School of Social and Political Science

Beyond the in- and out-of-school binary in India: registering learner attendance

19 March 2024
12:30 - 14:00
Violet Laidlaw Room, CMB

This Centre of South Asian Studies seminar will host Prof Caroline Dyer, Professor of Education & International Development, University of Leeds. Prof. Dyer will be speaking on the topic ‘Beyond the in- and out-of-school binary in India: registering learner attendance.’  The session will be chaired by Dr William Smith, Senior Lecturer in Education & International Development, UoE. 

This is an in-person lunchtime seminar, so colleagues are invited to bring your lunches. DIY hot drinks will also be available. 

Speaker: Prof. Caroline Dyer, University of Leeds (co-authors: Dr Suraj Jacob, Azim Premji University; Dr Archana Choksi, University of Leeds

Chair: Dr William Smith, UoE

Abstract

This paper argues that in India’s accounting of progress towards universal elementary education, policy discourses have created an in- or out-of-school binary that obscures a necessary focus on learner attendance. Alerted to this by previous work on education system accountability, we are currently investigating interrupted learning and fragile attendance in the Adivasi (tribal) belt of Southern Rajasthan. The research adopts a multi-scalar, qualitative process tracing approach that is anchored around attendance monitoring at the school level, in three government elementary schools (Grades 1-8). We show that cumulative attendance figures are fed from the school into the State’s education system management in a performance of attendance monitoring that informs state incentive schemes, but does not extend to scrutinising trends of attendance from a learning perspective. By analysing learners’ presence and absence we propose a typology that demonstrates the diversity of attendance, and we report on how teachers ‘see’ attendance and their responses to its differing forms. Our findings trouble the notion of the ‘regular child’ in policy discourses, with their focus on retention and drop-out, and highlight the importance of critically ‘registering’ attendance and its implications for learning.