The idea of quality in education

Rohit Dhankar
The idea of quality in education as an expression of relative merit of education received in
institution X versus in institution Y perhaps has always been there at the intuitive level.
Otherwise it seems difficult to explain people choosing institution X against institution Y; and
such choices have always been there since time immemorial. The intuitive and largely subjective
ways of thinking about quality in education seem to have worked fine till the national education
systems became instruments of international economic and military competition, and large
amount of public funds started flowing into education. The ideas of accountability, value for
money and urgency to achieve set targets contributed to a felt need for measurable indicators of
quality [Winch, 1996, p?]. Measurable indicators for educational quality entail various obvious
problems. Just to mention a few: for starters, the very concept of education is contested. The
balance between varying emphases on educational benefits to the individual, to society in terms
of greater common good and to the competitive economic growth is not easily achievable. Even
if an in-depth analysis of all these benefits turns out to be closely interlinked the assumptions
taken in position about worth living human life remain ultimately irreconcilable. Second,
education functions through development of the educatees capabilities and qualities of
character. Neither the human capabilities lend themselves for easy and objective measurement
nor do the qualities of character. Thus any indicators suggested become more of an art work
based on preferred wisdom of the times rather than rationally justifiable. The tentative nature of
the assumptions taken in measurement therefore always remains a source of tension. Third,
often there is a serious confusion between quality of education per se, quality of an institution
and quality of the national educational system. These and similar issues make the idea of quality
in education a very complex and multifaceted idea; and all definitions of qualityas much else in
educationassume notions of worth living human life. Therefore, acceptance of an idea of
quality entails a acceptance of a notion of worth living life as well.
The most common idea of quality that guides an overwhelming majority of parents is the student
achievement, mainly in subject knowledge. The child who gets higher percentage of marks in a
given class is automatically supposed to have got more from the school experience and better
prepared for life than her less scoring classmate. The school that achieves higher aggregated
score of all children is supposed to offer better education to its students than the less scoring
sister school. The school system that achieves higher aggregated score for all its students is
considered better school system than less scoring school system. At each level; the children,
schools, and school system; this kind of measurement of quality of education sparks off a fierce
competition. Essentially speaking, the school examinations, various school board examinations,
national level surveys of student achievements and international student assessment
programmes; all have the common characteristic of attempting to measure student achievements,
including some aspects of the curriculum and leaving some out, and focussing more on the kind
of knowledge/information/skills that can be assessed by paper pencil tests. They cannot help
but keep their scope of assessment much narrower than the full range of expectations from
education for the reasons we shall discuss shortly in this paper. Of course they may differ in
sophistication, authenticity of data, varieties of questions used and so on; but the main
similarities noted above remain.
Using this kind of student achievement scores as complete or adequate (or neither complete, nor
adequate but even most important) indicators of quality raises serious problems. One such
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problem is obvious enough: as mentioned above, such student achievement assessments confine
themselves merely to the subject knowledge that is testable through paper-pencil tasks in a
testing situation. If the so obtained test scores are considered the most important aspect of
educational quality (note that being most important aspect is a weaker claim then either being
complete indicator or being adequate indicator) then by implication all other expected
outcomes of education can be shadowed by this, as they are obviously less important. But it is at
least stands to reason to think that the subject knowledge and skills are used in the social sphere
to achieve ones chosen goals in life in a morally accepted manner. Therefore, the knowledge,
information and skills are, in a certain sense, of instrumental value compared to the capabilities
to set appropriate life goals for oneself, and to discern the difference between morally acceptable
and unrespectable ways. The setting up of goals and morally acceptable use of ones capabilities
cannot be assumed to be either implied or contained in the subject knowledge. Therefore, the
notion of quality in education that emerges out of taking student achievement scores as the most
important aspect of quality in education actually turns education on it head. It usurps the
legitimate primacy of understanding of human condition and finding ones place in it and hands
it over to what is of secondary importance; namely subject knowledge that properly speaking
should be used in the guidance of the earlier mentioned capabilities. This argument would sound
unduly moralistic to many. But a little reflection should be enough to see that the idea of
developing understanding of human condition in ones society, developing sensitivity to others
and capability to find ones place in that society cannot be abandoned without either considering
moral development unnecessary or absolving education of all responsibility for such
development. None of the positions is tenable. The second problem is that such indicators of
quality also relegate aesthetic development inconsequential. Thus a very narrow instrumental
notion of education is privileged by taking student achievements in subject knowledge as the
most important measure of quality in education. But is at the least the instrumental value of
paper-pencil test measured subject knowledge assured? We shall look into this question after
disposing off another difficulty at this point.
It could be said that all of what we have discussed above is of no importance as the idea of
student achievement scores in subject knowledge as a measure of quality is popular only among
the parents and the educational policies actually are not guided by any such narrow idea. But that
is not the case. A paradigm case of this so called objective measurement variety is the OECDs
Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). It is manifestly started to help OECD
countries in their policy planning. The PISA 2000 report Knowledge and skills for life
published by OECD claims, among many other policy related claims, that PISA aims at
providing a new basis for policy dialogue and collaboration in defining and operationalising
educational goals. (Knowledge and Skills for life, p.3) Its influence on thinking about quality is
often visible in India as well 1. In PISA 2009 assessments 65 countries participated 2 in this world
1

A case in point is the International Conference on Teacher Development and Management

held at Vidya Bhawan Society, Udaipur on 23 to 25 February 2009 and its sequel in
International Seminar on Pre-Service Elementary Teacher Education held at NCERT on 2-4
February, 2010. On both occasions, particularly on the first, they key recommendations cited
repeatedly for improving teacher quality were taken from McKinsey & Company report titled
How the Worlds Best-performing School Systems came out on top. The only measure of
quality the report mentions is ranking of countries in the PISA. The seminars were held in
collaboration by MHRD, NCERT, World Bank, DFID, UNICEF, UNESCO, et al. Eight or
so further seminars are planned to be held on similar lines. Of course the notion of quality in
education system and preparation of teachers for it may shift, hopefully to more worthy ideals,
in the seminars to be held in the future in this series; but the linking of educational quality and
measurable indicators of subject knowledge is obvious so far.
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wide competitive measure of quality. Thus the idea of defining quality in terms of student
achievement scores in subject knowledge is not an insignificant idea in the quality discourse.
Now we shall take up the question that was postponed above, namely: is at the least the
instrumental value of paper-pencil test measured subject knowledge assured? The claims of even
the instrumental values of school and board examinations are not very strong, but large scale
studies and surveys do have such claims. PISA being arguably the most sophisticated and most
wide spread such surveys can serve us as a test case. PISA web site claims it assesses how far
students near the end of compulsory education have acquired some of the knowledge and skills
that are essential for full participation in society. In all cycles, the domains of reading,
mathematical and scientific literacy are covered not merely in terms of mastery of the school
curriculum, but in terms of important knowledge and skills needed in adult life. 3
Looking at the emphasis placed on mathematics, science and language in exclusion of social
sciences, arts and other curricular areas; the important knowledge and skills needed in adult life
seem to have economic life as the focus. Thus it obviously privileges economic aims of
education above all other aims. But even here there are problems at several levels. Nina
Bonderup Dohn notes that Discussing the operationalisation of mathematical literacy, the
comment is made that ideally one should collect information about the mathematical literacy of
the students in handling complex real problems (OECD, 2003, p. 28). But, Clearly this is
impractical (OECD, 2003, p. 29) since most complex real situations pose problems whose
solutions are very time-consuming and that require the students to collaborate and find other
resources. Survey items have instead been prepared with the intention of assessing different parts
of mathematical literacy independently of each other. 4 This seems to be a general characteristic
of quantitative tests and when results of such tests are considered as measures of quality they
over shadow other abilities that are needed in real life problem situations as well as deeper
insight even in the subject being tested. Such deeper insights as the interdependence and
essential connectedness of knowledge claims in a given frameworks; and its overall development
as a programme of investigation within the chosen paradigm are not accessible to paper pencil
tests, not at least easily and in aggregate-able form, which is necessary for comparison of school
systems.
Having said that, however, one has to note that the information, skills and abilities that such
measurable indicators driven tests assess are of course useful in life; but only to a limited extent,
and in overall guidance of other more fundamental abilities. The abilities that are necessary for
independent worthwhile moral life; problem solving, critical reason and deeper understanding
with complex interconnection between domains of knowledge themselves and between
knowledge and life in general; are less amenable to so-called objective assessment. This
privileging the measurable, therefore, impoverishes education in the abilities that are to do with
wider applicability and richer ethical and aesthetic meaning in life. The PISA tests are no
exception in this matter.
Another problem with measurability is that there are too many assumptions involved in
connecting what is measurable and what is worth learning for an enlightened moral agent and
capable worker in real life. What is measured in the test situation may or may not bear any
reliable relationship with what it takes to be a capable worker in real life. For example the kind of
OECD/PISA web site
http://www.pisa.oecd.org/document/53/0,3343,en_32252351_32235731_38262901_1_1_1_1,00.html
3 http://www.pisa.oecd.org/pages/0,3417,en_32252351_32235918_1_1_1_1_1,00.html
4
Nina Bonderup Dohn, Knowledge and Skills for PISAAssessing the Assessment, in Journal of Philosophy of
Education, Vol. 41, No. 1, 2007.
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abilities measured in PISA tests may very well assess the student learning levels in test situations;
but that the higher scoring students would be more capable of handling life as efficient moral
agents still remains to be seen and justified through independent evidence. Quality indicators
formulated on such assumptions are used to compare national education systems. Since high
scoring in them is hardly linked with the actual contribution to either economic or social
development of the nations the only measure available is comparing education systems on the
basis of these indicators themselves. This lack of connection of measurable subject specific
indicators either with worthwhile moral life or with real life problem solving makes the high
scoring itself the focus of competition. The comparison of national education systems on the
basis of average scores of students would further aggravate the already very high competition in
education fuelled by examination results and media hype around them, particularly in countries
like India. Education is essentially a non-competitive activity, over emphasis on competition
distorts its meaning and takes it into a direction where neither deeper intellectual understanding
remains important nor qualities of character matter. The stress that induces suicidal tendencies in
children during the exam results seasons is too obvious an indicator of this malady in our
education system.
Thus accepting this idea of quality in education in essence entails acceptance of an entire world
view: primacy of economic aspect over sensitive social and moral life; subject knowledge as the
most important intellectual resource required for living better life; curricula and pedagogy
narrowly focused on the needed subject knowledge; paper-pencil tests as reliable ways of
assessment and so on.
Accepting all this may be very questionable for someone who considers development of
enlightened and active citizenry for a pluralistic democratic society where commitment to ideals
of equality, justice and freedom may be of primary importance. The mental and intellectual
resources needed may be seen as rational disposition and interconnected understanding of
various disciplines and their place in human life. But then all these capabilities and qualities may
not have any very definable connection with economic productivity of one who possesses them;
further more objective measurement of these capabilities may be very difficult or in some cases
impossible. Thus this second idea of quality seems to hint to a situation where good education
cannot be distinguished from bad, where the value of education in economic development
cannot be established. This situation may not be acceptable to the protagonist of importance of
economic development in human life, and to one who considers accountability as an important
aspect of well functioning of a system. Also, this may worry even the educational reformer who
at the least wants to derive a sense of direction from an acceptable notion of quality, and once
that direction is available some indicators to judge if ones efforts are having any impact at all.
Looking at all these difficulties it is hardly surprising that general agreement on any one
particular idea of quality in education is proving to be rather elusive. As a result perhaps we have
to live with multiple and contesting ideas of quality in education as we have to live with
contesting accounts of education. Presence of multiple ideas implies ongoing analysis and debate;
making judgements about which ideas of quality to espouse and which ones to resist and why.
Also how far can one take the objectively measurable indicators in education and when does the
emphasis on them reaches its limits? The remaining part of this article will be devoted to the task
of fashioning as simple a tool as possible to judge between the ideas of quality; in other words to
gauge quality of the ideas of quality. I will attempt this by trying to identify essential elements
of education that need to be taken into account when one is advancing any idea of quality in
education.
Quality as excellence
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Quality can be understood as excellence rather than as only definitional attributes. We can
imagine of an education that has the definitional attributes of education and still can be
differentiated in terms of excellence or lack of it. The concern is that in doing so there is a
possibility of keeping the defining attributes devoid of excellence and to such an extent that
existence of those attributes themselves becomes difficult to accept. In such a case the
endeavour under consideration ceases to be counted as education. This implies that when we are
talking of quality as excellence we are talking of relative richness, appropriateness and depth of
the definitional attributes of education itself; it is not an addendum to education but an attempt
to gauge robustness or lack of the very attributes we necessarily conceive in education.
Quality of the education system, of institution and of education per se
Often there is talk about quality of an education system defined as inputs and functioning of the
system. For example when one considers resources and personnel available to a system;
qualifications, competence and motivations of personnel; functioning of the system in terms of
processes related to regulation, decision making and execution; one is talking of quality of
education system. There is also a tendency to compare schools and institutions, again more or
less in similar terms as mentioned above in the case of quality of education or school systems.
Both these comparisons, between the different school-systems and between different schools,
necessarily have to refer to the quality of education received by the educatees there. The problem
arises when without first clarifying the notion of quality in education that the child receives in
actuality (quality of education per se) the comparisons are based narrowly on student learning
and conclusions are drawn for resources, personnel and processes to round up the notion of
quality in school systems and schools. Since all other things included in defining quality of
education systems; be they related to resources, functioning or even capability to reach all
children; make sense only when there is a reasonable clarity and agreement on the quality of the
education that the student receives; it is reasonable to first focus on the what constitutes quality
in education per se.
It is a different matter whether quality of education received by the learner could be measured
(encompassed) only by the learning achievements in school subjects or it involves other things.
We shall consider that presently. Therefore, the first distinction we need to make in unentangling the idea of quality is the distinction between quality of education system, quality of
institutions (schools) and quality of education per se. The hierarchical relation between these
ideas is obvious: a good quality school has necessarily to provide education with quality but may
need something more to it, for example equal treatment and fairness for all children irrespective
of their socioeconomic back grounds. Similarly, a good quality education system (school
systemnational, state or district level) necessarily entails existence of good quality institutions
as part of that system, but may need something in addition to just having a number of good
quality institutions, for example the systemic capacity to promote autonomy and accountability
of the schools and its own accountability to people. In recognising the quality of education per se
it might be felt that we are again thrown back on the measurable student achievements as the
crux of educational quality; which we have already critiqued and have found an unsatisfactory
way of defining it. That is the issue we shall consider next.
Education as process and education as outcome
Now how do we define the education that is received by the educatee? The term education in
English is used both to indicate a process as well the end result of that process. Use of phrases
like being educated, is receiving an education point to the process the subject of education is
undergoing. However, when we talk of an educated person, we are not only talking of the
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process that person has undergone but also as what became of him at the end. [Hamm, Peters]
The capacities, dispositions and understanding he/she acquired as a result of undergoing the
educational processes are what we are referring to when call him/her an educated person. It may
be a difficult affair to define such acquisitions in an entirely satisfactory manner, but one has to
do that if quality is to be made sense of at all, as the undergoing of a favoured process does not
necessarily entail any particular achievements. The two aspects of educationprocess and
outcomeobviously suggest that any notion of quality should address both these sides; which
means the process as well as the outcomes of education both meet certain standards to call any
educationplanned or receivedas good quality education.
Here we must also note that education is a process that transforms the educatee, irreversibly. It is
a process of formation, and not only of changing something either already made, nor a process
of polishing something already there.
The process of education
In the usual student assessment only what the students have learnt is assessed and how have they
acquired that learning does not figure at all. The quality in common parlance is measured by the
average percentage of marks students get in board examinations, as we mentioned above. The
specific assessments that are carried in the name of research hardly go beyond testing the same
thing that common board examinations do. Therefore, quality of education measured on the
basis of student assessment becomes a very narrow concept. There is a strong claim from some
educationists that what is learnt cannot be distinguished from how it is learnt. Therefore the
process and outcome in education is one and the same thing. This claim may have rhetorical
appeal, particularly in the child-centric circles, but can neither sustain a conceptual scrutiny nor is
capable of convincing assessment protagonists, nor can it offer any way forward in the quality
discourse. One can easily see that importance of Akbars rule in Indian history or the idea of
gravity or of decimal fractions can be learnt in multiple ways and can be more or less equally well
understood, can be used in problem solving and in further learning. Thus the rhetoric of process
and outcome being undistinguishable, couched in these terms as a strong claim, is confusing and
essentially a barren idea that does not enlighten anyone; its actually an unsustainable claim. That,
however, does not mean that there is no value in considering the relationship between the
process and outcomes. Nor does it mean that the process of education is not important in
forming a comprehensive idea of quality of education. It is important for a variety of reasons and
any account of quality in education without due attention to process would certainly be
unsatisfactory; it may even be harmful both for the society and to the educatee.
Process of education is largely governed by the psychology of learning one accepts and believes
in. Since the purpose of this piece is not to recommend any particular pedagogy but
identification of essential aspects of the idea of quality we shall steer clear of the opinions of
which psychology of learning, and by implication which pedagogy, is more appropriate and
which one must be favoured. Here I would suggest four broad characteristics of qualitative
educational process; they could be called engagement of the learner, efficacy, ethical acceptability, and costeffectiveness.
The first characteristic of qualitative educational process is engagement of the learner. To start
with willing engagement of the learner forms the foundation on which learning starts building,
unwilling and disinterested participation makes learning harder both for the teacher and the
student. Engagement also includes the interest and enjoyment of the learner and they are
important values in themselves, not only because help better learning, but also, perhaps more
importantly, due to their link with happiness of an individual. An additional benefit of
enjoyment in learning occurs as developing fondness for what is being learnt, a very important
6

ingredient in self motivated learning. Enjoyment and interest are measures of voluntary
involvement which directly connects with understanding of the worthwhileness of what one is
engaged in. Thus engagement of the learner has lasting effects on the outcomes of educational
process that go much beyond the learning of the particular topic at hand. Engagement further
has the merit of cognitively integrating what is being learnt and making it ones own.
The second characteristic of quality of educational process mentioned above is efficacy. Efficacy
has to do with the capability and efficiency of educational process to help achieve educational
aims. One need not mention here that the curricular objectives at various stages of education are
age-appropriate articulation of aims only. They are governed by the trajectory of learning we
assume for the students and are dependent on the assumptions one makes on how children
learn. Therefore, taking capability to achieve educational aims as an indicator is not necessarily
unmanageably general or far removed from the classroom activities; through age appropriate
objectives aims become immediate concerns of the educator. Efficacy here means how reliable
the educational processes are in terms of better achievement of aims, and not only of narrow
subject knowledge.
The next characteristic of quality of educational process is ethical acceptability [Hamm, Peters].
This is usually an unexamined area and seen as unproblematic as everyone is supposed to know
instinctively what methods of teaching could be used and which cannot be used from an ethical
stand point. Actually the issue is much more complex. To start with, one needs to note that
ethical acceptability functions as a negative condition rather than a positively recommendatory
condition. All it requires is that the classroom processes used to teach must confirm to certain
ethical norms, which means that those which do not confirm are unacceptable, which particular
classroom processes among the ones that confirm is to be adopted is open to the practitioner, to
be decided on other relevant grounds. Examples of practices disallowed on ethical grounds are
insulting the child, corporeal punishment, and ban on the childs home language in the
classroom. It should be noted that all three can also be criticised on the efficacy grounds as it
could be argued that insulting, punishing and ban on the childs mother tongue actually hamper
better learning rather than enhance it. But that makes ethical grounds neither redundant nor
identical with the efficacy ground. When one objects insulting or ridiculing children on ethical
grounds the issue is not of whether it will hamper or help learning but of the behaviour of one
human being with another qua human being. It is often claimed in discussions with teachers that
punishment makes children pay attention and study harder and therefore helps in learning better.
Still it is objected on ethical grounds as it is considered violation of the childs dignity and
person. And the ethical argument against insulting children will still be valid if tomorrow some
psychological study actually proves that the children who are regularly insulted in the classroom
learn much better than those who are treated as persons with dignity.
The last characteristic of qualitative educational process mentioned above is cost-effectiveness.
The cost here does not limit to monetary costs but also includes human efforts and time,
including that of the learner. Among the two classroom processes having equal efficacy and
ethical acceptability, it is obvious that the one which requires less efforts and resources gets
picked up. One of course can argue that if there is no dearth of resources and time then this
criterion becomes redundant. But it seems to me it could be defended against such an argument
by linking all human efforts to greater common good, and by noting that the learners time is
certainly not unlimited. Another argument against such a criterion could be that it opens the
possibility of including criteria like elegance, beauty and style as well. Again I think a distinction
can be made between tangible common good and personal preferences; though the idea is likely
to sound utilitarian in its leanings. The argument I am making is not that the elegance, beauty
and style are not relevant in terms of quality; it is only to argue that one may not be able to take
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them as essential part of the concept; though recognition of them as valuable enriching attributes
on their own may be accepted.
So far, we have tried to make a distinction between quality of education per se, quality of an
educational system and quality of an educational institution. We have also claimed that a proper
characterisation of the quality of the latter two is dependent on the characterisation of the first,
i.e. quality of education per se. Without first understanding or forming an idea of quality of
education, debate on the quality of the system and institution is meaningless and misleading. In
trying to form an idea of quality of education we have talked of education as a process and as an
outcome, and then tried to list four characteristics of quality of educational process as engagement
of the learner, efficacy, ethical acceptability, and cost-effectiveness.
But as mentioned above education also refers to the outcomes of the educational process. Now
we shall turn to characterise quality in the educational outcomes.
The education as outcome
The educational outcomes, as mentioned above, are the most favoured indicators of quality and
perhaps most discussed as well. There are several issues though in understanding what
educational outcomes are worth assessing, how reliably can they be assessed, how they are
related to educational aims and whether they are available for assessment as static achievements
at any given time or always have a necessarily dynamic character that make it difficult to
measure? We shall only look into some of these issues here and that too only as much as is
necessary for the quality debate.
First, let us note that outcomes of educational process are usually seen as learning achievements
of the educatee. They are somehow seen as addendum to the learner, an additional feather in her
cap, as something outside her core being. However, education is also recognised as a formative
process; it helps people shape their own personality. The learning in school is not just learning of
subject matter. This is learning how to look at the world, the people, and at oneself. It is about
forming ideas, opinions, interpretation frameworks and form an entire worldview. Of course the
school is not alone in it, and of course the influences the schools have today are not always
desirable or even for the good of the pupil. In addition the schools are ineffective in a certain
manner as well. But all said and done, schools do significantly influence the pupils knowledge,
attitudes and worldviews. Human mind by nature is such that it also develops self-forming
mechanisms. That means humans together with learning also learn how to learn and how to
organise and use what is learnt. They form opinions and also develop systems and ways of
forming opinions. This always happens whether in the school or outside. The learning acquired
is made use of under these systems of conscious or unconscious regulatory mechanisms.
Therefore, the effect of any learning on future life is a combined result of the many-sided
development of the learner. And making an indicator of quality out of any one-sided learning is
inadequate to say the least, and seriously misleading in the long run. As it privileges the
measurable over the perhaps more important immeasurable; slowly reducing education to
acquisition of certain concepts and information; and making it devoid of certain others which
may be more important than what is measured.
If we want our notion of quality to be sensitive to outcomes of educational process in a
comprehensive manner the following four aspects come to mind immediately: quantum of learning,
clarity and depth of understanding, capabilities for independent learning and investigation, and attitude to
learning.
Most of the school curriculum presentlyat least as it operates in the classroomsis composed
of what could be properly called quantum of learning. It goes by other names like information
8

and facts concerning various disciplines or school subjects. It is important that children have
information 5, concepts and algorithms. All this is necessary, and the closer they are in mastering
all this to the prescribed curriculum the better it is; and therefore this could be considered an
important aspect of quality in spite of information being often derided by over enthusiastic childcentrists as useless learning. It does not take much thinking to realise that information becomes
an interference in good education only when it is exclusively emphasised and captures all the
curricular space; properly balanced with grasp over the ways of learning and understood in an
inter connected manner factual information and subject specific methods and algorithms are
assets, even a necessity, rather than a burden in learning.
That brings us to the second characteristic of quality of what the children have acquired in
education, namely, clarity and depth of understanding of what is learnt. This is all too common
to hear correct answers from children but who feel at a loss when asked to explain or relate that
answer to other things that s/he has leant, or to produce new illustrative examples. This simply
means that what is verbally learnt is not properly understood and connected to other relevant
concepts. In higher education this lack of understanding manifests itself in difficulty the students
face in working out implications and assumptions behind their own knowledge claims and
positions hey happen to take on various issues. Without these connections and over all
understanding the factual information gathered can neither be used in problem solving nor can it
become a basis for further learning. It becomes what Whitehead6 calls the burden of inert ideas
on the learner mind. This is not often captured in the standardised mass testing, which is the
main instrument of measuring competitive quality. But any notion of quality that is likely to be of
any use in better living has to take this into account.
The third characteristic is capabilities for independent learning and investigation. All these
aspects are closely connected and somewhat overlapping. One can easily see the relation between
independent learning and conceptual clarity and depth of understanding in terms of interconnectivity of concepts. But capability to learn independently and carry on further investigation
also requires a general grasp of the subject or discipline specific methods and ways of meaning
making. Therefore, in addition to how much and how well something is learnt, being as much
self-reliant in learning as possible at any given age is something of value in education. Lack of
such self-reliance makes one dependent on others. And that requires having a grasp on ways of
meaning making in that particular subject area.
The fourth characteristic mentioned above is attitude to learning and knowledge. This refers to
the value one attaches to knowledge and understanding, self-confidence in learning and ability to
put in consistent hard work to acquire it. Again this is very closely linked to independence in
learning but also has the added elements of love for knowledge and a drive to be clear in ones
own mind. This can also be seen as what Harvey Siegel 7 calls valuing rational enquiry and takings
its results seriously; which he claims is the core of any education worth its name. Both these
aspects, love for knowledge and valuing rational enquiry, may seem like part of independence in
learning. But it is not theoretically impossible to think of person who may have capabilities for
Information is often claimed to be a meaningless memorization of a string of words. This is inadequate and
untenable notion of information. None could be called informed unless s/he makes meaning out of the language
sounds she hears or words she reads. Thus, understanding of words used, grammar of the sentence and forming
some meaning out of it are necessary conditions of information.
6
Alfred North Whitehead, The Aims of Education and Other Essays (Macmillan, 1929). In training a child to activity of
thought, above all things we must beware of what I will call "inert ideas" -- that is to say, ideas that are merely
received into the mind without being utilised, or tested, or thrown into fresh combinations.
7 Harvey Siegel, Knowledge, Truth and Education, in Education, knowledge, and truth: beyond the
postmodern impasse; Edited by David Carr, Routledge, New York, 1998.
5

independent learning and rational enquiry, and still no inclination and self-confidence to engage
in these because of whatever reasons.
Aims of education and the idea of quality
The notion of quality we are trying to construct so far remains non-committal regarding what
purposes the educational endeavour is supposed to serve. Prima facie it seems to be possible to
meet all the criteria we have been hinting at regarding the process and outcomes and the
educatees may still have very different socio-political and ethical leanings. For example it is
possible to organise schools and colleges in a manner that produce very efficient and creative
managers who are not concerned about the democratic rights of people and have no time to
spare for thinking about the poor in terms other than their possible market value. It is also
possible to help people develop into religious zealots where the masses are supposed to be
governed by the divine authority given to the religious heads. Or one can also help people
become sensitive to general plight of people and recognise their right to equality and freedom to
decide for themselves, and consider economic growth as having secondary importance. These
differing attitudes to people and life need not be starkly opposing in all spheres, but the relative
importance given to different aspects may be significant enough for people to have different
desirability ratings for the education that is designed to produce one or the other results. That
indicates that the picture of educational quality is incomplete unless the aims of education are
taken into consideration. For some the issues of aims in education may even be the most
important aspect of quality.
However, there is a possibility of opposite view as well. One might argues that the quality needs
to indicate only the process and outcomes of education in terms of what was decided; and need
not consider the nature of decided outcomes themselves. The merits of such a notion of quality
may be a wider acceptability. People who differ regarding the aims may actually agree on the
measurements of quality if the characteristics mentioned above are taken into account
irrespective of what aims that education serves. This agreement, however, shall be facile and
useless in practical terms, as so many general agreements in education are, as the aims will
determine outcomes through curriculum and influence the process or pedagogy. For example
lets consider primacy of economic aims of education and primacy of social justice as education
aims. Lets define these two aims for the purpose of this argument. Let primacy of economic
aims mean that education is primarily for development of skills that are useful in current
competitive and so-called knowledge economy, and that the social justice is subordinate to
economic consideration as well as shall become possible only if economic development occurs
first. On the other hand, let primacy of social justice as educational aims mean that primary
aims of education is to create a just society and sustain it; economic aims being necessary but
subordinate to ethical considerations of social justice at all times. Both these people should have
no problem as far as the assessments taking into account the above mentioned characteristics of
both process and outcomes. But the relative curricular emphases may appear in proposed
weightage to social sciences and arts. Organisations of the school, importance given to merit and
to competitive practices in the process of education are likely to differ widely under these two
kinds of aims. Therefore, one can conclude that a well rounded notion of quality can hardly
move without considering aims of education.
These considerations necessitate a fifth characteristic of educational outcomes to be included in
our idea of quality, namely, sensitivity and values. Of course sensitivity to what, its kind and extent
as well as the particular values one might consider will depend on the kind of educational aims
one accepts, but inclusion of some things as over all directive principles for life and useful in
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choices in deciding ones life goals will necessarily have to be part of the idea of quality of
education.
A tentative framework for quality
If the above mentioned considerations are acceptable as essential elements of the idea of quality
in education (which I have tried to argue for) and if they are considered comprehensive enough
to encompass all necessary aspects (which is not argued for as yet) then a tentative framework
for quality of education can be summarised as given in the table below:

Quality of Education
Educational ideals and
values

Equality and justice, Sensitivity and values, Reason and

Autonomy, Socio-political concerns, Economic
contribution

Educational outcomes
a. Quantum of learning:

Concepts, information, rules and principles

b. Clarity and depth of

understanding:

Conceptual clarity, interconnections, real life examples,

counter examples

c. Capabilities for independent

learning and investigation
d. Attitude to learning:

Ability to investigate, Use in further learning, Creative

application in problem solving
Intellectual honesty and courage, desire to learn,
appreciation of value of knowledge, self confidence

e. Sensitivity and value

Sensitivity to others, cooperation, fairness, self-respect,

respect for others

Educational processes
a. Efficacy:
b. Ethical acceptability:
c. Engagement of the learner
d. Cost-effectiveness

In terms quantity of learning, in terms of development of

ability
Absence of physical punishment, absence of humiliation,
emotional independence, absence of fear
Enjoyment, active involvement, concentration.
Learner time and efforts, teachers time and efforts,
resources needed

In the framework above many items that characterise various elements of quality are not argued
for; for example, it is argued that considering aims of education as an essential element of the
idea of educational quality is necessary but equality and justice as aims of education is not argued
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for. Due to the limitation of space that is not possible, nor there seems to be much disagreement
on the issue, at the least on the surface. These particular characterisations are given here to bring
out a point that becomes clear once we have the entire framework in place: namely, the
coherence and consistency through the entire framework. That means the choice of aims in a
manner determines the desired outcomes and processes of education. This demand for
consistency itself becomes an important element of the idea of educational quality.
Quality of school and system as essential conditions
Seen in this light it becomes immediately clear that the criteria for the quality of schools and
educational systems basically describe necessary conditions for the achievement of quality of
education. Therefore, unless they are consistent with the notions of quality we accept and are
shown to be linked with the achievement of quality in that accepted sense, in themselves, they
are always questionable. The first issue, of consistency, can be decided by analysis itself; while the
second needs empirical evidence. The scope of this article does not allow us to go into the
quality of schools and educational systems here, but this is an important issue and further
investigation is much needed in this area.
Implications for quality debate
The analysis above has several implications for the quality debate. At the tail end of the article
some of them are tentatively hinted at; much more enquiry of the conceptual kind is needed to
work them out fully.
Limitedness of the measurable indicators of quality is perhaps the most important point one
should emphasise here. The present trend where the World Bank sponsored notions of quality
emphasise standardised tests as the most important indicator of quality to be used in educational
reforms ranging from teacher preparation to school improvement must be recognised as
essentially fragmentary and partial; actually perhaps catching but only a small part of quality of
education. The standardised tests capture almost nothing of the educational ideals and
educational processes. What they measure of the educational outcomes is limited mostly to the
quantum of learning leaving out the remaining four aspects; namely, the clarity of understanding
and depth, capability for independent learning, attitude to learning and sensitivity and values.
Actually in the long run the left out aspects might be of much more importance than the
measured ones. Also, the idea that the measurement of quantum of learning gives any real
ground for inferring development in the remaining aspect has no independent evidence, either of
the conceptual nature or of the empirical variety.
The second important implication is that the partial measurement of desirable educational
outcomes and leaving educational ideals out of the debate creates space for pushing a certain
ideological world view. The measurable learnings that are supposed to be useful in solving the
problems of day to day functioning in the world; also have assumptions about the kind of day to
day life people are likely to live. Privileging efficiencies that are needed in that assumed life
surreptitiously prepare grounds for acceptance that desired life. Therefore, measuring
mathematics and science but leaving social understanding out and having nothing to say about
the values prepares ground for an efficient education that is unfettered with moral issues facing
the society today and perhaps totally focussed on economic factors as driving force and desirable
goals for life. Actually favours considering education as a means to cope with the given reality

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rather than as a means to transform it; which Krishna Kumar 8 sees as the key choice to be made
in educational reforms.
The argument I am building is not that we should refrain from standardized testing where it is
useful and should not make attempts to assess quality of education we are providing to our
children. What I am arguing for is widening the notion of quality in spite of difficulties in its
assessment, linking it securely to the educational ideals and granting but only limited importance
to the idea and keeping space for a larger educational discourse where quality is only one of the
issues and not be the only guiding factor. We should use quality to give a fair deal to our children
in creating a democratic space and using it for themselves rather than pushing the society in
directions that might be hidden behind the notions of quality favoured by the policy makers.
******
16th March 2010 (revised on 11th December 2011)
Rohit Dhankar, Azim Premji University, Bangalore and Digantar, Jaipur.
Rohit.dhankar@apu.edu.in

Krishna Kumar, Quality of Education at the Beginning of the 21st Century: Lessons from India

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