MAINS 2016
GS2
12.5 marks
Professor Amartya Sen has advocated important reforms in primary education and primary health care. What are your suggestions to improve their status and performance?
WRITE IN
9 min
200 words
What the examiner wants
Give suggestions to improve primary education and primary health care, drawing on Amartya Sen's arguments.
What are your suggestionsAnswer exactly what the question asks.
Demand-wise check
- 1Sen's view: public provisioning, basic education and health as capability; Kerala and East Asia lessons; teacher absenteeism and accountability≈35 words
- 2Education suggestions: foundational literacy, teacher accountability, mother-tongue teaching, community monitoring≈35 words
- 3Health suggestions: higher public spending, primary care centres, community health workers, preventive care≈35 words
- 4Conclusion≈35 words
Open in about 30 words and close in about 30.
Answer plan
Sen's diagnosisEducation suggestionsHealth suggestionsConclusion
Where marks usually go
- Not linking to Sen
- Only listing schemes without suggestions
Draw this
- Two-column table: problem → suggestion for education and health
Value addition
- ReportSen and Dreze in 'An Uncertain Glory' (2013) argue India neglected public education and health compared with other countries.Dreze and Sen, 2013
- DataASER 2022: only 20.5% of Class 3 students could read a Class 2 text.ASER 2022
- PolicyNational Health Policy 2017 set a target of public health spending at 2.5% of GDP by 2025.NHP 2017
Mapped topper copies
Reviewed public-source references related to this PYQ. Same-syllabus references are labelled separately.
- Shakti Dubey · AIR 1 · Page 17 ↗Same syllabus reference
- Aditya Srivastava · AIR 1 · Page 35 ↗Same syllabus reference
- Aditya Srivastava · AIR 1 · Page 41 ↗Same syllabus reference
Links open original public sources. MainsBuddy does not host these answer sheets.
Next: plan for one minute, write it in 9 minutes, then get it checked.