EQUALIZATION OF EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES
18. In spite of the rapid educational expansion achieved during the last twenty years, the existing facilities fall far short of national needs and expectations. Expansion will therefore have to continue and even accelerated at the school stage with a view to equalizing educational opportunity.
Pre-Primary Education 19. Greater attention needs to be paid to the development of pre-primary education. Voluntary organizations conducting pre- primary institutions should receive encouragement and financial assistance, especially when they are working in rural areas, urban slums, or for children of the weaker sections of the community. Every encouragement should be given to experimentation, particularly in devising less costly methods of expansion.
Primary Education 20. The provision of good and effective primary education, on a free and compulsory basis, is the foundation of democracy and national development. It should be given the highest priority and implemented in two stages. In the first stage, universal education should be provided for all children till they reach the age of eleven years ; and in the second, this age-limit should be raised to fourteen years.
21. Primary education should be made immediately free in all parts of the country and facilities for it should be universalized within five years, i.e., a primary school should be available within a walking distance from
7
the home of every child. Intensive efforts should be made to enrol girls. and children from the weaker sections of the community through parental education and incentives. Strenuous efforts should be made to reduce wastage and stagnation and to ensure that every child enrolled in schools passes regularly from class to class and remains in school till he completes the primary course. Success in this will depend upon the extent to which facilities are provided for pre- primary education, the qualitative improvement of primary schools, the adoption of the ungraded system* in classes I and II (and if possible, even in classes I-IV) and the provision of facilities for part-time education for all children who cannot attend schools on a full-time basis.
22. The unfinished task in primary education varies immensely from area to area and is heavier in those which are poorer and more backward. At the State level, special assistance should therefore be made available to, under-developed areas for the expansion and improvement of primary education and the Government of India should make special assistance available to the less advanced States.
The Ten-Year School 23. It will be advantageous to have a broadly uniform educational structure in all parts of the country. The first step is to create the Ten Year School providing a common pattern of general education for all children. The standard to be reached at the end of this stage should be broadly similar to that which is now reached at the secondary school-leaving certificate examination. The division of this stage into sub-stages-lower primary, higher primary and lower secondary-should not be rigid and should allow for variations necessitated by local conditions.
24. There should be a common course of general education for all students at this stage. This will include language(s), science and mathematics, social studies (which at later stages will be studied as separate disciplines of geography, history and civics), work- experience, social or national service, physical and health education and education in moral and social values. There need also be no essential differentiation between the curricula for boys and girls.
25. The national policy should be ultimately to make this period of ten years-(which includes the primary and the lower secondary stages) free and compulsory for all children. This will be achieved in stages, beginning with making lower secondary education tuition- free and providing facilities for it in all areas. A large proportion of students who complete the primary course will proceed further to lower secondary education. But for those who leave school at the end of the primary stage and desire to learn some
*In this system, classes I-II will be treated as one unit and there will be no detention, at the end of the first year.
8
vocational skills, suitable courses of varying durations-from one to three years-should be provided, both on full-time and part-time basis.
Higher Secondary Education 26. The next stage in the educational structure is the higher secondary (or the pre-university). The duration of the academic course at this stage should be uniformly raised to two years in all parts of the country under a phased plan. The curriculum should include two languages, three subjects selected from a prescribed list, work-experience and social service, physical and health education, and education in moral and social values. It is desirable to treat this stage as a part of school education and to entrust its academic control to a single authority in each State on which the universities should have adequate representation. As a transitional measure, the attachment of these classes to colleges may be continued wherever necessary.
27. The duration of the vocational courses at this stage should vary according to their objectives (1-3 years). They should cover a large number -of fields such as agriculture, industry, trade and commerce, medicine and public health, home management, arts and crafts, education, secretarial training, etc. Their organization should be elastic, allowing for full-time, part-time and correspondence courses and a large variety of institutional arrangements. The enrolment in vocational courses should be substantially increased to cover ultimately about half the total enrolment at the higher secondary stage.
28. Education at this stage should be largely terminal so that a majority of students who complete class XII enter different walks of life. From this point of view, the recruitment to the lower administrative services and posts should ultimately be made from amongst those who have completed the higher secondary stage and recruitment of graduates to these posts should be discouraged by prescribing a lower age for appointment. It is desirable to select the personnel even for the superior posts under Government or in the public sector at the end of the higher secondary stage itself and then train them further at State expense.
Higher Education 29. The duration of the courses for the first degree in arts, commerce and Science should be three years after the higher secondary stage. Where this is only two years at present, a phased programme should be prepared for the introduction of the longer course.
30. Immediate and effective steps should be taken to reorganize courses and to revise and upgrade curricula at the university stage. The link between the subjects taken at the school stage and those at the first degree should be less rigid and combinations of subjects permissible for the first and the
9
second degrees should be more elastic than is generally the case at present. Special efforts are also needed to promote inter- disciplinary studies.
31. The universities should define the conditions for eligibility for admission to different courses at the undergraduate stage, ineligible students being allowed to re-appear at the relevant examination to earn eligibility. Similarly, the number of full-time students to be admitted to each college or department of a university should be determined with reference to teachers and facilities available. Adequate resources should however be provided to ensure that all eligible students who desire to study further get admission to higher education; and in order to secure social justice, some allowance should be made for the environmental handicaps of students from rural areas, from urban slums and from the weaker sections of the community. Facilities for study through morning or evening colleges and correspondence courses should be provided on a liberal scale. At the postgraduate stage, the selection for admission should be rigorous.
Part-Time and Own-Time Education 32. Part-time and own-time education should be developed on a larger scale at every stage and in all sectors and given the same status as full-time education. These facilities will smoothen the transition from school to,_ work, reduce the cost of education to the State, and provide opportunities to the large number of persons who desire to educate themselves further but cannot afford to do so on a full-time basis. In particular, greater emphasis has to be laid on the development of correspondence courses, not only for university students, but also for secondary school students, for teachers, for agricultural, industrial and other workers ; and facilities should be available, both to men and women, to study privately and appear at the various examinations conducted by the boards of education and the uni- versities.
Spread of Literacy and Adult Education 33. The liquidation of mass illiteracy is essential, not only for accelerating programmes of production, especially in agriculture, but for quickening the tempo of national development in general. Plans to accelerate the spread of literacy should therefore be prepared and intensively implemented on several fronts. With a view to reducing new additions to the ranks of adult illiterates, part-time literacy classes should be organized for grown-up children (age-group 11-17) who did not attend school or have lapsed into illiteracy. All employees in large commercial, industrial and other concerns should be made functionally literate within a prescribed period of their employment and a lead in this direction should be given by the industrial plants in public sector. Similarly, teachers, students and educational institutions should be actively involved in literacy campaigns, especially as a part of the social or national service programme. The achievement of
10
literacy should be sustained by the provision of attractive reading materials and library services to the new literates.
34. Adult or continuing education should be developed through facilities for part-time or own-time education and through the expansion and improvement of library services, educational broadcasting and television. The development of extension services in universities is of great significance in this context. In particular, the universities should organize special extension programmes to train rural leadership.
Education of Girls 35. In the post-independence period, the enrolment of girls, as well as the number of women teachers, has increased rapidly at all stages of education; and in most areas of study, girls have shown remarkable achievements and proved that they are at least equal to, if not better than, the boys. But in spite of all that has been done, there is still a wide gap in the enrolment of boys and girls at all stages. It is necessary to eliminate this gap at the primary stage, and to narrow it at the other stages. The education of girls should therefore receive special emphasis and the funds required for its advancement should be provided on a priority basis. Suitable measures for speedy implementation should be devised, particularly taking into account the needs of the rural areas. The appointment of women teachers should be encouraged at all stages and especially at the primary stage.
Education of the Weaker Sections of the Community 36. In spite of the increasing attention given, since independence, to the education of the weaker sections of the community, the gap between their level of educational development and the average for the society as a whole still continues to be very wide. It is therefore necessary to expand and extend the existing special educational facilities and concessions to the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes including Nav-Bouddhas converted from the scheduled castes whose social and economic conditions and position continue to remain unchanged. Special efforts in affording financial relief and some preference for admission to good institutions at all levels will be necessary. Care must also be taken to ensure that the educated persons from these classes are suitably employed. Until these weaker sections catch up with the rest of the community, a system of reservation in employment opportunities would be justified.
37. The education of the tribal people also needs more intensive efforts. Here the problems of language and sparsity of population become great handicaps for the spread of education. Special measures, analogous to those specified in the foregoing paragraphs are necessary, emphasis being placed on Ashram schools, the development of carefully trained cadres of
11
workers for tribal areas, ultimately derived from the tribals themselves, and simultaneous development of programmes for their economic improvement.
38. At present, the definition of 'backwardness' is based on birth. It is necessary to change this and-to define backwardness in socioeconomic terms and to extend educational concessions and assistance, similar to those now offered to the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, to all socially and economically handicapped persons.
Education of the Handicapped Children 39. The facilities for the education of the physically and mentally handicapped children should be expanded; and at least one good institution for the education of the blind and deaf children should be established in each. district. Every attempt should be made to develop integrated programmes enabling the handicapped children to study in regular schools. It is necessary to coordinate the activities of different agencies working in the field.