon, 2012; Glewwe, 2002; Hanushek and Woessmann, 2011).

Problems in and with government schools - focusing the blame on teachers

There is a significant variance in the quality of public education across institutions and states. The main issues with public education are clustered at community and school levels, as detailed below. It is because of this India-wide backdrop that AAP engendered the Delhi education reforms, focusing its message on how government schools can be made to deliver the same quality education as private schools.

Parental abandonment of government schools has played a key part in the reduction of quality in such schools. As mentioned above, increased private schooling has followed the 1991 economic reforms. Parents perceive the quality of private education as better than public education (Kingdon, 2007). Although private education is mostly preferred in urban regions, public education remains the more affordable option for most. The proportion of students in private schools in the urban areas of many states in India is higher than in any developed country (Shah and Veetil, 2006, 3). Studies conducted in Delhi (Ohara, 2012), Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, a Rajasthan, Calcutta (Nambissan, 2003) and Andhra Pradesh (Woodhead et al. 2013) report that low-fee private schools are growing at an exponential rate. The official data presented shows a steep growth of private schooling and a corresponding rapid shrinkage in public schooling in Uttar Pradesh, suggesting parental abandonment of government schools (Lall, 2013; Kingdon, 2017). While this used to be a middle-class phenomenon, today all classes and sections of society look for private alternatives. Research shows that the parental choice of private schools is mainly due to perceived quality and an inadequate provision of government schools (Alderman et al., 2001; Heyneman and Stern, 2014; Kingdon, 2007; Tooley and Dixon, 2006). A particular aspect of the rise of private education is the growing demand for English-medium schools. In India it has been suggested that ‘the English educated form a caste by themselves’ (Dakin et al., 1968, 24). There is a great desire among disadvantaged and marginalised communities to learn English, and they are acutely aware of its economic importance (Markee, 2002). There is also increasing evidence to show that it is the medium of instruction and its implications for children’s future roles in society that dominate the schooling choices of parents, rather than information about the quality of a school (Munshi and Rosenzweig, 2006). Miller (2005), in the context of Delhi, notes that over the last decade there has been a growth of private schools, often referred to as ‘teaching shops’, aimed at the urban poor. A key selling point is that they are English medium. One of the ways in which the English-medium nature of the school is conveyed is by using ‘public school’ in their name. Jeffery et al. (2007, 54) describe how in Bijnor city some schools, including a Catholic convent school, appeal to a ‘modern constituency’ by including ‘public school’ in their names.