New govt to focus on making education accessible, affordable

Broadening the scope of ongoing education schemes is likely to be the focus of the second UPA government. In this year’s Interim Budget, Rs 41,978.21 crore was earmarked for the education sector.

In his Budget speech, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had said “literacy levels are a measure of a nation’s degree of commitment to social justice” as it ensures “universal elementary education, reducing child mortality, curbing population growth, ensuring gender equality and acquiring essential livelihood skills”. To achieve these benchmark, making education accessible and affordable will hold the key for the next UPA government.

The passing of the Right to Education Bill, which has been held up in the Rajya Sabha, would place the onus of educating children on the state, and would give a fillip to the government’s flagship programmes such as the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA) — primary education for children between 6 and 14 years of age.

The resource allocation that the passage of the Bill would entail help stabilise the pupil-teacher ration (PTR), a key component of education-delivery, said a senior official of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD).

The SSA, which has been hailed for its relative successful implementation, would be further spruced up. Already, over 3,000 “blocks” nationwide have been identified where SSA needs to be strengthened, said the official.

While the southern states have been relatively successful in implementing the scheme, the 3,000-odd blocks that have been identified are based on indicators such as skewed male-female sex ratio and areas where minority communities live, added the official.

In its election manifesto for the 2009 general elections, the Congress had pledged to undertake training programmes for teachers and to improve school facilities. Such a move is already underway in SSA, said an official, adding that the SSA would also focus on best pedagogical practices that teachers have been instructed about to teach tailor-made curriculum. By the way of widening the scope of this scheme, there are plans to focus on students in classes 5-8, and to prepare them to continue with their education.

For this, in January this year, the government sanctioned the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) scheme, which is expected to pick up pace to be considered as a scheme the UPA had initiated.

The RMSA aims to make secondary education accessible to all children by 2020 and achieve a general enrollment ratio of 75 per cent for classes 9-10 in the next five years.

A sum of Rs 20,120 crore has been allocated in the Eleventh Five-Year Plan for this scheme. In this year’s Interim Budget, RMSA has been allocated Rs 1,143.46 crore.