How do we measure outcomes and impact on a national scale? This is where lessons from ASER become extremely important.

In 2005, the Centre launched the ‘Outcomes Budget’ — an important step towards shifting focus from outlays to outcomes. The aim was to make the government more performance-oriented by making explicit the objectives and outcomes expected from public expenditures and allocating funds to each of these objectives. Like most government efforts, this has been poorly implemented.

There are two critical elements to a successful Outcomes Budget. First, it requires the identification of clear and quantifiable outcome indicators. But as of now, these indicators are vague and that makes measurement impossible and irrelevant.

Second, for an Outcomes Budget to achieve results, it must be accompanied by increased information on performance against these indicators. On this count, too, the Outcomes Budget has fallen far short of expectations. The budget itself was launched with much media fanfare, but over the years, it has simply disappeared from the public radar. There is no evidence of any proactive effort by government agencies to generate and disseminate information on progress.

The ASER experience offers important lessons that can go a long way in addressing these weaknesses. First, it has successfully identified simple indicators of learning competence — word and number recognition, basic comprehension and basic arithmetic. These are tangible and quantifiable and are applicable all over the country. Most importantly, these indicators are realistic and relevant. After all, it is reasonable to expect that a child in Class 5 can recognise words, do basic math and read a Class 2 textbook.

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