Shifting spaces of inequalities in the education lifecycle

Education occupies a central place in normative frameworks of justice and development. In Rawlsian terms, it facilitates access to primary goods, particularly by enabling fair equality of opportunity. From a human rights perspective, education is a fundamental and non-negotiable entitlement. Within Sen’s capability approach, it is both an intrinsic and instrumental good that expands individuals’ freedoms by enhancing their capabilities to achieve valued ways of being and doing.

Similarly, the human capital framework underscores the role of education in promoting intergenerational mobility, improving labour productivity, facilitating technological diffusion, and contributing to overall economic growth and social welfare. In contexts where individuals lack access to productive assets such as land or capital, education—through the acquisition of knowledge and skills—functions as a critical equaliser of opportunities. However, persistent inequalities in access to education and the resulting educational deprivation continue to constrain economic mobility and development, making equitable access a central policy priority across countries.

Over time, the educational requirements of economies have evolved significantly. The focus has shifted from basic literacy and numeracy acquired at the primary level to the completion of secondary and higher levels of education. Global norms increasingly emphasise the need to ensure that all children aged 6–17 years remain in school and complete at least 12 years of formal education.

Evidence from neuroscience indicates that early childhood, particularly ages 3–5 years, is a critical period for cognitive development, underscoring the importance of pre-primary education. At the same time, the human capital literature suggests that returns to education, which were once highest at the primary level, have progressively shifted towards higher levels of education.

In the context of the emerging knowledge economy and rapid technological transformations associated with the fourth industrial revolution, both the quantity and duration of education have become increasingly important. However, this expansion has also broadened the scope for inequalities to emerge across different stages of the educational lifecycle.

In recent decades, the discourse on education has moved beyond access and attainment to focus on quality, skills, and employability. It is now widely recognised that years of schooling or formal qualifications alone are insufficient to secure meaningful life outcomes such as stable employment, adequate earnings, and improved well-being.

The human capital perspective has accordingly shifted its emphasis towards the quality of education and the competencies acquired. Labour markets and industry increasingly prioritise skills, adaptability, and employability, particularly in the face of rapid technological change that continuously alters skill requirements and reduces the shelf life of existing competencies.

In many contexts, the expansion of educational access has been accompanied by a trade-off with quality, leading to uneven learning outcomes across institutions and population groups. As a result, disparities in educational quality and skill acquisition have become as significant as inequalities in access.

In this evolving landscape, inequalities are no longer confined to a single stage but instead shift and manifest across the education–employment continuum. Equal access to schooling as an entitlement does not guarantee equality in the quality of education received. Similarly, equal access to quality education does not necessarily ensure equal acquisition of knowledge, skills, and competencies. Even when individuals achieve comparable levels of educational attainment and skills, labour market outcomes may diverge due to factors such as social identity-based discrimination, unequal access to social capital, and recruitment practices that rely on informal networks and referrals. Thus, inequalities are reproduced and transformed as individuals move from education to employment, rather than being eliminated.

Sen’s capability approach provides a useful framework to understand these dynamics. The translation of equality in the space of resources, entitlements, or endowments into equality in capabilities depends on a range of conversion factors, including personal, social, and environmental conditions.

In the context of education, equal access to schooling must be complemented by appropriate institutional and social mechanisms to ensure that individuals can effectively convert educational opportunities into actual capabilities. In the absence of such mechanisms, inequalities are not resolved but merely displaced across different domains, resulting in the reproduction of structural inequalities.

The Indian experience reflects these complexities. Historically, access to education has been shaped by deeply embedded social hierarchies as well as by uneven distribution of resources. While significant progress has been made in expanding access, particularly since independence, inequalities persist across social groups and regions.

Policy initiatives such as the NPE-1986 and its PoA-1992, along with interventions like OBB, the DPEP, and the SSA, have contributed to the near-universalisation of elementary education. However, disparities remain pronounced at the pre-primary, secondary, and higher education levels, particularly for disadvantaged social groups.

Early childhood education represents a critical stage where inequalities begin to take root. The ICDS, implemented through Anganwadi centres, has played an important role in universalising nutritional support for children aged 3–5 years. However, its effectiveness in delivering quality pre-primary education remains limited. This has led to the expansion of private provision, raising concerns about affordability and access for socio-economically disadvantaged groups. Deficits in early learning and cognitive development often accumulate over time, affecting educational trajectories at later stages. Although enrolment rates at the elementary level are now nearly universal, inequalities persist in multiple forms among those enrolled.

These include age–grade mismatches, variations in medium of instruction, differences in school management (public versus private), disparities in access to digital resources, and significant gaps in learning outcomes. Such cumulative disadvantages continue through secondary and higher education, ultimately influencing labour market outcomes. As individuals transition from education to employment, these layered inequalities manifest in differential access to job opportunities, occupational mobility, and earnings.

In this context, the key policy concern is to understand how disparities and inequalities - particularly those based on caste and other identities on social and economic axes - evolve and shift across the education–employment continuum.

While a substantial body of research has examined inequalities within education and labour markets separately, comparatively limited attention has been paid to how these inequalities interact, accumulate, and transform across different stages of this continuum. From a policy perspective, it is crucial to analyse how disparities in early childhood education, schooling quality, and skill acquisition translate into unequal employment opportunities and earnings outcomes. Examining the interlinkages between educational processes and labour market outcomes enables a more nuanced understanding of how structural inequalities are reproduced over time. Such an approach has significant policy implications, especially for designing interventions that go beyond expanding access to also address inequalities in quality, capability formation, and labour market integration.

Telangana’s educational trajectory reflects a significant transformation—from being an educationally backward region during the pre- and post-independence periods under the Hyderabad State, and later within the combined Andhra Pradesh, to emerging as one of the front-runners in educational development since the beginning of the 21st century. Although current attendance rates among school-age children (6–17 years) are near universal, gaps persist at the pre-primary level and in higher education. More importantly, concerns remain regarding the quality of education across the entire educational life cycle, as well as the employability and skill levels of graduates.

An important question that remains is whether the gains achieved in educational attainment among younger cohorts over the past three decades have translated into meaningful labour market outcomes.

(The writer is Associate Professor and Coordinator, Research Cell on Education (RSEPPG), Centre for Economic and Social Studies (CESS), Hyderabad)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Venkatanarayana Motkuri

Venkatanarayana Motkuri