DISTRICT PRIMARY EDUCATION PROGRAMME
A major initiative, entitled District Primary Education Programme, was started in 1993 in the area of elementary education to replicate what the Total Literacy Campaigns (TLCs) have been accomplishing in the field of adult literacy. The DPEP seeks to operationalise the strategy of decentralised planning identified by the POA, 1992 to be the main strategy for achieving UEE.
It builds upon the national experience in the pursuit of UEE as well the experience gained in the implementation of projects like the Mahila Samakhya, a programme of women's empowerment, the Bihar Education Project, the Lok Jumbish and the UP Basic Education project.
Central to DPEP are the following concepts:
(i) UEE is contextual The contextuality 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.
(ii) 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 heterogenous 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 to be 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 it is "owned" by all who are to be associated in implementation and it refelects the ground-level realities.
(iii) Resources are an important but not sufficient condition for achieving UEE. A host of measures both financial and non- financial, both on the supply
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side and on the demand side, need to complement higher allocation of resources.
(iv) The strategies for UEE have hitherto emphasised mainly access in terms of construction of class rooms and appointment of teachers. This has been inadequate and needs to be augmented by:
(a) a holistic planning and management approach which goes beyond implementation of a disjointed set of individual schemes, perceives the task of UEE in its totality, integrates all the measures needed for achieving UEE in the specific context of the district;
(b) this holistic planning should incorporate a gender perspective in all aspects of the planning and implementation process and be an integral part of all measures needed to achieve UEE.
(c) addressing the more difficult aspects of access, particularly access to girls, disadvantaged groups and out of school children;
(d) improving school effectiveness;
(e) strengthening the alternatives to schooling, particularly the nonformal education system;
(f) stressing the participative processes whereby the local community facilitates participation, achievement and school effectiveness;
(g) toning up teacher competence, training and mo- tivation;
(h) stressing learning competence and achivement;
(i) stressing the need for improved teaching/learning materials; and
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(j) overhaul of planning and management in respect of both routine and innovative areas.
(k) Convergence between elementary education and re- lated services such as ECCE and school health.
The programme would be implemented in a mission mode. A National Managment Structure is being set up on the lines of NLMA which would oversee the implementation of the programme through out the country and provide the necessary technical support to states and districts.
Implementation at the State level would be through registered autonomous societies with CMs as ex-officio Presidents of the General Council and Chief Secretary/Education Secretary as the Chairman of the Executive Committee.
NGOs, Teachers, Educationists and Women are represented in these Committees. VECs play a key role in the implementation of the programme at the village level.
The loftiness of the objectives, the nature and intensity of the planning process, the integration of professional inputs, participa- tive 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 international 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 in the education sector.
DPEP is a homegrown idea, in keeping with CABE guidelines, and its distinctiveness lies in that inspite of diversity of sources of funding, it is a national programme intending to achieve UEE in a contextual manner with emphasis on participation and capacity building.
The programme has been developed in 42 districts of the States of Madhya Pradesh, Assam, Haryana, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The objective is to
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gradually expand the coverage of the programme to all districts which satisfy the twin criteria of
(a) educationally backward districts with female literacy below the national average; and
(b) districts where TLCs have been successfully leading to enhanced demand for elementary education.
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.
The District Primary Education Programme has generated interest amongst several multilateral and bilateral funding agencies. The European Community has already committed approximately Rs.585 crores (150 million ECUs) as programme support for DPEP. Negotiations have been completed with the World Bank/IDA for a credit agreement amounting to US $ 260 million for six States.
The ODA of United Kingdom has pledged support for DPEP in Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal. In fact, DPEP appears to be emerging as the main vehicle in the development of elementary education in the country and is likely to develop at the national level as an intermediary technical and resource organisation for primary education development in the country on the lines of the IDBI of HDFC.
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