Rural Education Schemes PDF

Preview

Summary

Talks about various schemes launched by the Indian Government to improve rural education....

Description



Educational Programmes took by the Indian Government in Rural Areas



1.

N  on-formal Education Scheme:

●

The Non-Formal Education (NFE) was introduced in 1979-80 by the central government to support the formal system in providing education to all children below the age of 14 years.

●

This scheme was focused especially in the educationally backward districts of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal from 1987-88.

●

The introduction of the National Policy on Education (NPE) by Rajiv Gandhi based on the recommendation of the Kothari Commission’s (1964) recognized that the formal schooling system could not reach all children. Therefore, a large and systematic programme of non-formal education would be required to educate the school dropouts, and children from habitations, where no schools are present, working children and girls, who could not attend whole day schools.

●

The NFE scheme is run by the state governments, which set up NFE centres. The scheme, however, can provide grants to Voluntary Agencies (VAs), which can run these NFE centres on behalf of the governments. The Programme of Action (POA) 1992 has developed strategies for running the NFE scheme. They are as follows:- 

a. Setting up of NFE centres based on a micro-planning exercise carried out for Universal Elementary Education. b. Community participation by involving them in setting up of the centre, identification of instructor and supervision of NFE centre. c. Efforts to evolve different models of NFE programme for different target groups d. Adequate training and orientation of NFE instructors. e. Linking the formal school to facilitate lateral entry of the learners from NFE stream. f.

Efforts to link non-formal courses with formal schools.

g. Adoption of a learner-centred approach in such a way that the learning levels for the learners are equivalent to the formal system.

   2. Operation Blackboard:   ●

The scheme of Operation Blackboard was launched in 1987 in pursuance of National Policy of Education—Programme of Action, to provide minimum essential facilities to all primary schools in the country and aimed to improve the human and Physical resources available in primary school

●

This is a large operation and was launched after the external evaluation of the scheme had indicated that lack of training of teachers in using the teaching material, and lack of uniform facilities, which are provided without modification, according to local needs were found to be some of the drawbacks of implementation of the scheme.



●

The Operation Blackboard scheme contains the following three sub-schemes: a. Continuation of ongoing Operation Blackboard to cover all the remaining primary schools, especially those in Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes areas; b. Expanding the scope of Operation Blackboard to provide three teachers and three rooms to primary schools, wherever enrolment warrants them; c. Expanding Operation Blackboard to upper primary schools to provide the following: ■

At least one room for each class/section

■

A Headmaster-cum-office room

■

Separate toilet facilities for girls and boys

■

Essential teaching-learning equipment including a library

■

At least one teacher for each class/section

■

A contingency grant for the replenishment of items, consumable and minor repairs, etc.

●

The scheme plans to take the following measures to improve the quality of education:- a. Teachers will be trained in using the teaching materials under a specially designed teacher training programme. b. State governments will make a provision for breakage and replacement of equipment. c. Enough flexibility will be provided for the purchase of teaching-learning needs, relevant to the curriculum, and the local needs of the schools. d. To appoint women for at least 50 per cent of teacher posts, so that a positive impact can be created on girls’ enrolment and retention. e. Low cost and locally available designs relevant to the local conditions have to be adopted for school buildings. f.

Nirmithi Kendras (Building Centres) and local technical institutes will be associated in this endeavour.



●

Financing - The financing of this scheme is divided between the central government and the state government. a. The central government will provide funds for equipment and teachers’ salary. b. The state governments have to mobilize resources under Jawahar Rozgar Yojana for construction of school buildings, and other facilities. The state governments are also supposed to provide contingency and replacement funds for equipment.

    3. Mahila Samakhya (MS):   ●

Mahila Samakya, a scheme that aims at Education for Women’s Equality was launched in 1989, in pursuance of the goals of the New Education Policy (1986). This scheme tries to emphasize education as an agent of change’ in the status of women.

●

The programme was originally started in 10 districts of Karnataka, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh, with the assistance from The Netherlands, and was later extended to Andhra Pradesh and Kerala.

●

The programme was conceived as a women’s empowerment programme for socially and economically marginalized women. Its focus is on rural women. 

●

Core components of the Mahila Samakhya organizational approach are as follows: a. The role of Sayoginis or women functionaries at the village level is highlighted. They have to assist in group formation and provide issue-specific knowledge to these groups. Activities to be conducted are chosen in the context of their potential impact on the lives of women and response to the articulated local demands. b. Formation of women’s collectives at the village level (sanghas). c. Taking a collective social action. d. The creation of resource agencies at the district and state level. e. Conducting exposure visits of the women, facilitating issue-based learning for the grassroots women. f. Intervention at the political level (village, district and state level). g. Non-negotiable principles like allowing women sufficient time and space to come together, plan, act, reflect and determine their own development. i. A process-driven rather than target-driven approach.

●

These sanghas, although have undertaken several activities, have failed in creating critical mass opinion as the programme outreach is limited to only a few villages. However, in recent years, sanghas are coming together as federations and the role of Mahila Samakya or the central organization has changed into one of the specialists supporting these federations.



4. District Primary Education Programme:  ●

The District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) was launched in November 1994. This programme was launched to operationalize the strategies to achieve Universal Elementary Education at the particular district level, rather than imposing the same rule, i.e., educational programmes were decentralized through this scheme.

●

It emphasizes decentralized management, community mobilization, and district-specific planning based on contextual and research-based inputs available to each district. Focus laid upon improving teaching and learning materials, and school effectiveness.

●

The basic objectives of this programme are as follows: a. To provide all children with access to primary education, either in the formal system or through Non-Formal Education (NFE) programme. b. To reduce differences in enrolment, dropout rates and learning achievement among gender and social groups to less than 5 per cent. c. To reduce the overall primary dropout rates for all students to less than 10 per cent.

d. To raise average achievement levels by at least 25 per cent over measured baseline levels and ensuring achievements of basic literacy and numeracy competencies and a minimum of 40 per cent achievement levels in other competencies by all primary school children. 

●

The central government with assistance from external funding resources like IDA or EU, etc., finances 85 percent of this programme and the rest is either funded by the respective state governments directly or through DPEP State Implementation Societies.

●

DPEP has been able to set up project management structures at the district, state and national levels. It has been successful in creating a micro-planning environment, where the challenge of pedagogical innovation, is put on the government and non-government institutions.

●

Thus, the programme is successful in enhancing community participation and also focuses on special groups like tribals, scheduled castes, women and other marginalized sections of the society. DPEP, until now, has made a decisive impact on increasing enrolment, reducing repetition rates or a number of failures in the class, thus improving classroom processes.



5. National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education (School Meal Programme):   ●

This scheme was launched on 15th August 1995 to give a boost to Universal Elementary Education. The scheme aims primarily at increasing enrolment, retention and attendance of students in primary classes by supplementing the nutritional requirements of children attending these primary schools.

●

It is an ambitious scheme that has been operationalized throughout the country in a very short period. The scheme provides for a nutritious and wholesome cooked meal of 100 gms of food grains per school day, free of cost, to all children studying in classes I to V.

●

The scheme has registered rapid growth in school enrolments and also retention of students. The attendance of students also increased because many parents send their children to schools in the hope that they will get

at least one full meal in a day. The scheme has become fully operational from 1997-98, covering nearly 110 million children in primary classes. ●

The Akshaya Patra Foundation, successfully implemented its own school lunch programme in Karnataka since 2000, following which the mandate to implement Mid Day Meal Scheme was passed.

The drawback of this scheme is that in many schools, the children attend the classes only till the meals are served. Once the meals are served, they tend to leave school. To overcome this problem, in many schools the classes are now conducted during the morning hours and the meals are served only to those students, who attend the schools on that particular school-day and not to all those, who have enrolled in the school.

   

6. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA):   ●

The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan launched in March 2002, is a time-bound integrated approach, where the central government and the state government together will implement this scheme in partnership with the local governments and community.

●

The scheme aims to provide useful and quality elementary education to all children between 6 and 14 years of age group by 2010. It aimed at universalizing elementary education of satisfactory quality in the country

●

The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan is an effort to recognize the need for improving the performance of the school system and to provide community-owned quality elementary education as a mission. The scheme also envisages bridging gender and social gaps that exist in our country today.



●

The goals or objectives of this scheme are as follows: a. To have all children in school by 2003; b. To see that all children complete five years of primary schooling by 2007; c. To see that all children complete eight years of schooling by 2010; d. Focusing on elementary education of satisfactory quality with emphasis on education for life; e. Bridging all gender and social category gaps at the primary stage, by 2007, and elementary education level by 2010; and f. Increasing retention or reducing the dropout rate by 2010.

●

To signify the national priority for elementary education, a National Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Mission was established with the Prime Minister as the Chairperson and the Union Minister of Human Resource Development as the Vice-Chairperson. States have to establish a state-level implementation society for District Elementary Education under the Chairmanship of Chief Minister and Education Minister.

●

The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan is structured in such a way that it will not disturb the existing structures in states and districts but would only try to bring convergence in all these efforts. The scheme has to function in such a way that there exists functional decentralization, at every stage, of the school level, to improve community participation.

●

The scheme has recognized local bodies such as Tribal Councils in Scheduled Areas, Panchayati Raj Institutions, Gram Sabha, etc., as participants in imparting elementary education. An accountability

framework would also be developed involving NGOs, activists, teachers, women organizations, etc. ●

The components or functions of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan includes appointment of teachers, teacher training, qualitative improvement of elementary education, provision of teaching-learning materials, the establishment of Block and Cluster Resource Centres for academic support, construction of classrooms and school buildings, the establishment of educational guarantee centres, integrated education of disabled and distance education.

  

7. Community Mobilization and Participation Schemes:  ● Many educational innovations of recent years are based on a strong foundation of community support and participation. When the progress is discussed and analyzed at different levels within the project, ‘people’s acceptance and participation’ is used as an indicator. ●

The government with the assistance of some Non-Governmental Organizations and other philanthropists has started some schemes which mobilize the village community to take responsibility to ensure quality education for every child in the village.

●

The popular among these schemes are Lok Jumbish (LJ) and Shiksha Karmi Project (SKP). These schemes were started to universalize primary education and deliver quality education in villages. Community involvement is indeed the key factor for the success of these two projects.    



 8. Right to Education Act (2009)  ●

Right to Education Act (2009) was a landmark initiative of the government to strengthen the education system in India. Under this Act, it is mandatory to complete elementary education of all children, who reside in Indian Territory. Now Education is a fundamental right of every Indian.

●

Few features of this act includes :- a. Free and compulsory education to all children of India in the 6 to 14 age group. b. No child shall be held back, expelled or required to pass a board examination until completion of elementary education. c. Calls for a fixed student-teacher ratio. d. Provides for 25% reservation for economically disadvantaged communities in admission to class I in all private schools. e. Mandates improvement in quality of education. f.

School teachers will need an adequate professional degree within five years or else will lose their job.

g. School infrastructure to be improved in three years, else recognition cancelled. h. Financial burden will be shared between state and central government. i.

No child shall be subjected to physical punishment of mental harassment.

j.

To constitute a school management committee consisting of the elected representatives of the local authority, parents of children.

k. No teacher shall engage himself or herself in private tuition.   

Suggestions for strengthening education at the primary level 1.

The panchayat can play an important role in promoting inclusive education. The village education committee should not be an ad hoc project arrangement and should be a permanent structure of the village panchayat. The Panchayati Raj Act of many states envisaged for the constitution of such committees at the village level.  a. A constitutionally mandated body. b. A cornerstone of grassroots level democracy. c. Instrumental in planning, implementation and monitoring of development programmes. d. An institution enjoying extensive administrative and financial powers. e. Responsible for raising awareness and ensuring sustainability of knowledge about issues of public interest.  Whenever Panchayat Raj Institutions in rural areas have taken the initiatives to protect child rights, development indicators in areas like education, health and child trafficking have improved dramatically. Right to Education Act (2009) has given ample scope to PRIs in rural areas for the universalization of elementary education as a fundamental right. If PRI members are monitoring the enrollment procedure of their Jurisdiction, success will come.  

2. A frequent parent and teacher interaction will enhance student enrolment and attendance rate. However, the teachers are found to be interacting less with the parents because of the paucity of time and sometimes even from the other side as the parents too busy in their livelihood earning activities also fail to make themselves available to the teachers.  3. The incentives available to the students must be made at the beginning of the session. Any delay in the availability of books will de-motivate the students. 

 4. The quality of the Mid-day meal needs to be improved, which will attract children of the weaker sections of the society to the school.  a. The child under-nutrition in India is a major threat to a child's survival, growth and potential for full development. According to third National Family Health Survey of 2005- 06, in India 20% of children under five-years-old are wasted [too thin for their age] due to acute under-nutrition and 48% are stunted [too short for their age] due to chronic under-nutrition and 70% of children between six months and 59 months are anaemic. b. More than a third of all deaths in children aged five years or younger can be attributable to under-nutrition. c. The Prime Minister Mr Manmohan Singh had once referred to undernutrition as a ‘matter of national shame’.   5. Village monitoring committees must be formulated so that they will monitor the enrolment and student absenteeism.  6. The overall attitude of the people particularly socially and economically backwards towards the education of the girl child needs to be changed.          

Conclusion   1.

Education is the most effective instrument for ensuring equality of opportunity. Educating rural population needs combined effort of the government and officials, dedication and sincerity of the teachers, awareness of the tribals and their involvement.

2. Further, there is a great gap in the information and...