Scaling Up Primary Education Services in Rural Tamil Nadu: Public Investment Requirements and Reform

Abstract

We attempt to address two key questions in this paper: 1) In terms of state-wide scaling up of rural services in the area of primary education, what will it cost financially and in terms of human resources to scale-up these services in all the rural areas of the state? And 2) what policy, institutional and governance reforms may be necessary so as to ensure proper service delivery? As is well known, merely constructing more schools, for instance, is not going to be enough; higher public investments in these areas needs to be accompanied by systemic reforms that will help overhaul the present service delivery system, including issues of control and oversight, for example. Nirupam Bajpai is Senior Development Advisor and Director of the South Asia Program at the Center on Globalization and Sustainable Development, The Earth Institute at Columbia University. He is also a member of the United Nations Millennium Project. Ravindra H. Dholakia is Professor of Economics at the Indian Institute of Management at Ahmedabad in India. Jeffrey D. Sachs is Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and Special Advisor to the United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon. Nirupam Bajpai presented this paper to Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission of India, K S Sripathi, Chief Secretary, Government of Tamil Nadu, V K Subburaj, M Kutralingam, Principal Secretary, School Education, R. Palaniswamy, District Collector, Villupuram, and M Rajendran, District Collector, Tiruvannamalai.