Note: * Relates to Goa only
(Source : Fifth All India Educational Survey (NCERT), 1986.]
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A similar picture is presented at the district level in the study released recently by Raza et al.
Availability of Schools and Teachers 6.2.12 Table 8 shows that, inspite of a rise in the total number of schools and teachers between 1965 and 1986, the number of schools and teachers per 10 thousand persons is declining continuously during this period. A comparison of the growth rates of the population with the growth rates respectively for the total number of primary schools and teachers reveals that population rose sharper than the number of both the schools and teachers per 10 thousand persons. This is a clear indication that the availability of the schools and teachers in population would most probably decline, unless measures on war-footing are adopted to reverse the trend.
TABLE 8
EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT : SOME KEY INDICATORS 1965-86
Popula- Primary Teachers Per 10,000 persons
tion Schools/ (000)
(mn) sections
(000) Schools Teacher
1965 495.0 455 1196 9.23 24
1973 580.7 530 1218 9.13 21
1978 635.3 570 1287 8.97 20
1986 784.1 631 1493 8.05 19
Growth Rates
1965-73 2.02 1.9 0.23
1973-78 1.81 1.5 1.10
1978-86 2.66 1.3 1.87
1965-86 2.21 1.6 1.06
[Source: All India Educational Surveys (NCERT), compiled and cited in Jalaluddin, A.K. et al, 'Basic Education and National Development', UNICEF Report, September, 1990]
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TABLE 9
SCHOOLS BY NO. OF TEACHERS IN POSITION
Reference % of Single-Teacher School % of Two-Teacher School
Year
Rural Urban Rural Urban
1965 40.72 8.37 28.50 11.22
1973 30.76 7.90 27.57 10.84
1978 35.69 5.90 28.24 10.17
1986 31.27 6.29 34.07 11.92
[Source: All India Educational Surveys (NCERT), compiled and cited in Jalaluddin, A.K. et al, 'Basic Education and National Development', UNICEF Report, September, 1990]
6.2.13 Table 9 shows that almost one third of the primary schools in the rural areas continue to be single-teacher schools. Another one third of the rural schools have only two teachers each. Given this situation, the schools lack the essential precondition for introducing child-centred approach to education.
6.2.14 A State-wise study of teacher-pupil ratio in primary schools shows that it has infact increased in most States between 1971-72 and 1987-88 (see Table 10). The All India figure also shows that the teacher-pupil ratio during this peirod increased from 39 to 42. If this trend continues, all expectations of moving towards better quality of elementary education would be belied. Indeed, a high teacher-pupil ratio adversly affects quality of education. This also results in problems of class room discipline for maintenance of which teachers may feel to take recourse to undesirable practices including corporal punishment.
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Table 10
TEACHER-PUPIL RATIO AT PRIMARY AND MIDDLE LEVEL OF EDUCATION
Primary Middle
1971-72 1987-88 1971-72 1987-88
Andhra Pradesh 39 56 30 44
Assam 43 48 24 31
Bihar 38 50 32 31
Gujarat 37 39 36 41
Haryana 39 45 32 37
Himachal Pradesh 27 39 21 18
Jammu & Kashmir 28 30 22 23
Karnataka 39 111 33 21
Kerala 34 33 26 32
Madhya Pradesh 34 45 33 27
Maharashtra 22 39 21 38
Manipur 40 19 17 17
Meghalaya 43 32 39 17
Nagaland 25 24 18 22
Orissa 31 45 21 23
Punjab 38 40 30 18
Rajasthan 31 45 23 29
Sikkim * 14 * 15
Tamil Nadu 34 45 32 46
Tripura 37 30 26 25
Uttar Pradesh 51 45 27 31
West Bengal 35 40 28 41
A & N Islands 20 21 19 21
Arunachal Pradesh 25 29 19 24
Chandigarh 29 27 29 20
Dadra & Nagar Haveli 31 41 25 32
Delhi 32 8 20 23
Goa, Daman & Diu 34 26 28 25
Lakshadweep 25 23 19 24
Mizoram 46 26 23 11
Pondicherry 35 29 31 28
INDIA 39 42 31 33
Note : * Not Applicable
[Source : Basic Educational Data, NIEPA, New Delhi, January, 90]
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Facilities in Primary Schools 6.2.15 As shown by Table 11, the primary schools lack even basic infrastructural facilities necessary for better quality of education.
Table 11
AN OVERVIEW OF FACILITIES IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS SYSTEMS
S.No. Particulars % of schools out of
the total
1. Without buildings 13.5
2. With kuchha buildings 13.8
(Open spaces, tents, kuchha
structures)
3. With one instructional room 37.8
4. With usable playground facilities 34.5
5. With drinking water facilities 46.6
6. With urinals 15.0
7. With separate urinals for girls 4.9
[Source: Fifth All India Educational Survey (NCERT), 1986].
Child Labour 6.2.16 The problem of child labour is inextricably linked to the low participation rate of chiildren in elementary education. There are several estimates regarding the magnitude of this problem, as is shown below :-
a) Census of India, 1981 - 1.36 crores
b) National Sample Survey,
32nd round, 1977-78 - 1.63 crores
c) Planning Commission, 1983 - 1.74 crores
d) operations Research Group - 4.4 crores
Baroda, 1983
According to the 1981 census, 40% of the child workers were girls. Less than 7% of the child workers were found to live in Urban areas.
6.2.17 Table 12 shows the distribution of child workers upto the age of 15 years in different sectors of employment; 83% of the child workers are engaged in activities related to agriculture.
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147
6.2.18 Table 13 presents data on single year age group-wise rate of workforce participation in both rural and urban areas for out of school children. It is seen that a rate of 66% exists for 14 year old rural male children but it never exceeds 10.5% for out of school rural female children. Further, the workforce participation rate rises sharply as the child attains the age of 10 years. This is presumably due to the child becoming useful at this age for certain types, of manual work.
Table 13
AGE SPECIFIC WORKFORCE PARTICIPATION RATE OF THE OUT OF SCHOOL
CHILDREN : 1981
Age (incompleted Rural Urban
Years)
Male Female Male Female
6 0.25 0.09 0.16 0.04
7 0.53 0.20 0.39 0.03
8 1.32 0.48 1.15 0.16
9 2.78 1.04 2.43 0.31
10 9.31 2.56 7.15 0.86
11 22.01 4.84 13.42 1.14
12 37.35 7.47 21.64 2.37
13 50.86 9.34 31.49 2.90
14 66.00 10.49 43.85 3.23
(Source: Census of India, 1981, computed and cited in Aggarwal, Y.P. Education and Human Resource Development, Commonwealth Publishers, New Delhi, Table 9.3, 1988]
6.2.19 A study has shown that, between 1971 and 1981 census, there was a higher increase in the number of female working children in comparison to male working children. This trend can be explained on two grounds: (a) migration of the male children to urban areas in search of jobs, (b) the percentage of female working children rising in the villages to fill up the gaps.
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6. 2 . 20 The above analysis suggests three categories of child workers as follows: (a) Out of school children between the age of 6 and 10 years, most of whom are not working on wages.
(b) out of school children in the 10 to 14 year age group who are in the labour market, and
(c) out of school children in the 10 to 14 year age group who are not in the labour market.
The strategies for UEE would have to view these three categories separately. The children in the 6 to 10 year age group can be brought into the school system with improvement in the quality of education. For the second group of children, the strategy would have to be based on the principle that the children can not be dissociated from their employment. Therefore, a programme to educationalise the work' would have to be devised such that it would promote skill formation, while the content is weaved into the local environment. For the third group of children, the strategy would promote skill formation and also aim at equipping the child with minimum level of knowledge. UEE would demand that a mix of strategies is implemented.
Out of School Children 6.2.21 There are wide inter-state variations in the proportion of children attending school in different States in the age groups 6-11, 11-14, and 6-14 (see Table 14). On the one extreme, we have Kerala with universal coverage. on the other extreme, there are States such as, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar with about only one-third of their children in the 6-14 year age group attending school. The situation in these four States is much worse for the 6-11 year age group. This applies to all four segments of population, i.e. rural male, rural female, urban male and urban female. The position in the urban areas is much better as compared to the rural areas. Here, the male-female disparity is also low. The rural areas suffer not only in comparison to the urban areas but also reflect a pronounced male-female disparity. In Rajasthan, 8 out of 9 rural women are out of school. These disparities are diagrammatically shown in Fig. 1.
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150
151
As one moves from the outer to the inner tracks, the magnitude of the problem and the drag due to low development of education becomes more and more pronounced. The innermost track represents the core of the problem of educational development. In Table 15, data are presented to show the distribution of out of school children in certain selected States. It is seen that almost 55% of the out of school children in the 6 to 11 year age group are in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar. This analysis emphasises the need for area-based model of educational planning.
Table 15
DISTRIBUTION OF OUT OF SCHOOL CHILDREN : 1981
State 6-11 years 11-14 years 6-14 years
Male Female Male Female Male Female
RURAL
Uttar Pradesh* 23.60 21.57 18.37 18.57 22.21 20.61
Bihar* 15.84 15.17 12.73 12.14 15.06 14.20
Maharashtra 5.32 6.23 6.66 7.54 5.70 6.65
West Bengal* 8.74 7.92 8.68 7.69 8.72 7.85
Andhra Pradesh* 8.05 8.41 9.97 8.77 8.60 8.52
Madhya Pradesh* 9.62 10.11 10.09 9.86 9.76 10.03
Tamil Nadu 3.23 3.67 5.97 6.07 4.02 4.44
Karnataka 4.66 5.12 5.86 5.74 5.00 5.32
Rajasthan* 6.62 7.20 6.12 7.11 7.30 7.17
Gujarat 3.73 3.82 3.77 3.87 3.74 3.84
Orissa* 3.82 4.38 5.19 5.25 4.21 4.66
Kerala 0.66 0.54 1.16 0.98 0.80 0.68
other States 6.11 5.86 5.43 6.47 4.98 6.03
INDIA 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00
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State 6-11 years 11-14 years 6-14 years
Male Female Male Female Male Female
URBAN
Uttar Pradesh* 22.69 20.46 19.94 17.24 21.86 19.42
Bihar* 10.32 5.77 5.79 6.28 8.96 5.93
Maharashtra 9.29 9.52 9.16 9.91 9.66 9.33
West Bengal* 9.05 8.28 8.68 8.27 8.94 8.28
Andhra Pradesh* 8.81 8.68 9.00 9.79 9.32 9.04
Madhya Pradesh* 7.22 7.72 6.35 7.39 6.96 7.61
Tamil Nadu 5.77 6.17 10.45 11.09 7.17 7.76
Karnataka 6.87 6.98 7.96 7.86 7.20 7.27
Rajasthan* 6.22 7.21 4.90 6.98 5.82 7.13
Gujarat 6.11 5.91 5.39 5.45 5.89 5.76
Orissa* 2.04 2.23 2.41 2.52 2.15 2.33
Kerala 0.66 0.54 1.29 1.06 0.85 0.71
Other States 4.95 10.53 8.68 6.16 5.22 9.43
INDIA 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00
* denotes educationally backward States.
[Source: Census of India, 1981, computed and cited in Aggarwal, Y.P., 'Towards Education for All Children - Intent and Reality'. J.Educational Planning and Administration, 2 (1 & 2), 1988]
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Curriculum and its Transaction 6.2.22 The prevailing curriculum of elementary education suffers from several lacunae, some of which are enumerated below:
a) Viewing the curriculum mostly in the cognitive domain and, there too, by and large in recalling facts at the time of examinations;
b) Inflexible and unresponsive to the local needs and environment;
c) Devoid of the component of skill formation;
d) Lacking in social and cultural in-puts from the community;
e) Unrelated to the 'world of work' which exercises a strong pull on the life of a large number of children after the age of 10 years;
f) Transaction mostly through lectures in a non- participative mode;
g) Near-absence of activity-based learning; and
h) Discouraging exploration, inquiry, creativity and initiative on the part of the students.
The above deficiencies of the curriculum and its transaction would have to be removed, if UEE is to be made a reality.
Teacher and Administration 6.2.23 The school teacher is at the bottom of a vast bureaucratic machinery where there is hardly any scope for charting a fresh course of action. Burdened with the inspectorate system and suffering from a low social status, the teacher has, more or less, lost the interest in his/her own profession. Since the teacher himself/herself is a product of a poor school system and unfair examinations, he/she suffers from severe limitations, in terms of knowledge, aptitude for learning and understanding of children. These limitations in turn constrain the development of the next generation of teachers. What measures do we undertake to break this vicious cycle? In many attempts to train teachers in new ideas and skills, it is observed that no more than 20-25% of them respond enthusiastically. What can we do to unleash the unexpressed human potential of each of our schools teachers? What preconditions would be necessary for beginning this process and, later to sustain it? If we can answer these questions in meaningful ways, the first step towards UEE would have been taken. We may as well keep in mind that, at the the time of recruitment, the teacher often has to resort to all sorts of unfair and unethical means. He/she has learnt to return this experience in the same coin at the time of examining his/her students. The fate of teachers' postings, transfers and applications for facilities under the service conditions is determined through political and high-level bureaucratic interventions. There is little reflection in the average teacher of either Gijubhai Badheka or Montessori or Gandhi's Village School Master. With this state of affairs, one faces an up-hill task in empowering the school system for the purpose of UEE.
Probing the Policy Framework 6.3.1 There are studies which show that, if the present demographic, investment, enrolment and retention patterns persist, universalisation may continue to be an elusive goal even well into the next century. What can be done to influence these cold projections so that the Constitutional directive is achieved within this century and equity ensured for all children of India?
It is to answer this question that NPE is reviewed below
6.3.2 The NPE has correctly emphasised the following two aspects which are to be part of the 'new thrust' in elementary education (Para 5.5).