INTRODUCTION
ARTICLE 45 of the Constitution has enshrined free and compulsory education for all children up to the age of 14. While the Constitution was enacted in 195 and the goal was to be achieved within 10 years of the enactment after the Constitution came into force, the problem remains the same. Not that there have been no efforts on the part of the authorities. In fact, the efforts in this direction have been tremendous, by expanding the educational facilities particularly in rural areas under the Five Year Plans to attract more children to the school and retaining them, appointing competent teachers in the schools, improved techniques of inspection and supervision, etc. However, the ghost of the problem remains in the same proportion as it was when
STATEMENT 1.1
Educational facilities and enrolment at different school stages in
various plan-periods
Year Primary Education Middle Education Secondary Education
No of schools Enrolment No. of schools Enrolment No. of schools Enrolment
1946-47 134966 9647317 8294 1129955 3659 1571397
(At the time of
Independence)
1951-52
(Beginning of
First 184123 16288960 12124 1880726 7538 2968043
Five Year Plan)
19.56-57
(Beginning of
Second 287298 23922567 24486 4392223 11805 5186941
Five Year Plan)
1961-62
(Beginning of
Third 351530 29474377 55915 12136018 19306 8429721
Five Year Plan)
1965-66
(Second All-
India 387316 48834588 77260 10244621 26883 5210264
Educational Survey)
1973-74
(Third All-
India 455729 61255250 90681 13949955 42621 7714095
Educational Survey)
Source : For the Years 1946-47, 1951-52,1956-57 and 1961-62, Ministry
of Education and Social Welfare. For 1965-66 and 1973-74, Second and
Third All-India Educational Survey, NCERT.
Note Enrolment figures for 1965-66 and 1973-74 cover the enrolment for
education in each stage even if the classes are in schools of higher
stages. For example, if a middle school has classes I-VII/VIII then
enrolment of classes I-V are covered under primary stage and enrolment
of classes VI-VII/VIII in middle stage so also in respect of high
schools/higher secondary schools with classes I-X/XI.
2 FOURTH ALL-INDIA EDUCATIONAL SURVEY
the Constitution was enacted. The Statement 1.1 provides a glimpse of the educational facilities and enrolment at different school stages in various plan periods since Independence, which clearly indicates the magnitude of efforts made in this direction.
1.1 Educational surveys The first efforts were made to collect information about the available educational facilities and enrolment at the school stage in an organised and systematic way through the First All-India Educational Survey in 1957. This was the first venture of its kind which attempted to collect information about all the hamlets and villages in the country with and without educational facilities in all the States and Union Territories of the Indian Republic. Still parts of the country remained uncovered by this survey due to various reasons. While no efforts were made in this survey to cover A & N Islands, L M & A Islands, the erstwhile North East Frontier Agency and the Naga Hills due to their topographical locations and the difficult approaches to these areas as also those areas under colonial rule, and parts of Kangra district in the erstwhile Punjab could not be covered as they were inaccessible due to snow. But West Bengal did not participate in this survey on the plea that it had recently conducted a survey. But the type of survey organised by this State as also the information collected were not on the lines of this survey. Thus, the First Survey could never claim that it covered the entire country.
The Second All-India Educational Survey was organised in 1965 with a view, to revise and update the data of the First Survey. In content and coverage this was more comprehensive than the First Survey and covered all the States and Union Territories of India although the Union Territory Administrations of Andaman & Nicobar Islands, North East Frontier Agency and Naga Hills did not depute anybody for this purpose. Hence the responsibility of conducting the survey in these areas lay entirely with the staff of the Educational Survey Unit in the NCERT. As the staff of this unit was busy, providing technical and academic guidance to other States who were themselves conducting the survey, they could not undertake the survey in these three areas simultaneously until the work in the other areas was completed. However, later they undertook the survey right from collection of data through preparation of tables at various levels. But these could not be included in the body of the main report which was published and hence they were mimeographed and circulated.
The Advisory Committee for the Second All-India Educational Survey had recommended that these All India Educational Surveys should be so organised, that their results should be available to educational planners and administrators well in time to formulate the next Five Year Plan and fix up priorities and targets. According to this Third All-India Educational Survey should have been organised in middle 1972 so that its data were available for formulating the Fifth Five Year Plan. However, this could be initiated only in late 1973 due to administrative reasons. As the First and Second All India Educational Surveys were confined only to school areas their objectives were limited and consequently only one agency was responsible for organising each of these surveys. The first was organised by the Ministry of Education and Social Welfare and the second by the NCERT. The Third All-India Educational Survey has been, by far, the most comprehensive of its kind which covered all areas of education from pre-primary through university education, technical and vocational education, educational inspection and supervision and cultural education. Being the most comprehensive survey of its kind the organisation of the survey in different areas was the responsibility of different agencies commensurate with the expertise available. Thus the Third All-India Educational Survey was the responsibility of five different agencies which were as follows :
(i) Higher Education-University Grants Commission (ii) School Education and Allied Areas-National Council of Educational Research and Training
(iii) Technical and Vocational Education-institute of Applied Manpower Research
(iv) Educational Inspection and Supervision National Staff College for Educational Planners and Administrators (v) Cultural Education-Cultural Division in the Ministry of Education and Social Welfare.
The survey in the area of school education covered all stages of education from pre-primary through secondary and higher secondary, both recognised and unrecognised from primary onwards, elementary and heads of institutions, pre-primary, elementary and secondary teacher training institutions, hostel facilities for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, education outside school, other schools such as Sanskrit Pathashalas, Madrasahs, etc. For the first time, part of the data of the Third Survey was computerised. In addition, NCERT was also to co-ordinate the work of different agencies. Of course, in this survey all the States and Union Territories were covered simul- taneously.
INTRODUCTION 3
Looking into the gap between the First and the Second Surveys and the Second and the Third Surveys which were 8 years apiece the Fourth All-India Educational Survey is around 4 1/2 years from the date of commencement of the Third Survey. Thus, the Fourth All-India Educational Survey was started in the middle of 1978 to update the data of the Third Survey since lot of developments had taken place in the intermediary period. Of course, this is confined only to school stage and that too for recognised ones. However, as the Sixth Five Year Plan aims towards fulfilment of Universalisation of Elementary Education in the next 5 to 7 years, this survey has also attempted to cover information about those children of the school-going age but are not going to the school and are attending non-formal education centres. Further, there are several items covered in this survey with a view to assess this programme.
An additional feature of this survey is the introduction of quarterly monitoring system at the block level through Attendance Enrolment Cards. According to this system every school is expected to provide the enrolment and average monthly attendance for each of the classes available in the school at an interval of 3 months to the Block Education Officer who in turn will provide a consolidated statement of the same regarding his block which would be transferred on magnetic tapes centrally in the National Informatics Centre, a constitutent of the Ministry of Electronics, Government of India.
1.2 Preparation of schedules The Survey Unit in the NCERT drafted the Village and the School information Forms while the quarterly monitoring cards at the school and block levels were drafted by the National Informatics Centre who are responsible for processing the same. These drafts were discussed and finalised in the meeting convened by the Ministry of Education and Social Welfare which included representatives from the Ministry of Education and Social Welfare, Planning Commission, National Infor- matics Centre and the NCERT. After this meeting NCERT prepared detailed instructions regarding filling of information forms, organisation of the survey, scrutiny procedures of various tables at the block level, and preparation of reports at district and State levels. In addition, the Statewise percentage of growth in population as also the readyreckoners for calculating the percentage of enrolment over attendance were also got prepared.
1.3 Establishment of State Survey Units in the States The Ministry of Education and Social Welfare, Government of India, addressed letters to all States and Union Territories in early November 1977 about the proposed Fourth All-India Educational Survey so that they could be mentally prepared. This was followed by another letter during the last week of April 1978 asking the State Governments to set up the State Survey Units by I May 1978. The staff provided for the survey in each State consisted of a State Survey Officer of the rank of Deputy Director of Education/Public Instruction, Assistant State Survey Officers at one for every ten revenue districts or part thereof, two Statistical Assistants, one Steno-Typist and a Typist- cum-Clerk at the State level. At the district level there was one District Survey Officer for every revenue district. All this staff was on a full-time basis. At the block level, there was no separate officer for the survey and the existing Block/Tahsil Education Officer was responsible for doing the job of the survey. However, the States had been requested to provide the services of a mathematics graduate teacher to each Block Education Officer for tabulating the data at the block level.
1.4 Training programmes for the State level officers NCERT organised two training programmes for the State level Survey Officers who were directly responsible for conducting the Fourth Survey. The first training programme organised between 16-18 May 1978 in Delhi was attended by 22 representatives from 21 States and Union Territories. In this training the procedure of organising the survey in the States, the various schedules to be canvassed in the survey and the scrutiny procedures of these schedules were discussed. In the second meeting, organised between 26 June and 4 July 1978 at Bangalore, the various tables at the block and district levels to be developed from the data of the Village and School Information Forms were discussed. This meeting was attended by 35 representatives from all the States and Union Territories except Lakshadweep for which NCERT had taken the responsibility to collect the data and analyse the same. In both the meetings representatives from Planning Commission and National Informatics Centre were present. Senior officers from the Ministry of Education and Social Welfare were also present in both the meetings for sometime.
It was the responsibility of the States to get the forms printed in the language(s) according to the needs of the State so that the village officers (Patwaris) and heads of institutions could understand and fill the form. It was the responsibility of the NCERT to get the forms for tables at block and district levels printed and supply them in sufficient quantity to the States to
4 FOURTH ALL-INDIA EDUCATIONAL SURVEY
enable them to prepare three sets of block tables and two sets of district tables. In addition to these, NCERT also provided three sets of forms to each State for compiling the State Tables. Apart from this, NCERT prepared manual giving the guidelines for survey officers, got it printed, and supplied one copy to each officer involved in the survey work upto the block level.
The printed forms for tables were to be supplied to the States well in time to enable them to complete the job early but due to circumstances beyond their control, the offset printing presses took more time for printing as a result of which there was some delay in despatch of these tables to the States. Also, even in the States there were delays in printing of the forms in regional languages and appointment of staff in some States for the survey work.
1.5 Training courses in States After the second meeting of the State Survey Officers the States were required to organise similar training programmes for the District Survey Officers. They in turn, had to train the Block Education Officers who were to canvass the schedules, collect, scrutinise them and tabulate the same at the block level. The District Survey Officers were to be in position by middle of August 1978. However, in many States there was a delay in making appointments. In one particular State the posts of District Survey Officers were created as late as on 1 December 1978 and most of these officers reported for duty only around the fourth week of December 1978.
The present efforts is the joint endeavour of the State Survey Units, the State Governments of all States and Union Territories and the NCERT. Of course, all through the Ministry of Education and Social Welfare had been extending its full support. In addition, several officers at the district and block levels, heads of insti- tutions of all recognised schools as well as Village Patwaris co- operated in various ways in successful completion of the survey.