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 Sunday, 20 July 2008 |
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No child left behind |
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Written by Abusaleh Shariff
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Tuesday, 09 May 2006 |
Since the mid-1980s the pace of economic growth
has improved for the better from 4% or lower in the previous period to
above 6% during the 1990s and slightly higher in ’00s. Much of the
expanded growth during the past one and half decade has arisen from a
robust performance in the services sector, followed to a limited extent
in industry and manufacturing, and lastly in agriculture.
Thus,
the relative ‘balance of power’ has tilted in favour of the labour
force employed in the services sector. This sector employs about 28% of
the labour force and contributes about 55% to total GDP, the average
per capita value added in some services have been recorded at higher
than Rs 600,000 per annum.
The service sector broadly
constitutes (a) traditional services like trade and artisanships; and
(b) modern technology-aided services such as information technology,
education and health, hotel, restaurants and tourism, banking, finance
and so on.
While the labour force employed in the former is
mostly illiterate and belongs to marginalised communities such as the
dalits, OBCs and Muslims; practically the entire labour force employed
in the modern sector is educated, urban-oriented and with a substantial
share of upper caste Hindus (UCH).
Only 8% of the entire labour
force, however, is employed in ‘modern types of services’, which
contribute 25% of all GDP. Thus, this share of the labour force
contributes about three time its own share to GDP.
This is the
most efficient segment of the labour force in India and absorbs not
only highly educated but also technically superior professionals across
India. As expected, this segment of the labour force absorbs 16% of all
UC Hindus, 6% of OBCs and Muslims each, and 5% of SCs/STs.
These
shares as a proportion to the sectoral labour force are 44% of UCHs
contributing 54% of all modern-sector GDP value-added. Followed by OBCs
with 24% labour and 21% of modern sector GDP; SCs/STs with 17% of
labour force and 12% GDP; and Muslims, 8% of the labour force, but only
5% of GDP.
The respective shares of labour and GDP in
traditional services are 25:37 for UCH; 30:32 for OBCs; 22:14 for
SCs/STs and 17:9 for Muslims respectively. The respective efficiency
quotients in modern services are 1.2 for UCHs, 0.9 for OBCs, 0.7 for
SCs/STs and 0.6 for Muslims.
At the overall level of the economy
too, the UCHs contribute 39% of GDP with only 23% labour share. OBCs’
share of GDP and of labour is just about the same at 33% and 34%. But
in the case of SCs/STs and Muslims, these percentages are 13:29 and
6:10 respectively. The efficiency quotient for the economy as a whole
works out to 1.7 for UCHs, 1.0 for OBCs, 0.5 for SCs/STs and 0.6 for
Muslims.
The above analysis highlights the following: The UCHs
have been the driving force of economic growth thus far and their
efficiency quotient has been considerably high for the economy as a
whole. While UCHs are still front-runners in the efficiency quotient
tables for modern services, the differentials compared with others is
considerably low.
This provides us with strong signals on how to
get India’s GDP sustained at say 7-8%, or increase it to 10-12% per
annum. The OBCs, SCs/STs and even Muslims will contribute substantially
at higher levels of efficiency, if provided with modern technical
education and the opportunities to participate in modern service and
even industrial activities.
The very small proportions of
higher-level qualified professionals amongst the dalits, Muslims and
OBCs must be enhanced through public action. How should the share of
SCs/STs, Muslims and OBCs be increased in various sectors of the
economy?
Firstly, these communities must be encouraged to
improve their participation and continuation in mass education at the
elementary, matriculate and graduate levels.
This can be done
through a combination of affirmative actions favouring these
communities and providing schools and colleges near their living
spaces; changing appropriately the provider (teacher) profile
especially at lower levels of education; and offering incentives to
girls and the poorest of the poor.
At higher and technical
levels of education, the current system of reservations must be
extended in such a way that entry into such education is made somewhat
easy, but without compromising the levels of achievement needed to
secure such education.
No country in the world has developed
using only the first and second rank holders! Although they are a cause
of pride, what is needed is an improvement in the efficiency quotient
and there is strong evidence that this is not entirely the domain of
the upper castes. The question of reservation, however, has to be
understood differently for education (higher, technical and
specialised) and employment. In case of education, reservation only
allows somewhat guided entry into the institution, but the index person
has to meet all the benchmarks fixed to come out successfully.
Thus,
while one can expect rather lower success rates among those who have
been admitted on quotas, the system does not lower the benchmark
standards set. One can achieve this type of reservation by enhancing
the number of admissions and expanding the concomitant hardware,
software and infrastructure.
So far as employment is concerned,
reservations favoring SCs/STs, Muslims and OBCs will help in finding an
adequate number of teachers, professors, doctors, engineers and
scientists, who wish to stay in the country and may even be willing to
spread out across the hinterland of the vast country that is India.
(The
author is head, human development programme, at National Council of
Applied Economic Research (NCAER). He is also member secretary in the
PM’s High Level Committee). Source: Economic Times , New Delhi: May 8 2006:
Reprinted from
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1519620,curpg-2.cms |
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