Value subtraction in India's public schools

In a new paper, Lant Pritchett and Yamini Aiyar finds that public schools in India subtract value when compared to private schools. Public schools cost more than twice private schools, and that too to deliver a far inferior learning outcomes output. Their estimate of what it would take public schools, at their existing efficacy in producing learning, to achieve the learning results of the private sector - 2.78% of GDP (or Rs 232,000 Cr or $ 50 bn)!

The graphic below captures this massive value subtraction.

Any serious effort at attaining and sustaining high economic growth rates should necessarily involve fixing the country's woeful school education system.