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

54 Pages Posted: 20 Apr 2016

See all articles by Jishnu Das

Jishnu Das

Georgetown University; Georgetown University

Tristan Zajonc

Harvard University - Harvard Kennedy School (HKS)

Date Written: June 1, 2008

Abstract

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.

Keywords: Secondary Education, Educational Sciences, Teaching and Learning, Primary Education, Tertiary Education

Suggested Citation

Das, Jishnu and Zajonc, Tristan, India Shining and Bharat Drowning: Comparing Two Indian States to the Worldwide Distribution in Mathematics Achievement (June 1, 2008). World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 4644, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1149577

Jishnu Das (Contact Author)

Georgetown University ( email )

O Street
Washington, DC 20057
United States

Georgetown University ( email )

Old North, Suite 100
37th & O Streets NW
Washington, DC 20057
United States

Tristan Zajonc

Harvard University - Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) ( email )

79 John F. Kennedy Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

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