Free and compulsory
education to all children up to the age of fourteen is the constitutional
commitment in India. Despite spectacular quantitative expansion in
every sphere of elementary education, the goal to achieve universal enrolment
is still a far distant dream in a real sense. While adopting the
constitution in 1950, the goal of UEE was to be achieved in ten years i.e.
1960. Keeping in view the educational facilities available in the
country at that time, the goal of UEE was far too ambitious to achieve in a
short span of ten years. Hence, the target date was revised several
times. During the decade 1991-2001, a number of Centrally Sponsored
Schemes, as well as, new programmes and projects were initiated across the
country. The Operation Blackboard scheme initiated in 1987 also got
momentum during this period so as the large number of District Institutes of
Educational Training (DIETs) established across the country.
The Andhra Pradesh Primary Education Project, Bihar Education Project, UP Basic
Education Project, Lok
Jumbish and Shiksha
Karmi projects of Rajasthan and District Primary Education
Programme (DPEP) were the main state-specific programmes initiated during 1991-2001.
The mid-day meal scheme was also initiated during this period. Primary
education remained the focus of all these programmes. The DPEP which came to an
end in 2000 was implemented in 272 districts across 18 states.
The most recent ambitious programme, namely Sarva Shiksha
Abhiyan (SSA) was launched by the Government of India in 2001envisaged
covering all non-DPEP districts before the end of the Ninth Five-Year Plan with
a focus on the entire elementary level of education.
Initially, the focus of SSA was to further strengthen infrastructure in schools
which was later shifted initially to increase enrolment (in terms of enrolment
ratio, drop-out, and transition rate) and later focused more on improving
quality of education. Under the aegis of SSA, a number of programmes were
launched and several studies were conducted (mostly by the Technical Support
Group of SSA) in the beginning but later the momentum couldn’t be
maintained. One of the significant visible achievements of SSA was
strengthening the Educational Management Information System through DISE/U-DISE
initiatives which had later acquired the status of the Official
Statistics in 2012-13.
Initially, the aim of SSA was to bring all the out-of-school, never enrolled,
and dropped-out children back to school by 2003, achieve UPE by 2007, and UEE
with satisfactorily quality of education by 2010 but nobody knows what had
happened to all these targets. Targets of 2003, 2005, and 2010 show national
commitment but no state-specific targets were set down in the process of which
all states including Kerala and Bihar was given the same year to achieve the
objectives of SSA. Neither district-specific target was set down.
A thorough diagnosis exercise would have revel how many years a state and
district would take to achieve the goal of UPE and UEE but the momentum of data
analysis couldn’t be maintained barring an initial period of SSA. Later the
concept of participatory planning lost focus so as the
development of district plans in a decentralized mode.
A number of capacity building programmes with an emphasis on the
data analysis and use of indicators in planning were conducted across the
county. Barring the initial period, later district plans started
formulating at the State level and planning teams remained on
paper. In most cases, Block development plans as envisaged in SSA
couldn’t be developed so as the School Development plans based on which
District plans were envisaged to be developed.
In 2007, SSA extended to the secondary level of education in the form of RMSA.
In 2009, Right to Education was enacted ensuring that every
child of age 6 to 14 years is enrolled because of which there is no target year
by which UPE and UEE are to be achieved which is continued. The local
authorities are supposed to identify out-of-school children at the beginning of
an academic year which is then to provide special training of 2 months to 3
years and then to make them sit in the age-appropriate class. No data is
available as to how many such students were made to sit in a class and how many
of them continued and have completed Grade V and VIII. Change in the planning
methodology because RTE is also not available in the public domain but district
plans continued to be developed based on the EXCEL Tables.
SSA inherited a legacy of
rich experience of DPEP but it couldn’t sustain many of the best practices of
the DPEP and it had become a routine and mechanical exercise year after year
and lost focus. During the entire period of SSA, 2001 to 2018, it was never
externally reviewed barring annual review by the Joint Review
Mission even though there was a change in the federal
government. For about 15 years, SSA plans were being
formulated, appraised, approved and money released based on the 50+ Excel
Tables provided by the Technical Support Group of SSA.
In the initial years of
SSA, the process of plan formulation was a bit scientific but later everything
gained over the previous such programmes lost and plans lack academic
flavour. NIEPA is said to be known as an apex body in the areas of
capacity building and planning and had played an important role during DPEP
implementation. But so far as the SSA is concerned its planning methodology,
barring an initial period is not in the public domain.
It never took up the issue of plans being formulated based on EXCEL Sheets with
the Ministry of HRD in the absence of which the outcome of the capacity
building programmes which it had conducted is not reflected in the plans being
formulated. But such programmes conducted by the NIEPA have contributed
immensely to developing an understanding of both the district and state-level
officers in the areas of MIS, indicators of educational development, planning
methodology, and data analysis which is true for both SSA and RMSA. In each state,
one person well versed engaged in planning over years and have a good
understanding of SSA and RMSA parameters, use of indicators, and its
implication for planning can be identified but such officers are not large in
number.
NIEPA faculty played important
role at the beginning of SSA and conducted a good number of programmes on
planning methodology and have also played important role in Appraisal Missions
constituted by the Ministry but this exercise which was found useful by both
the members of appraisal as well states discontinued for unknown reasons;
instead, the concept of internal appraisal was introduced which was never found
effective. Whatever one wants to achieve can only be achieved
through the active participation of teachers for which provision of in-service
was made in SSA. During SSA the focus of capacity building of teachers was
transferred from DIET to Block Resource Centres across the County. By and
large, DIET continues to engage in B.Ed and Diploma programmes and few
programmes it used to conduct were also decided at the State level (generally
SCERT) which is generally not found need-based and as per the requirement of
teachers but the same was an easy tool to spend a good amount of money
allotted. The quality of school education was also badly reflected by the
provisions of RTE, namely no detention and no exam policy at the elementary
level of education which resulted in demand by the states to scrap the same
which was later approved by the parliament through amendment in the Constitution.
Even though SSA was extended to the Secondary level through RMSA but the same
was limited only to Government schools and even aided schools were not
covered.
One of the other
limitations of the programme was the issue of prioritization because of which
during the initial period of SSA schools were opened where they were not viable
to be opened which were later merged with other schools or a few of them were
even closed down. This was also true for the construction of additional
classrooms and other facilities. Despite all these limitations, significant
progress was made during the SSA period but the same was focused more on to
further strengthen infrastructure in schools or on input variables. At the end
of SSA, the following set of data reveals the progress made and the size of the
unfinished task.
Status of School Education:
Year 2017-18
· Number of
Schools: 15,58,903
· Percentage
of Private Schools: 20.67%
· Total
Teachers, Grades I to XII: 92,47,361
· Percentage
of Trained Teachers : 81.39%
· Percentage
of Single-Teacher Schools (Government): 7.82%
· Percentage
of Single-Classroom Schools (Government): 3.99%
· Percentage
of Schools with Computer(s): 29.57%
· Percentage
of Schools with Functional Computer(s): 13.07%
· Percentage
of Schools with Electricity: 63.14%
· Percentage
of Schools with Internet Connection: 13.61%
· Total I
to XII Enrolment: 25,09,89,193
· Enrolment
in Grades I to V & NER: 12,23,78,400, 82.53%
· Enrolment
in Grades VI to VII & NER: 6,54,48,222, 72.62%
· Enrolment
in Grades I to VII & NER: 18,78,26,622, 85.18%
· Enrolment
in Grades IX to X & NER: 3,84,80,023, 52,14%
· Enrolment
in XI & XII & NER: 2,46,82,548, 32.60%
· Enrolment
in Grade I: 1,31,37,951 Boys & 1,19,49,359 Girls
· Average
Annual Drop-out Rate, Primary level: 3.51%
· Average
Annual Drop-out Rate, Upper Primary level: 5.02%
· Average
Annual Drop-out Rate, Elementary level: 4.03%
· Average
Annual Drop-out Rate, Secondary level: 18.51%
· Average
Annual Drop-out Rate, Primary level: 2.77%
· Retention
Rate at Primary level: 86.11%
· Retention
Rate at Elementary level: 71.06%%
· Retention
Rate at Secondary level: 57.72%
· Transition
Rate from primary to Upper Primary level: 90.78%
· Transition
Rate from Upper Primary to Secondary level: 89.23%
· Transition
Rate from Secondary Higher to Secondary level: 68.05%
· Gender
Parity Index, Primary Grades: 1.02
· Gender
Parity Index, Upper Primary Grades: 1.11
· Gender
parity Index, Secondary Grades: 1.03
· Gender
parity Index, Higher Secondary Grades: 1.02
· Completion
Rate at Secondary Level: 64.97%
As it seems that most
of the indicators have improved over a period of time but the drop-out rate
remained high which would significantly influence the objective of universal
school enrolment. Another important issue is the decline in enrolment across
school levels over a period of time is a major area of concern that must be
thoroughly examined to find out the exact causes of decline which is across the
country. Net Enrolment Ratio is 85 percent which if not further
improve to significant effect, enrolment in other higher levels cannot improve.
Needless to mention that enrolment in upper primary and other higher levels can
only improve if enrolment in primary classes is further improved which would
happen only if the efficiency of the primary level of education is improved.
This is also true for Higher Education which unless received an adequate number
of Higher Secondary graduates, cannot increase on its own.
Till recently plans were
being developed separately for the elementary and secondary level of education,
which now under Samagra Shiksha, are supposed to be developed for the entire
School education level as one entity by one planning team but as of now the
same old model of developing plans based on EXCEL Sheets is still going on. The
only difference is that the entire set of EXCEL Tables are divided into three
parts, elementary and RTE, Teacher education, and Secondary and higher
secondary levels of education which are then provided to the person-in-charge looking
after these components under the aegis of Samagra Shiksha. Hardly any research
studies have been undertaken to see the impact of SSA and RMSA and whether its
objectives have been achieved and if not, what are the reasons for
non-achievement.
It may also be of interest
to know that two separate district plans were used to be developed one each for
elementary under SSA and another secondary level of education under RMSA by the
two different agencies. In the initial years of RMSA, even there were two separate
JRMs as well as PAB to approve annual plans. Till 2011-12, even DISE was also
separately been managed by the Office of SSA and RMSA with a provision of two
Data Capture Formats, one online application for SEMIS and another off-line
software for SSA, two Nodal officers, one each for SSA an RMSA but there was
only one data entry point because of which there was a lot of duplicity of
efforts being made towards achieving the goal of school education in India.
Maybe because of these reasons, Samagra Shiksha was launched in
2018-19 to meet the challenges of unfinished tasks of school education in
India.
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