SCHOOL EDUCATION
The main programmes in the field of School Education are :
(i) Universalisation of free compulsory elementary education;
(ii) Reorganisation of the educational system on 10 + 2 + 3 pattern;
(iii) Vocationalisation of higher secondary education;
(iv) Reorganisation and expansion of science teaching at the school level;
(v) Quality improvement programmes in school education;
(vi) Educational technology project; and
(vii) Provision of schooling facilities of transferable Central Government employees.
These programmes aim not only at expanding educational facilities at the base but also raising the standard of school education.
The programmes are carried out, among others, through specialised institutions, set up for the purpose; they are :
(i) The National Council of Educational Research and Training, New Delhi;
(ii) The Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, New Delhi; and
(iii) The Central Board of Secondary Education, New Delhi.
Universal, Free and Compulsory Elementary Education.The table below gives an indication of the progress made so far
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and projects the possibilities for the future. It shows that universalisation at the primary stage (6-11 age-group) is near realisation.
(In lakhs)
1950-51 1975-76 1978-79
Target
Age-group 6-11
Enrolment : Classes I-V 191.55 647.08 782.07
Enrolment as percentage of age-group
population 42.6% 83.9% 96%
Age-group 11-14
Enrolment : Classes VI-VIII 31.20 159.37 215.80
Enrolment as percentage of age-group
population. 12.7% 36.9% 46%
Education in Classes I-V is already free in government schools and in schools run by local bodies in all parts of the country. It is also free in Classes VI-VIII in all States except for boys in Orissa, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. These States also propose to extend free education for boys up to the VIII Class by the end of the Fifth Plan, provided the necessary funds become available to them. All the States except Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura have enacted legislations for compulsory education. As for Union Territories, such legislation is available in Delhi, Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Chandigarh.
Introducing 10 + 2 + 3 Educational Structure.-On the recom- mendation of the Education Commission and in accordance with the National Policy on Education (adopted by Parliament in 1968), the Central Advisory Board of Education adopted an unanimous resolution in its meeting in November 1974 recommending the introduction of the 10 + 2 + 3 pattern of education all over India during the Fifth Plan period. This resolution followed widespread consultation with several educational bodies
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and with other concerned agencies throughout the country and the arrival of a national consensus on this major change. By the end of the year under report this pattern was introduced in 19 States/Union Territories, namely, Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Jammu & Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Sikkim, Tamilnadu, Tripura, West Bengal, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Delhi, Goa, Daman and Diu, Lakshadweep and Pondicherry; ten more States/Union Territories, namely, Bihar, Har- yana, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Nagaland, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Manipur accepted the new pattern and would be implementing it shortly; while the remaining two, namely, Mizoram and Meghalaya, were considering the matter.
Vocationalisation of Higher Secondary Education.- Vocationalisation of education at the +2 stage under the reorganised pattern of school system is an important step for enriching education and making it more meaningful and attuned to the realisation of the national goals. A Centrally sponsored scheme for vocationalisation was accordingly formulated during the year under report. Under it the State Governments would be provided with Central assistance during the Fifth Five-Year Plan period and thereafter the programme would be run on a regular basis as a State scheme. The Centre's role in the scheme is mainly to ensure countrywide acceptance of this new concept and to assist State Governments in establishing the relevance and importance of vocationalisation to our socioeconomic needs. Since the necessary pre-requisite for the meaningful introduction of vocationalisation at the +2 stage is the conduct of district-level field surveys to identify the present and emerging employment opportunities and the levels at which these opportunities exist or might arise, it is proposed to conduct vocational surveys of 150 districts in a phased manner during the current Plan period. Out of the districts so surveyed, 40 districts will be selected for the introduction of vocational courses at an average of 16 courses per district. The Central assistance will cover the cost of equipment, teachers' salary and appointment of district vocational education officers.
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The National Council of Educational Research and Training and the Central Board of Secondary Education worked out the new scheme of studies for the +2 stage. The NCERT which has been functioning as the Technical Wing of the Ministry of Education was equipped organisationally to play a more effective role in the matter. The Vocationalisation of Education Unit of the NCERT was busy during the year with the preparation of syllabi and instructional materials for this programme. The draft paper on vocationalisation prepared by the NCERT was discussed in a National Conference held on June 5-7, 1976. On the basis of the recommendations of the Conference, the final version of the document, entitled, 'Higher Secondary' Education and Its Vocationalisation' was brought out for wider circulation. An Implementation Committee consisting of ten experts was set up which prepared lists of vocations suitable for introduction. A workshop on district vocational surveys organised in November, 1976 prepared a suitable format for successfully conducting the vocational surveys in the country. This format was made available to the concerned agencies.
The Central Board of Secondary Education, Delhi, took decisive steps to implement the suggestions on vocationalisation, along with remodelling the curriculum of the secondary stage of education. Under the new syllabus, 50 per cent of the total time of the vocational stream will be devoted to vocational and practical work at the +2 stage. The Board during the year was also engaged in collaboration with NCERT in the preparation of the syllabi and courses for the +2 stage including the vocational content.
Reorganisation of Science Teaching Programme at the School Stage.-A pilot programme for the reorganisation and expansion of science teaching at the school stage was started during the Fourth Plan and has been continued during the Fifth Plan with Unicef assistance. The programme comprises supply of science kits and training of teachers. The Unicef assistance covers, besides the price of the kit, the transportation cost up to a specified point in a State, and reimbursement of the, cost of training of teachers at three teachers per two primary kits.
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The total number of schools covered with Unicef assistance including those covered in 1976 totals about 35,000 which comprise a fraction of the total number of 5,00,000 primary schools in the country. The pilot phase of the scheme has taken off satisfactorily in almost all the States.
Unicef assistance during the Fifth Plan lays emphasis on the primary school stage and the application of science to the children's living conditions. Support for the middle school stage hitherto provided is being gradually phased out; however, assistance for teachers' training at the middle school stage is being continued in the case of those schools who were already supplied with the kits. States that have yet to complete the pilot phase are given the opportunity to do so and assistance is being continued to them both for primary and middle school stages.
Enrichment of science teaching programmes has already been taken up in the schools directly associated with the Centre, namely, those affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education, Delhi, or run by the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan. Accounts of the programmes followed by them are given later in this chapter.
Quality Improvement Programme.-The Ministry of Education has also been following two more significant schemes of a pilot nature with Unicef assistance; they are : Primary Education Curriculum Renewal, and Development Activities in Community Education and Participation. The objective of the former is to develop innovative curricula and related instructional materials, techniques, etc., which could meet the educational needs of a large number of children who are likely to remain in school for only a few years or who are not reached at all. The curriculum is to be adjusted to the life-style of the child and to the socioeconomic opportunities likely to be available. The objective of the latter project is to develop and test new types of educational activities as feasible means of meeting the minimum educational needs of a large group who are currently partially or totally deprived of any form of education.
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Fifteen States/Union Territories have been selected for parti- cipation in the two experimental projects : (1) Andhra Pradesh, (2) Bihar, (3) Delhi, (4) Uttar Pradesh, (5) Himachal Pradesh, (6) Rajasthan, (7) Gujarat, (8) Madhya Pradesh, (9) Assam, (10) Mizoram, (11) Orissa, (12) Karnataka, (13) Kerala, (14) Maharashtra and (15) Tamilnadu.
To make these two Unicef-assisted schemes more effective, a new cell, named the Primary Curriculum Development Cell, has been set up in the NCERT, with a Steering Committee to guide and advise the Cell and the concerned departments of the NIE and to monitor the projects concerning the NCERT.
Besides, another project, namely, Children's Media Laboratory, concerning mainly the Central agencies is being followed. Its objective is to develop or discover inexpensive, effective nonformal media of educational and entertainment value for children of, 4 to 8 years of age to impart them information, skills and attitudes that would enhance their life opportunities. Preliminary work was undertaken by the Centre for Educational Technology of the NCERT, and Unicef in this behalf.
As indicated in the Report for 1975-76, the work relating to the preparation of new curriculum for the 10-year school under the new pattern of education was taken up. The first phase of the change over was completed during the period that consisted of preparing the curriculum, holding a national conference to arrive at a consensus, issuing the final curriculum, answering queries from the State education authorities and others and keeping track of the developments in the States and the Council concerning syllabi and textbooks. The Department of School Education of the NCERT is now engaged in the major work relating to the implementation of the new curriculum in the State as well as the Central sector.
Teacher Preparation for the New School System.-The NCERT organised a massive training programme for teachers to prepare them for implementing the new curriculum for the first ten years of school education. 8 states, namely, (1) Haryana,
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(2) Rajasthan, (3) Maharashtra, (4) Andhra Pradesh, (5) Tamilnadu, (6) Kerala, (7) Delhi and (8) Assam were assisted in conducting this teacher training programme on a sharing basis at a total cost of Rs. 15,28,875 involving 19,690 teachers. The NCERT also undertook an orientation programme for secondary school teachers and elementary teacher-educators to help implement the 10+2 curriculum in the country. A Correspondence Education Cell was set up in the NCERT to guide the summer school-cum-correspondence courses run by its four regional colleges, each of which is expected to train about 12,000 teachers in its respective region. Besides, correspondence-cum- contact courses for school teachers and teacher-educators of elementary teacher training institutions were developed. The programmes for school teachers aim at upgrading and enriching content, methodology and evaluation techniques with reference to the contents of the new curriculum, while the programme for teacher-educators aims at filling up gaps in the essential knowledge that they might not have acquired in their B.Ed. programmes. The duration of each course is six months for correspondence lessons followed by two weeks of contact.
Educational Technology Programme.-Faced with the problem of huge expansion and the need for improvement of the quality of education, the Government of India launched an educational technology project in 1972-73. This project broadly envisages the stimulation and promotion of an integrated use of mass media and instructional technology at all levels of education. The objective is to bring about qualitative improvement, accelerate the rate of expansion and make instruction more interesting. Implemented with the collaboration of UNDP, the programme involves the setting up and administration of a centre for the development of educational technology under the NCERT and
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educational technology cells in the State Departments of Education and an educational technology unit in the Ministry of Education.
Set up in 1972-73 as a separate institution of the NCERT, it undertook during the year quite a few important programmes as indicated in the paragraphs that follow :
Feasibility Studies of Alternative Learning Systems for Edu- cation.--One feasibility study was entrusted to Social Work and Research Centre, Tilonia, Rajasthan. Phase I of the project was completed. The report of another feasibility study entrusted to IIT, Kanpur, was also completed.
Multi-Media Package.-The Centre developed a multi-media package consisting of television programmes, radio programmes, activity guides, enrichment materials and tutorials for in-service training of primary teachers in science teaching. It prepared suitable handbooks for teacher monitors as well as booklets of detailed and non-detailed activities. The package was used to train 47,000 teachers during the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment.
An evaluation of the in-service teacher training programmes organised in October, 1975 and July, 1976 during SITE was conducted. Another study to evaluate the impact of SITE on primary school children was carried out in collaboration with; Indian Space Research Organisation.
Data Bank and Software Bank.--A survey of equipment available with educational institutions in the country for the production or use of audio-visual aid materials was sponsored. Nursery rhymes, collected in four languages by the Indian Council for Child Welfare on behalf of the Centre were set to music and recorded on tapes. The rhymes were translated into Devanagari and English.
Radio.-A case study on the utilisation of school broadcasts programmes in Jaipur was completed. A similar case study is
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proposed to be conducted in Jalgaon (Maharashtra) shortly. Work is in progress to locate potential areas where monitoring panels should be set up to monitor children's programmes broadcast from AIR.
Directory of Personnel Working in the Field of Educational Technology.-The directory, information for which is under collection, is expected to be published shortly.
Open School.-A sub-committee was set up to explore the possibility of starting an open school pilot project in Delhi. The sub-committee has recommended that an Open School would be highly suitable and desirable to meet the educational needs of the age-group 14 plus.
National Seminar on Educational Technology.--A seminar on educational technology was held in Mysore in June 1976. On the conclusion of the seminar, the Director, NCERT, appointed a committee to prepare a note on the farmework for the development of educational technology in India which has since been prepared.
Educational Technology Cells.-Set up in 11 States, namely, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Bihar, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Gujarat, Tamilnadu and Uttar Pradesh, these cells are expected to foster and promote the development of the programme at the State level. The entire expenditure on the setting up and maintenance of the State cells is being met by the Government of India up to the end of the Fifth Plan or for 5 years whichever is earlier.
SITE Programme.-The Satellite Instructional Television Experiment was launched in the country in August, 1975 for a period of one year. Under this experiment it was possible to telecast programmes to 2,400 villages in six States, namely, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Rajasthan. The in-service teachers' training programme which was organised in 1975 was repeated in June, 1976 to train 23,000 teachers for teaching science.
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Evaluation of Television Programmes.-To facilitate understanding of the impact of television on education, the Ministry of Education undertook evaluation studies of television programmes broadcast to primary schools under the SITE. These studies are a collaborative effort between the several agencies involved in the planning, production and utilisation of the educational programmes and, therefore, are being carried out by the ET Cells in States and the Upgraha Doordarshan Kendras in Cuttack, Delhi and Hyderabad. The studies are programme-oriented and seek to obtain the reactions to select programmes at two levels, of teachers and pupils, both comprising the new television audience. The studies are designed to provide valuable insights into the educational television process which would help to bring about improvement in the quality of television programming and production and in making it relevant to social and educational needs.
The field work for the study in Orissa and Karnataka was completed and analysis of data was taken in hand. The preparatory work for studies in Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh was also completed.
The studies in the four States would yield data in respect of about 4 different programmes, involving 800 teachers and over 5,000 children, thus providing a firm and realistic base for the framing of future television policy.