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Contents
Analyses of the Ninth Five Year Plan pertaining to Elementary Education
in terms of Targets and Achievements – National Scenario
Background
The Ninth Plan looks at education
as the most vital and crucial investment in human development. The Special
Action Plan (SAP) of the Prime Minister gave an emphasis to total eradication of
illiteracy, equal access to and opportunity of education up to the school
leaving stage, improvement in the quality of education at all levels from
primary schools to universities and the need for expansion and improvement of
social infrastructure facilities for education. These objectives have been
formulated as the basis in the
Ninth Plan
The Government accorded high
priority to education sector in the Ninth Plan and allocated, Rs.24908.38 cr
against an expenditure of Rs.8521.89 cr in the Eighth Five Year Plan,
representing a nearly three fold increase in the funds available to the Union
Department of Education, which in turn was distributed to all the states and
Union Territories.
Out
of the total allocation a sum of Rs. 16369.59 Cr was provided for elementary
education, amounting to 65.7 percent of the total allocation.
This is as against a total expenditure of Rs. 4006.55 Cr spent in the 8th
five year plan period, amounting to 47% of the total available allocation in
that plan period.
The
thrust area of the Ninth plan was primarily, universalisation
of elementary education, achievement of full adult literacy, raising the quality
of education at all levels, improving learner achievement, upliftment of the
educational status of disadvantaged groups including SC/ST/girls and disabled
children, removing of regional disparities, vocationalisation of education,
renewal of curriculum to meet emerging challenges in information technology and
support for development of centres of excellence at the tertiary level.
Actual Achievements/Ground
Realities from data available up to 1999-2000
The interventions in the
programmes of elementary education aimed at providing schooling facilities
within a walking distance of one kilometre from habitations for children of
primary schools and three
kilometres for children of upper primary schools and strengthening of the
alternative mode of education delivery viz. non-formal education for schools
dropouts, working children and girls. This is to be combined with the
qualitative aspect of minimum levels of learning at the primary and upper
primary stages so as to achieve universal elementary education.
In
terms of access, 94% of the rural population living in 8.26 lac habitations have
now a school within a walking distance of one kilometre and 84% of this
population have now an upper primary school within a walking distance of 3
kilometres.
Concerted
efforts have been made during the Plan period to expand access, increase
retention and to improve learning achievements of children in elementary
schools.
Drop
out rates have shown a declining trend during the last five years. The decline
is from 45% in 1992-93 to 39.58% in 1997-98, showing an overall decrease of 5.42
percentage points at the primary level. At the upper primary stage, the drop out
rate was 61.10% in 1992-93 and it declined to 54.14% in 1997-98, showing an
overall decrease of 6.96%. Studies
have shown that poverty is the major cause for dropping out of school. The other
factors for drop out is a curriculum which is uninteresting and not relevant to
the life of the children.
The
Programme of Minimum Levels of Learning (MLL) has been introduced in most
States. The Programme aims at specifying competency levels which children are
required to attain in language, mathematics and in the environmental studies, in
classes 1 to 5 and to reorient the teaching learning process to facilitate
achievement of these. Several States have successfully used the idea of MLL to
launch a number of activities including revision of text books, change in
curricula and teaching methodologies, as well as in the content of teachers
training.
The Mid-day Meal Programme has
acquired an-all India coverage in 1997-98. The number of children covered under
the Programme has risen from 3.4 crores in about 3.22
lakh
schools in 1995-96 to 9.85 crore in about 6.88 lakh schools in 1998-99. The
initial impact of the programme of enrolment and participation of children,
especially girls, has been favourable. Evaluation studies sponsored in four
States, i.e. Orissa, Tamil Nadu H.P. and U.P., by Planning Commission through
various institutes reveal that average attendance rate has increased and dropout
rate has decreased in the post Mid-day Meal period as compared to the
pre-mid-day meal period (prior to launching of the scheme in 1995).
These studies have suggested that
a) the teachers should be involved in the supervision and monitoring of the
mid-day meal programme. b) Basic infrastructural facilities are required like
spacious kitchens in all the schools. c) The mid-day meal programme needs to be
combined with an “education package” like free uniforms, free text books and
bus passes etc.
The allocation of funds for the
programme has not been commensurate with the requirement resulting in setbacks
to the programme. Most States have not been in a position to make additional
investments required for converting food grains into hot cooked meals.
There
are a large number of initiatives in the elementary education sector and there
is a need to have a holistic and convergent approach, bringing all existing
programmes under one umbrella, with
a clear district focus. This would facilitate need based contextual planning
with community participation. The Panchayati Raj institutions have emerged as a
powerful vehicle for decentralised management of education and efforts would be
made to further enhance their role, in the light of the recommendations of the
Central Advisory Board on Education (CABE) Committee on Decentralised Management
of Education. On-going schemes will continue in the current financial year as
they are. From the next year, they would be to reflected as part of the Sarva
Shiksha Abhiyan’s District Elementary Education Plan.
During
the last few years large scale innovations are being experimented by the State
Governments in the field of elementary education. The establishment of more than
22,000 centres under the Education Guarantee Scheme in Madhya Pradesh , opening
up of more than 12,000 Rajeev Gandhi Swarana Jayanti Pathshalas in Rajasthan,
large scale recruitment of para teachers in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, M.P. and
U.P. are a few such initiatives that are likely to have a positive impact on the
quest for UEE.
The number of teachers which was
7.51 lakhs in gross terms in 1950-51 rose to 46.05 lakhs in 1997-8, a more than
six fold increase. Here also the number of women teachers has increased
substantially from 1.15 lakhs to 16.16 lakhs in the corresponding period.
Despite this the teacher-pupil ratio (TPR) has increased from 1:24 to 1:42 at
the primary stage and 1:20 to 1:37 at the upper primary level. The TPR suggests
that demand for elementary education has increased and justifies the need for
opening more educational institutions and engaging more teachers to meet the
demand of the school going population.
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The
Project Team
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