PRIORITIES AND STRATEGIES FOR
 FOURTH PLAN
 

Approach

2 3. The broad approach to the Fourth Plan has been indicated in the Planning Commission document on the subject and in the detailed guidelines to the States sent by the Ministry of Education with the concurrence of the Planning Commission. Briefly, the main direction of educational development in the Fourth Plan will be to promote social justice, link education effectively with economic development and increase returns from investments made by plugging wastage and improving the quality of education.

Priorities

24. It is impossible to lay down precise priorities between different sectors of education as they are mutually dependent. Technical education rests on the base of general education. The various stages of general education support the upper stages and in turn are dependent upon them for teachers and so on. It is, however, possible and necessary to identify the important tasks in each area. That is proposed to be done in this Section. The relative priorities of these tasks will vary from State to State and, even in the State, from district to district.

(a) In elementary education the most important task is the provision of facilities for universal education. This involves three programmes, the provision of facilities to backward areas and backward sections of the community, including girls, the expansion of facilities at the middle level; and the reduction of wastage and stagnation. The last two problems are closely interlinked as they both arise from the discontinuance of education by children, mostly from economic necessity, and the solution to it lies in organising continuation education of a large scale.

(b) The expansion and improvement of science education and its linking with urgent national needs has to be given priority at all levels.

(c) The postgraduate education and research in all areas have to be specially looked after as high levels of excellence are needed in every field.

(d) In the case of vocational and professional education, its quality has to be emphasised and quantity adjusted to manpower needs. Close links have to be forged with industry.

(e) High priority has to be given to educational research, reform in curricula and well-designed and carefully conducted pilot projects, duly evaluated, so that advances in new directions can be made with efficiency and economy.

(f) While adult education is highly important both for liquidating illiteracy as well as increasing the productive efficiency of the labour force, it would not be possible to launch any large- scale programme. Emphasis has, thererore, been laid on voluntary agencies and community effort and on the organisation of literacy campaigns as part of the national service programme and in close collaboration with plans for improving agricultural or industrial productivity.

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(g) High priority should be given to the identification of talent and encouraging it through a generous system of scholarships. The community must share the increasing burden of educational developmnt through increase in fees.

(h) Adequate training and motivation of teachers is central to educational development.

(i) High priority should be given to the development of Part- time and correspondence courses as a means of lateral and vertical mobility of the labour force as well as of social justice so that those who were forced to enter life early due to poverty are able to go up later through their own effort.

Strategy

25. The magnitude and the complexity of the task involved in the proposals put forward in this report require, above all, the maximum possible involvement of the people and the mobilisation of local and private effort through appropriate organisational. and administrative measures. Further resources will have to be conserved by maximum utilisation of existing facilities and plugging wastage and stagnation. The planning, implementing and evaluating machinery will have to be streamlined. Fringe activities (in Plan and non-Plan sectors) will have to be wound up. It will have to be ensured that every new scheme is taken up after the most careful consideration and adequate preparation through a stage of pilot projects. Top priority will have to be given to such activities which do not require much finances and have a high multiplier effect. These will need organising skills, technical competence and greater human effort. All efforts in the Fourth Plan will have to be concentrated on essential and priority schemes. Educational technologies, which promote expansion and development in education with minimum investment without lowering standards, will have to be used in an increasing measure. Educational programmes will need to be dovetailed with various social and economic objectives. This will, among other things, require effective coordination with other departments engaged in similar activities and also the drawing up of a perspective plan on the basis of manpower needs of the economy, social demand, availability or likely availability of financial and human resources.

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