By V P Prabhakar
The government has taken concerted efforts in the form of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan to streamline education to make rural people aware of its value.

It is a well known fact that the power of a country is measured in terms of its literate populace. Literacy begins from home and takes a formal shape in schools that lies in public domain. To shape up the society, schooling and elementary education plays a significant role.

However, India being the second most populous country in the world after China with a majority of population living in villages, it is hard to streamline the education process and make the rural people aware of the importance of education.

Taking on this challenge, the Government of India had launched Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), aimed at using it as the main vehicle to provide elementary education to all children in the age group 6-14.

Under the programme, the government plans to open new schools in places where schooling facilities are inexistent. It also aims at strengthening the existing school infrastructure through provision of additional class rooms, toilets, drinking water, maintenance grant and school improvement grant.

Village education plans, prepared in consultation with Panchayati Raj Institutions, form the basis of district elementary education plans. The schools lacking in required number of teachers are being provided additional teachers under the programme, and capacity of existing teachers is built through extensive training including support for teaching-learning material.

SSA lays special focus on educational needs of girl child, and children of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes; ensures the quality of construction; involvement of the local community in construction; and creating a child friendly school environment.

In the civic amenities front, many states have drawn up innovative designs, effective convergence for clean water and toilets. In 2006-07, approximately five lakh class rooms alongwith 59,000 drinking water facilities and 57,327 toilet blocks have been sanctioned.

Education think-tank National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA) has developed an Educational Development Index (EDI) to track progress of states towards Universal Elementary Education (UEE) for primary and upper primary levels as well as for a composite look at Elementary Education.

The EDI ranking is expected to enable more effective targeting of SSA to the most backward districts. It would also help to encourage the states to improve their performance and have a closer look at both the inputs and the outputs of the parameters that affect elementary education.

The EDI has been developed keeping in mind four broad parameters—access, infrastructure, teacher related indicators and outcomes. The index takes into account 22 variables.

These variables include:

• Access—percentage of habitations not served, availability of schools per 1000 population.
• Infrastructure—average student-classroom ratio, school with student-classroom ratio greater than 60, school without drinking water facilities, schools with separate toilets for boys and girls as required.
• Teachers—percentage of female teachers, pupil-teacher ratio, school with pupil-teacher ratio greater than 60, single-teacher schools-in schools with more than 15 students, percentage of schools with less than three or less teachers, teachers without professional qualification and outcome: gross enrolment ratio overall, scheduled castes: gross enrolment ratio, schedule tribes: gross enrolment ratio, gender parity index enrolment: repetition rate, drop-out rate, ratio of exit class over Class I enrolment-primary stage only, percentage of passed children to total enrolment, percentage of appeared children, passing with 60 per cent and above marks.

Being fifth in the EDI state-wise ranking for 2005-06, Chandigarh has been done a commendable job in providing facilities like infrastructure and teachers at the elementary education level in comparison to the surrounding states (Himachal Pradesh is seventh, Punjab is 14th and Haryana is 23rd)

Kerala has topped the ranking followed by Delhi, Tamil Nadu, and Pondicherry. 

New Effective Initiative
NUEPA has also created a comprehensive database on elementary education known as, District Information System for Education (DISE), covering both primary and upper primary schools of all the districts of the country.

DISE has completely eliminated the time lag in availability of educational statistics which has come down drastically from 1-8 years to less than a year at the national and only a few months at the district and state levels.
 
In order to disseminate information to students, parents and interested community members, School Report Cards for more than 1.04 million primary and upper primary schools has been developed by NUEPA.

These cards provide users concise and accurate information on the vital parameters of student, teacher or school on 26 different variables, in a standard format. The format is easily understandable and allows meaningful comparisons.
—The author is a Chandigarh based Journalist (Source: PIB)