EDUCATION

Education is a Fundamental Right:
The Constitution of India was amended at the beginning of the Tenth Plan period to make education a Fundamental Right of the child between the ages of 6-14 years. While great strides have been made in providing access to education, the Right itself cannot be said to have been realized for all children. The challenge for SSA is to be able to address the needs for access and quality education for each child. This will require a strong rights orientation within the programme.

In very broad terms the following 2 dimensions of work are crucial for the 2nd phase of SSA under the 11th Plan:
(i)Improvement of the quality of education imparted in the primary and upper primary schools through a range of coherent and comprehensive strategies with clearly defined goals that help in measuring progress. Quality of education is a much discussed issue and there is no clear consensus on what constitutes quality, how to measure it, or whether it can be measured at all. The meaning of ‘improved quality’ needs to be defined in operational terms through clearly identified outcome indicators for various dimensions like teacher competence, classroom processes, teaching learning materials, students’ performance etc.

There is a need for states to envision the change they want in simple terms and to communicate it to teachers, educational administrators and all othrs involved with school education. Sharing this vision with parents could help increase the
accountability of the system to work towards achieving this change. Monitoring of identified outcomes at all levels and across time periods would be necessary.

(ii)Focus on disadvantaged and educationally backward areas and social groups that are lagging behind. This focus should include higher resource allocations, capacity building for preparation and implementation of strategies based on identified needs, more intensive monitoring and supervision and tracking of progress. The ways of working in these identified pockets and with disadvantaged social groups would need to be different from the usual pattern under SSA. The focus on the most vulnerable groups of children who are still out of school would require partnership with NGOs and a commitment to a rightsbased, equity oriented approach. Equity needs to permeate each process under SSA beginning with planning. Equity issues need to become a central theme in the discussion and vision for quality improvement.

The role of SSA:
The very nature of a Mission is to complete a task in a time-bound manner. SSA has succeeded in helping the states in largely achieving the task of basic provision of infrastructure and in creating systems and processes for improved educational attainments. As SSA adopts quality and equity as two main thrust areas, the process improvements brought about as a part of SSA need to be mainstreamed into the Education Departments of the states so that the lessons gained in SSA are sustained.

Better integration of State level SSA with the Directorates of elementary / school education should be achieved on a priority basis. Different models will need to be tried in different States and UTs based on existing structures. At the district level parallel structures should be completely disallowed and SSA should aim at strengthening of the mainstream department structures.

A clearly articulated goal of 2nd phase of SSA should be to influence the education system and target key reforms that would help sustain and institutionalize the gains from SSA. Unless there is a strong effort to address the systemic issues of regular functioning of schools, teacher attendance, school supervision, accountability of educational administrators, delegation of powers to VEC/PRIs, teacher transfer & promotion policies and effective decentralization of school management, the gains of SSA will be difficult to sustain.

It is important that the mechanism of annual work plan appraisal and sanction of budgets is used for identifying and incorporating some conditions to which release of funds under SSA gets linked. These conditions / some incentives could be based on the identified outcomes for selected indicators. One of these could be PTR / single teacher schools for assessing the progress of teacher rationalization. Similarly, States and UTs could be encouraged through such conditions to introduce mechanisms for assessment of teacher competence and
performance and accountability to the local school level committee or the panchayat.

Other Important Recommendations Relating to Programme Duration, Funding Pattern and State Budgets:

1. SSA needs at least another five years to complete the unfinished agenda with a slightly altered focus. Therefore the duration of the programme should be extended to the end of the 11th Five Year Plan viz. 2011-12. This also necessary to ensure that some of the good practices under SSA take root and can be sustained through the mainstream education system after the close of the programme. On account of the recommendation for a somewhat modified focus and priortization of SSA interventions during the 11th Plan, it would be appropriate to refer to the balance 5 year period of the programme as 2nd phase of SSA. This would also imply significant changes in the definition of eligible
activities and financial norms.

2.The recommendation of the Ministry of HRD and the Mid-Term Appraisal Report of the Planning Commission for continuing the 75:25 fund sharing pattern between the Centre and States for the 11th Plan period needs to be accepted. With the allocations for SSA increasing significantly during the last two years of the 10th Plan period and projected to increase further in the 11th Plan, the States and UTs will not be in a position to share 50% of the total SSA allocations. The fact that States and UTs are now contributing their 25% State share regularly indicates their commitment to SSA and UEE. Any change in the funding pattern at this stage is likely to result in undermining the likely future achievements under SSA. It is important that States and UTs receive early confirmation about continuation of the 75:25 fund sharing pattern.

3.Expenditures on elementary education in some States are stagnating. In the interest of sustainability, it is important that States’ allocations for elementary education should continue to increase. The SSA programme should in consultation with the States and UTs modify the condition for funding of SSA to require ‘an increase in real term expenditure on elementary education over 2005-06 level’ instead of the present requirement of maintaining the expenditure in nominal terms only.

4.At present, the public spending on education is about 3.7% of the Gross
Domestic Product (GDP). There is a national commitment to enhance the
expenditure in education upto 6% of the GDP in a phased manner. This needs to reflect the requirements of the elementary education sector in ample measure.