The data show the share of primary education which is private has increased substantially. The latest household survey data pegs the share of enrolled children in the private sector at 58 per cent in the urban sector and at 32 per cent in the rural sector. How exactly does SSA claim “success” for the massive increases in enrolments in schools it did not support?

As with everything about India, there are huge differences across states and between rural and urban areas. In some regions public sector enrolment fell in absolute numbers (even when totals were increasing). Obviously these are not SSA successes. In other regions the public sector share fell but public sector enrolments increased, in which case it is unclear how much of SSA “success” was just riding up with increased demand as the incremental share of enrolment in the public sector was often very small. Finally, there are a few regions — mainly the rural areas of the most backward states in which there had previously been very little expansion such as rural Bihar and rural UP — in which enrolments rose, public sector enrolments rose, and the public sector share of enrolments rose. While there was success in expanding education there is no rigorous evidence to suggest SSA played any causal role in the India’s increases in enrolment, it is probably fair to say that SSA might have had some impact in some places, but that most of India’s post hoc increase in enrolments has little to do with the propter hoc (because) of SSA.

... contd.