TREADING THE UNCHARTED COUNTRY REPORT ON INNOVATIVE AND NON-TRADITIONAL APPROACHES IN EDUCATION SECOND MINISTERIAL MEETING, BALI SEPTEMBER, 1995.

 A FORMIDABLE BEACHHEAD

Building upon accumulated national experience in pursuit of UEE as well as experience gained from state-specific and area-specific projects, a nation-wide plan , the District Primary Education Programme(DPEP), was launched in 1993, in the area of elementary education. The DPEP seeks to operationalise the strategy of de- centralised planning identified by the POA, 1992 to be the main strategy for achieving UEE.

Central to the design of the DPEP is the concept that in a vast country such as India, with 25 States and 7 Union Territories and 50 languages of instruction, education has to be contextual. The contextually varies widely across the country. Even in States like Kerala, where participation is near-universal, much requires to be done in respect of quality and achievement. In such States, the pursuit of UEE would be mainly in the areas of quality, facilities and achievement. In other States, participation and demand aspects need more attention. For instance, between 1997 and 2003, the number of children in Kerala in the 7-12 age group will decline from 3.8 million to 3.5 million. In Uttar Pradesh, the number will increase from 28.1 million to 32.1 million. Kerala should be able to invest a fixed share of budgetary resources but still improve the quality of primary education and expand secondary education. Uttar Pradesh will have to increase the share of primary education in the state budget just to keep pace with population growth.

Contextuality entails local area-planning with disaggregated targets and decentralised planning and management. Planning for UEE had hitherto been mainly at the national and state level. Barring some States and Union Territories, these entities are too large and heterogeneous for effective planning; they cannot provide contextuality. Ideally the planning should be from below, right from the village upwards, but given the objective conditions, a beginning has been made with the district as the unit of planning.

The district plans are to be prepared through an intensive process of interaction with the local bodies, teachers and NGOs so that they are "owned" by all who are to be associated in their implementation and thus reflecting the ground-level realities.

The DPEP has primarily drawn its lessons from and builds on the achievements of first generation projects such as the Andhra Pradesh Primary Education Project, Bihar Education Project, Lok Jumbish, Mahila Samakhya and the UP Basic Education project.

The project provides a well-defined process under which districts draw up plans on the basis of DPEP guidelines, informed by baseline studies, and with some support from state and national level insti- tutions. It is recognised that this is an iterative process, with a clear objective to improve the quality

DISTRICT PRIMARY EDUCATION PROGRAMME

of plans over the project period. There is provision for the assessment of alternatives as part of the planning process.

A gender perspective has been incorporated in all aspects of planning and implementation, and is an integral part of the programme. Programme goals include a specific focus on reduction of gender disparities in education, as reflected in lower enrolment, retention and achievement of girls, particularly those from socially and economically disadvantaged groups.

Apart from specific strategies designed to enhance girls' access, enrolment and retention in the school system, the programme recognises the crucial importance of enabling communities, particularly women, to play an active role in every aspect of the programme through:

* Formation of village-level women's collective and training of local women activists to catalyse collective actions around education issues.

* Empowerment of local bodies such as Village Education Committees, Mother-Teacher Associations and women's groups, to enable them to take the responsibility for promoting education in their areas.

* Intensive capacity building for community and women's groups, to focus on issues of education for girls.

* Involvement of community and women's organisations in mobilisation and school management, and in monitoring enrolment, retention, levels of

* achievement and classroom transactions, with emphasis on girls.

* Mobilising informed and active participation at the local level to build and sustain an environment supportive to girls' education.

The DPEP far from being an enclave project is a major and multi- faceted programme seeking to overhaul the primary education system in the country. In fact, it is envisaged that DPEP will be transformed to a National Mission for Elementary Education, thus meeting a major commitment of Programme of Action (POA), 1992.

DPEP is a homegrown idea in keeping with Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) guidelines, and its distinctiveness lies in that in spite of diversity of sources of funding, it is a national programme intending to achieve Universalisation of Elementary Educa- tion in a contextual manner. Furthermore, many functions performed by funding agencies in the past like supervision and appraisal missions, have been vested with DPEP at the national level.

The annual workplans are appraised by the national level technical support group. The supervision missions are jointly conducted by the Government of India and the contributing external agencies. Thus, the traditional functions of appraisal and supervision that have been the preserve of the financing agencies hitherto, are now being conducted by District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) Bureau in partnership with international funding agencies.

Focus Areas of DPEP

PROVIDING ALL children with access to primary education either in the formal system or through the non-formal education (NFE) programme.

REDUCING DIFFERENCES in enrolment, drop-out and learning achievement to less than five per cent between boys and girls as also for disadvantaged social groups.

A REDUCTION in the overall drop-out rate in primary education to less than 10 per cent for all students.

AN INCREASE of at least 25 per cent in average primary learning achievement levels measured against benchmark surveys.

FACILITATING ACCESS for disadvantaged groups such as girls, socio-economically backward communities and the handicapped.

IMPROVING THE quality of education through a process of demand creation for better service.

RECURRENT AND regular upgrading of teacher's skills.

INVOLVEMENT OF all sections of the community in programme planning as distinct from project planning.

STRATEGIES FOR convergence with related services such as health care, early childhood care and education, (ECCE), and other government welfare schemes.

IMPROVEMENT OF infrastructural facilities.

DEVELOPING AN effective decentralised school management.

ACHIEVEMENT OF Minimum Levels of Learning (MLL).

Providing all girls with access to educational opportunities is the primary goal of the DPEP

DPEP is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme with a difference:

* The central share (85 per cent of the out lay) is mobilised from external funding within the parameters laid down by the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE). These parameters lay down, as nonnegotiables, conformity of the projects with national policies and capacity building;

* proposals for financing sub-projects are developed by each participating district and state;

* proposals are appraised by the DPEP Bureau of the na- tional Department of Education against technical, managerial and financial criteria;

* participating states must make DPEP grants fully ad- ditional to normal growth of education budgets;

* funds are made available to states and districts annually on the basis of performance reviews and proposals for the next year-and poorly performing sub-projects can be dropped from the programme and replaced; and

* implementation support and technical assistance are made available to states and districts through contracts with research and development agencies.

DPEP is managed at the national level by a newly created DPEP Bureau. The DPEP Bureau is supported by a full-fledged technical support group to appraise, finance, monitor and supervise state and district action programmes. DPEP will be the mechanism through which all substantial external assistance to primary education will be channeled.

A major task that is being undertaken in the DPEP programme, currently, is capacity building. Decentralisation can work only if self sustaining capacities are built at the district, state and national levels in the planning and implementing bodies as well as in resource institutions. Only then can the rich potential and skills available at these levels be tapped. Capacity building also encourages participation and a feeling of ownership. The exercise is being undertaken in the areas of Planning and Management, Teacher Training and Pedagogy, Monitoring, Evaluation and Research and Institutional Development.

DPEP's professional base is supported by a wide institutional resource network. Taking cognizance of the scarcity of project formulation skills the Programme envisages particular measures for strengthening state level resource institutions and DIETS, networking of these institutions with NCERT and NIEPA on the one hand and with state level social sciences research organisations/IIMs/ university departments on the other. Hitherto, the state level resource institutions were strengthened mainly with reference to teacher train-

Gender Focus of DPEP

MANAGE THE process of bringing about change in the education system.

MAKE THE educational system more sensitive and responsive to the needs of girls and women.

ENABLE WOMEN to demand education for themselves and their daughters.

FLEXIBLE SCHOOL timings to accommodate girls' needs.

FACILITIES FOR residential schools.

GENDER-SENSITIVE curricula and textbooks.

EDUCATIONAL INCENTIVES

RECRUITMENT OF female teachers.

IMPROVED SCHOOL buildings with toilets for girls.

GENDER SENSITISATION for teachers and project managers.

ing. Hereafter, equal emphasis would be laid on administration and management training for educational functionaries, NGOs and members of the VECs, district and sub-district project structure. One of the very first steps in project formulation was to identify key level functionaries in the State Education Departments, SCERT and such organisations attached to Education Departments, other State level organisations, and orient and engage them in training state and dis- trict level functionaries. As far as possible the resource persons are drawn from a network of resource institutions so that they can help develop capabilities and be associated with the Programme on a long-term basis.

The programme has been developed in 42 districts of the States of Assam Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu. The objective is to gradually expand the coverage of the pro- gramme to all districts which satisfy the twin criteria of:

* educationally backward districts with female literacy below the national average, and

* districts where Total

Literacy Campaigns (TLCs) have been successfully leading to enhanced demand for elementary education.

The loftiness of the objective, the nature and intensity of the planning process, the integration of professional inputs, participative planning and management, and the emphasis on capacity building have together rendered DPEP an exciting idea not only in the country but all over the world.

Five districts each in West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh are in the process of developing their district plans and would be ready for programme appraisal shortly. Recently, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and Orissa came under its fold taking the total number of states to 12, and inclusive of the first generation projects, 15 states are now for implementing programmes of elementary education in a project mode.

The loftiness of the objectives, the nature and intensity of the planning process, the integration of professional inputs, participatory planning and management and the emphasis on capacity building have together rendered DPEP an exciting idea not only in the country but all over the world. DPEP has broken new paths in interna- tional. cooperation, in that it belongs to the new genre of developmental cooperation which emphasises sustainability, equity, local ownership and execution and is supportive of national policies on education.