ELEMENTARY EDUCATION AND
UNIVERSALISATION
 

Shri Chitta Basu, MP, General Secretary, All India Forward Block, 28, Gurudwara Rakabganj Road, New Delhi (15.10.90)

- The real challenge of education, in the present context, is to remove illiteracy from the country and to strengthen the base of elementary education for it.

- Non-formal education should act only as complementary to the system of formal education. In the sphere of adult education there is really scope for non-formal education. Non-formal or distance education is not a substitute or an alternative to formal education. There is no alternative to school.

Prof. S. Guha Ray, Population Studies Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, 203 Barrackpore Trunk Road, Calcutta

- The paper does not discuss in any detail the modalities to deal with high drop-out rates (as high as 52% in classes I to VI and 72% in classes I to VIII in 1981-82), which neutralise the gains in gross enrolment ratio (from 42.6% during in 1950-51 to 95.6% 198687) at the primary level. It does not also elucidate any method for combating social evils like child marriage and the acute rural poverty which cause the low attendance at school and the high dropout rates.

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Dr. K. Bakta Vatsal Rao, 2-2-1144/1/B, PO Lane, new Nallankunta, Hyderabad (6.10.90)

- Elementary education should be given top priority. Target of universalisation should be reached by 1995.

Dr. S.N. Sharma, Sharda Sadan, C-11/18, Model Town Delhi: 110009 (10.10.1990)

- Elementary education including adult education for the age group of 5 to 45 should be selected for concerted effort with a time frame and well-defined targets. This is necessary on account of limited resources.

Shri S.P. Patil, Headmaster, Z.P. Primary School, Pune (30.9.90)

- More emphasis should be given to non-formal education. Non-formal education can play an important role where there is no school.

- Non-formal education should be popularised and provided to out-of-school children and school dropouts.

- To increase attendance of students, education calendar should be adjusted to agricultural operations. School timing should be fixed according to the convenience of local people.

- Keeping in view the convenience of students local habitants should be consulted regarding timings of schools.

Shri Sita Ram Singh, Lecturer, H.N.K. +2 School., Arrah, Bhojpur, (Bihar).

- Free education should be provided upto 8th class.

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Shri Jaganath Verma, 869, Dariyapur, Sultanpur

- Review Committee has suggested compulsory education of 6-14 age group. But basic necessities of life should be provided to all. Then only it will become a reality.

Shri T.B. Gobinda Rao, General Secretary, Bharatiya Shikshana Mandala, Karnataka, 21, 6th Cross Road, Chamarajpet, Bangalore (9.10.1990)

- Effective measures should be taken to prevent drop-out at the primary level. Steps should be taken to link education to the living conditions of the people.

Dr. B. Bhattacharyya, Chairman, Bihar State Board of Homoeopathic Medicine Patna, (11.10.1990)

- More stress be given on Primary Education.

Shri M.R.N. Gaonekar, Headmaster, Smt. Hirabai Talaulikar High School., Sancordem-Goa.

- There should be mobile schools, with all equipments and accessories to teach the drop-outs and the illiterates.

The Principal, Adarsh Inter College, Shambhuganj, Jonpur (6.10.90)

- The education upto class VIII should be made compulsory. The parents who do not send their children above 6 years of age,, to schools should be punished.

Shri G.S. Sharma, President, Karnataka Unaided Schools' Management Association, 9 Vanivilas Road, V.V. Puram, Bangalore (15.10.1990)

- Removing the dichotomy between the formal and non- formal system and non-formalising the formal education with ungraded classes are

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excellent ideas worth trying. But the modalities have to be worked out in great detail and pilot projects should be undertaken in selected schools and from the experience gained the scheme can be improved upon and extended to other schools in a phased manner throughout the country.

- The common schools and neighbourhood schools idea may not succeed unless the quality of education imparted in different categories of schools is more or less uniform.

- Opening of multiple entry points and exist points to allow rural children to enter formal schooling system for further education at their pace and convenience has to be vigorously implemented to make elementary education a success and prevent children from lapsing into illiteracy.

Dr. (Mrs.) R. Muralidharan, Professor and Head of the Department, Department of Educational Psychology, Counselling and Guidance, National Council of Educational Research and Training, Sri Aurobindo Marg, New Delhi-110016 (12th October,, 1990)

- The Committee has said that Early Childhood Education should be linked with primary education. This step should help to develop school readiness in young children. In addition, if the pre-school is located in the primary school, it should help to free the older sibling from child care responsibilities and thus enable more children to attend school. However., care needs to be taken to ensure that play and activity methods are used in the pre-school and that no formal teaching is done.

- It is not clear whether the Committee is suggesting to have the Anganwadi centres in the primary schools or whether there should be

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pre-primary sections in addition to the Anganwadi Centres. In other words, the mode of linkage between ICDS and primary schools is not clear.

- The suggestion to `non-formalise' formal school is most welcome. The steps required in this direction need to be spelt out.

Dr. B.D. Swami, 62/4, Shivpuri, Meerut City-250001 (26th October, 1990)

- Elementary education should be universalised; should be compulsory and free for all; should be more interesting and attractive than is at present. It should be ensured that proper facilities are available in schools.

Shri Harminder Singh Dhanoa, Lecturer, Govt. College of Education, Patiala AND Dr. Sunil Dutt, Lecturer, Sohan Lal DAV College of Education, Ambala City.

- The Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) must be made an integral part of primary education. It provides support service in the universalisation of primary education. In the first instance ECCE should be directed to the most under-priviliged groups like SC/ST/OBC/Physically and mentally handicapped children who are still beyond the reach of formal schooling. Such a programme will motivate under-priviliged children to join regular schooling.

- The Operation Blackboard as suggested in NPE - 1986 should be effectively implemented to provide basic facilities in the primary schools. This will facilitate the retention of students in school.

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Prof. V.N. Wanchoo, Director, Centre for Educational Development, A- 55, Ashok Vihar-II, Delhi-110052 (22nd October, 1990)

- It is not possible to have a common school system in the country as long as capitalistic order prevails.

Prof. Jacob Aikara, Professor and Head, Unit for Research in the sociology of Education, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Deonar, Post Box No. 8313, Bombay 400088. (6th October, 1990)

- The very idea of the common school system is practically irrelevant to the rural areas, because we do not find substantial heterogeneity among the schools within a rural locality. Hence common school system is an urban issue which affects the urban elites people and those rural who can afford sending their children to the urban elite schools. The major controls the government can exercise on school education towards achieving the common school system is through finance and recognition. With the kind of decentralisation and system of examinations envisaged in the document, government recognition may not be of much relevance to the individual schools. Secondly, if the citizens on their own initiative run self-financed schools, financial control by the government as a measure to enforce the common schools system becomes non-existent.

- The preference of parents for particularly medium of instruction is also a hindrance to the implementation of common school system. It is not clear from the Paper how legislation can be enacted to implement common school system without infringing the rights of minorities under article 30 of the Constitution.

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- The proposal to make the schools flexible enough to reach out to children outside the school appears sound. If school education can be made as convenient and suitable to the children as possible without diluting quality and without substantial reduction in the content of education, it is a welcome proposal. But there has to be efficient mechanisms of supervision and inspection in order to ensure the quality of education.

- The Idea of making work experience or socially useful productive work compulsory at the elementary school level and having a core curriculum of vocational component for all students at the secondary level is worth while.

Shri Ashok K. Angurana, Director School Education., J&K State, Jammu (25th October, 1990)

- In so far as inclusion of private schools within the ambit of the Common School System is concerned, it will neither be possible nor feasible due to resource constraint as large number of staff as well as infrastructure created by the private institutions shall have to be taken care of by the government which will require large sums of money. Moreover, if we view dispassionately, some of the private institutions are really the 'Islands of Excellence' in the `Ocean of mediocrity'. There is a lurking danger of diluting the private institutions by amalgameting them into the "Neighbourhood. Schools". We feel that the standard of these Neighbourhood Schools should be raised to that of the better run public schools.

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Director, Pre-University Education and Ex-Officio Secretary to the Board of Pre-University Education, Government of Karnataka, Palace Road, Bangalore-560001 (16th October, 1990)

- The proposals on opening of school system would render education highly ineffective. A course of study has got to be continuous in order to yield practical and desirable results. In the existing pattern of recruitment of teachers, it is highly doubtful If even 10% of the teachers would be capable of managing such a situation.

Dr. R. Bandyopadhyay, Director, Centre for Applied Systems Analysis in Development, D-5/8, Salunke Vihar, Pune-411022 (19.10.90)

- Idea of having 'common school' to correct elitist aberration of education is a good one. We should, however, realistically assess the barriers, objections, and various difficulties that introduction of 'common school system' has to face.

- The success of proposal for ungraded classrooms will depend on teacher-student ratio. With teacher-student ratio more adverse than 1:20, this strategy will not be practicable. It has cost and resource implications. However this is absolutely essential to give a proper shape to the suggested educational reform.

- Flexible course completion (particularly by girls) may be important but it will create certain subtle dichotomy between those who finish courses on regular basis and those who complete courses in a flexible manner.

- In order to make the neighbourhood school ideas operationally feasible, the following steps should be initiated:

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a) Identification of schools in rural., semi-urban, urban and metropolitan (slum/under developed) areas which are below acceptable standards in respect of infrastructure, teaching and other resources.

b) Estimation of the necessary measures (including cost) for improvement of infra-structure (building, equipment, library, laboratory, etc.).

c) Assessment of the requirements for strengthening of teaching faculty both in terms of quality and quantity. Drawing up of a phased action programme to implement improvement programmes.

d) Devising a teacher exchange programme within the cluster of educational institutions and also between a number of clusters geographically closely situated.

- Only when this improvement programme has got underway and public confidence in respect of the standards of the schools are established, the appropriate time for establishing `neighbourhood' school will come. Programme should also be undertaken to inform the public regarding the various steps taken for improvement of the existing schools and the desirablity of having neighbourhood common school system. Media (television and radio) should be optimally used to generate the favourable climate towards introduction of the common-school system at primary and secondary school levels.

- All primary education should be fully state funded.

- Non-formal education should be funded fully by the State.

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Prof. Hira Adyanthaya, Dean, Tilak Maharashtra Vidya-peeth, Vidyapeeth Bhavan, Gultekadi, Pune 411037 (16.10.90)

- Among the more notable recommendations made by the committee is the one in favour of neighbourhood schools. If neighbourhood schools are to be established., the problem of dual system of education one for the poor and another one for the rich will have to sorted out first.

Shri Omkarnath Das, Lecturer (Mech. Engg.), ITT, Chowdwar (8.10.90)

- The capacity and number of schools must be increased to accommodate every child born by 2000.

Dr. Usha Nayar, HOD, Department of Women's Studies, NCERT, New Delhi (23.10.90)

- It is proclaimed that all children should receive education in this decade. It is not explained how this is going to be achieved.

- The document admits that the "educational pyramid has no solid and strong base to stand". There is no categorical statement as to what should be the share of resources allocated to the crucial sector of primary education to make it solid and strong.

- Almost all the rural schools are neighbourhood schools and fall in the category of common schools. It should be possible to implement common school system in urban areas with in a year i.e. from the coming academic session by issuing just an administrative order. One need not wait for 10 years to implement this simple reform.

- There are only 4,75,938 rural primary schools as against 5,78,682 inhabited villages and 9,79,065 habitations. Universalisation of

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primary education, therefore would require much larger allocation for primary education than it is having at present. Well designed school buildings programmes and also the need innovative delivery mechanisms like part- schools/household schools/mohalla schools supported by technical and physical inputs are necessary for universalisation of primary education.

- So far only a fraction of the child population is covered by school education. For making any dent, schemes of free mid-day meal, free text-books, stationery and free uniforms need to be given as a package universally, as Is done in Sri Lanka and even in States like Tamil Nadu.

Dr. C.M. Bhatia, Ex-Vice-Chancellor, University of Allahabad, 8-Vijay Nagar Colony, Agra (19.10.90)

- Primary education must be effectively universalised by 1995. Resources are available if they are distributed equitably.

Shri S.S. Salgonkar, Jt. D.E. (School Education), Directorate of Education, M.S., Pune (10th October, 1990)

- The Government of Maharashtra has recently introduced the scheme of `each one teach one' in secondary schools which itself is a step towards reaching the objective of opening up school. Development of school complexes is also another way of reaching the objective of opening-up school. Maharashtra has already launched the scheme of school complexes. It is, however, necessary to extend its scope and atleast to open one school complexe at the headquarters of every sub-block in a block.

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- Universalisation of early childhood education programme is dependent upon availability of additional resources. One of the alternatives of providing school education, is to reduce the workload of classes. I and II and to utilise the services of the teacher teaching these classes for pre- primary section. This Is perhaps possible in respect of single teacher schools which have been converted into two- teacher schools. The responsibility to provide support services to a school can be entrusted to the Village Panchayat as well as Local Village School Committee.