Abhijit Banerjee lauds Delhi govt schools for outperforming private peers

Education outcomes in state-run schools can be better than private ones, bel laureate Abhijit Banerjee said on Saturday as he lauded Delhi government schools for "outperforming" ir private peers.

He said state ncies have been "generous" with resource allocation for education, which is visible in aspects like teacher salaries and system, and focus needs to shift to making m perform better. comments from MIT professor, whose work on poverty alleviation won him coveted bel Prize recently, come weeks ahe of Delhi polls.

"Do I think that you can aspire to doing better in government system relative to aver private school? Yes. Delhi public schools have done it actually. Results in Delhi public school system, government school system like municipal schools are better than aver private school in Delhi,” he told reporters here.

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Speaking ahe of delivering a lecture at education-focused NGO Pratham's 25th anniversary celebrations, Banerjee said Delhi government schools have "outperformed" private ones. He said private schools are "terrible" from an outcome perspective. Education is largely a state subject under federal structure of India, but stretched fiscal situations are generally "b news" for sector as lesser resources will be allocated, he said, answering a specific question on a Rs 3,000 crore reduction in Central government's education allocations.

However, he said rar than financial resources, Centre's focus should be on reforms in human resource development, University Grants Commission and syllabus setting. He pitched strongly for leaving syllabus setting to individual institutions, rar than making it centralised where boards set syllabi.

re is a need for greater flexibility in education sector across all aspects, he said, calling system "very rigid". "I think real issue is t money... education system is very rigid, too rigid. re's almost flexibility. Pensions, salaries eat up most of budget. So it's t that you can change very much. You are always committed to paying those things. It's a rar inflexible system," he said.

ecomist, who has been a tary of stimulating demand to boost growth, also said that budget deficit numbers are "a little bit imaginary" and one should t be very concerned about breaching fiscal gap. "Budget deficit numbers are a little bit imaginary. So in that sense, I don't think it is a big deal to breach it and certainly I wouldn't be supporting fiscal tightening right w," he said.

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