RISE Research Director Lant Pritchett was recently invited to speak at the M Bhoj Reddy and EV Ram Reddi Endowment Lectures on 14 November 2019 in Hyderabad, India. Acknowledging India's impressive transformational success in expanding the number of children in school and the number of grades completed, Pritchett noted that the increase in access has not translated into learning outcomes. In fact, learning levels in India are so low that at the current rate of improvement it would take 150 years for India to reach the average learning levels of OECD countries. Pritchett highlighted that re-orienting an organisation from one kind of success ("logistical expansion") to a different mode ("quality improvement") is one of the hardest to do, even in the best conditions.

The full event can be viewed on YouTube. 

RISE would like to thank the Foundation for Democratic Reforms (FDR) for allowing us to cross-post this lecture.

Image: ©Foundation for Democratic Reform (FDR)