What use are numbers if we cannot calculate?

Prof S Mundle is pleased that "the growth cycle had bottomed out and moved on to a recovery phase". GDP growth for 2017-18 will be 6.5%, lower than "7.1% growth recorded in 2016-17", but this hides the fact that growth had fallen to a low of 5.7% in the first quarter and has accelerated to 7% in the third and fourth quarters, to improve the average number. Growth in Gross Fixed Capital Formation, or GFCF, has increased from 2.4% in 2016-17 to 4.5% in 2017-18, signifying greater investment in capital goods, which would indicate greater economic activity. GFCF as a ratio of GDP has been falling since 2008 reaching a nadir in 2017, so an uptick is welcome. The Goods and Services Tax is a work in progress and "will have a strong positive impact on growth". Direct taxes may also be reformed, "with a further positive impact on growth". The government is tackling the "twin deficit problem" of companies unable to service their debts and banks struggling with bad loans, which could amount to Rs 10 trillion. That is all good, so what is the bad news? The price of oil is flirting with $70 a barrel, and headline inflation is rising. Retail inflation rose to a 17-month high of 5.21% in December. India jumped 30 places, from 130 to 100, in the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business rankings and "the employability of the Indian workforce had gone up from 34% to 40% in four years. Ironically, this also implied that 60% of the workforce was not employable". Even those with MBA degrees are not getting jobs. Excluding the top 20 MBA colleges, only about 7% of graduates get jobs immediately. Large numbers of children are getting into engineering colleges, with the aim of getting any government job on qualifying. If higher education is bad then school education is abysmal. "According to some estimates, only about 2% of Indian workers have skill certificates compared to about 70% in Europe and 80-90% in East Asian countries like Japan and Korea." 57% of 14-18 year olds cannot do a simple division and 40% of 18 year olds cannot read a simple sentence in English. More teenagers are staying back in school but are learning nothing. More girls drop out of schools because of a variety of reasons, from having to help with housework to lack of clean toilets. Prof Mundle blames "the elitist bias in India's education policy" for the mess but actually it is because of the Right to Education Act which has destroyed small private schools which cost less in terms of per-pupil expenditure than government schools, and have seen a rise in enrolment by 17 million while that in government schools fell by 13 million. About 20% of the workforce are "employed in well-paid jobs" and will earn 10% rise in salaries in 2018. There is great anguish that income inequality is widening. Actually it is learning inequality which is yawning.