India Shining and Bharat Drowning : Comparing Two Indian States to the Worldwide Distribution in Mathematics Achievement

This paper uses student answers to publicly released questions from an international testing agency together with statistical methods from Item Response Theory to place secondary students from two Indian states -Orissa and Rajasthan -on a worldwide...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors:	Das, Jishnu, Zajonc, Tristan
Format:	Policy Research Working Paper
Language:	English
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2012
Subjects:	ACHIEVEMENT ACHIEVEMENTS APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY ATTENTION AVERAGE SCORE BELIEFS CALL COGNITIVE ABILITY COMPETENCE ECONOMICS OF EDUCATION EDUCATED WORKERS EDUCATION BUDGET EDUCATION SECTOR EDUCATION SYSTEM EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT EDUCATIONAL MEASUREMENT EDUCATIONAL PLANNING EDUCATIONAL POLICY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM EDUCATIONAL TESTING ENROLLMENT RATE ENROLLMENT RATES EXAM EXAMS FIRST GRADE FUTURE RESEARCH GENDER GIRLS GROSS ENROLLMENT HUMAN DEVELOPMENT HUMAN SCIENCES INFERENCE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INTERVENTIONS INTUITION LEARNING LEARNING ACHIEVEMENT LEARNING ACHIEVEMENTS LEARNING LEVELS LEARNING OUTCOMES LEVELS OF ENROLLMENT LITERACY LITERATURE LOWER SECONDARY LOWER SECONDARY SCHOOLS MATH SCORES MATHEMATICS MOBILITY MOTIVATION NET ENROLLMENT NUMERACY ONLY CHILDREN PAPERS PRIMARY EDUCATION PRIMARY ENROLLMENT PRIMARY GRADES PRIMARY SCHOOL PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN PRIMARY SCHOOLING PRINCIPALS PRIVATE SCHOOL PRIVATE SCHOOLS PROFICIENCY QUALITY EDUCATION QUALITY OF EDUCATION REASONING RESEARCH INSTITUTE RESEARCHERS RURAL AREAS SCHOOL ATTENDANCE SCHOOL SURVEY SCHOOLS SECONDARY EDUCATION SECONDARY SCHOOL SECONDARY SCHOOL ENROLLMENTS SECONDARY SCHOOLING SECONDARY SCHOOLS SECONDARY STUDENTS SENIOR SECONDARY SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS SKILLED WORKERS SOCIAL STUDIES STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT TEACHERS TEST SCORES THINKING YOUTH
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2008/06/9560562/india-shining-bharat-drowning-comparing-two-indian-states-worldwide-distribution-mathematics-achievement http://hdl.handle.net/10986/6668

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Summary:	This paper uses student answers to publicly released questions from an international testing agency together with statistical methods from Item Response Theory to place secondary students from two Indian states -Orissa and Rajasthan -on a worldwide distribution of mathematics achievement. These two states fall below 43 of the 51 countries for which data exist. The bottom 5 percent of children rank higher than the bottom 5 percent in only three countries-South Africa, Ghana and Saudi Arabia. But not all students test poorly. Inequality in the test-score distribution for both states is next only to South Africa in the worldwide ranking exercise. Consequently, and to the extent that these two states can represent India, the two statements "for every ten top performers in the United States there are four in India" and "for every ten low performers in the United States there are two hundred in India" are both consistent with the data. The combination of India's size and large variance in achievement give both the perceptions that India is shining even as Bharat, the vernacular for India, is drowning. Comparable estimates of inequalities in learning are the building blocks for substantive research on the correlates of earnings inequality in India and other low-income countries; the methods proposed here allow for independent testing exercises to build up such data by linking scores to internationally comparable tests.

India Shining and Bharat Drowning : Comparing Two Indian States to the Worldwide Distribution in Mathematics Achievement

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