UEE (Universalisation of Elementary Education) essentially
means that children from the age group of 6 to 14
(from 1st standard to 8th standard) should be in
school in their appropriate age.
Current status explains the enrollment from 1st
standard to 4th standard (or age group of 6 to 10)
are nearly 97%. The problem is with the higher standards
i.e. between 5th and 8th (age group of 11 to 14),
where the enrollment is 92% -93% and 7% of children
from this age group are not in school yet.
Though it looks like a decent picture, there are
three problems with it.
One
problem is that in the northern states where the
enrollment picked up in the year 2001-2002 and
mostly in the last 3 to 4 years, the attendance
in school is very low (low as 50% to 60%) in the
states like Bihar. However in the southern states,
universal education was nearly achieved towards
the turn of the century. The attendance is also
pretty high. In states like Maharashtra, Karnataka,
Tamil Nadu and Kerala around 88% to 89% of children
attend the school on any given day.
Second problem
is again in the northern states, where large-scale
enrollment is recent but the problem is that,
about 12% to 15% of older children are actually
studying in lower standards (like 1st 2nd 3rd).
These children never went to school, which means
they can never complete eight years of education
(UEE). These students will probably go up to 4th
or 5th standard but not beyond that. There are
a sizeable proportion of children who are not
attending the lower standard, although they are
senior in age.
Third problem
is a biggest setback. So many children attend
the schools; they are learning little but learning
late. This is applicable in the northern as well
as southern states. 100% children studying in
6th or 7th standard can read about 2nd standard
text level.
By 5th only 50% children are learning or 55% children
can read the 2nd standard text.
The southern states are not doing very well in
terms of children learning to read early. If they
do not learn to read early, then the textbooks,
comprehensions, accessing knowledge on their own
is a big hurdle. For example, the knowledge of
Maths subject is very weak. Only about 43 children
can solve a division sum while understanding fractions
is another problem. The quality of learning in
government as well as in private schools, excluding
elite schools is extremely poor.
The ratio of girls and boys enrollment and attendance
are good. An independent study conducted by the
government proves that and we can also see that.
However in private schools, boys are 20% more
than girls giving a 60% - 40% difference.
Dr. Chavan
on India’s target of achieving UEE.
We are reaching the last stage (of UEE) and thus
have problems of different nature. These last mile
problems have to be dealt differently. There are
certain districts or blocks that are neglected,
the muslin minority population of Bihar, West Bengal,
tribal areas of some states, Rajasthan because of
its social backwardness.
The solution of these problems is not just opening
schools. They can be solved in many other ways.
Like the Bihar government has taken extremely positive
steps to bring the Maha-dalits into mainstream education
and development. These kinds of social developments
has to be under taken
I don’t think universalisation is very far;
it won’t take more than 3 to 5 years. And
there is an international millennium goal deadline
of 2015. So, India will reach it’s goal but
serious efforts have to be made.
Dr.
Chavan on the performance of states in last 10
years in regards with UEE.
Bihar started very low. In 4 to 5years Bihar’s
school dropouts were from 14% to 15%.
However in the last 3-4 years the proportion of
dropouts (in Bihar) has fallen by around 12%,
which is huge improvement. They have covered a
lot of grounds; they have opened more schools,
recruited many more teachers. But the quality
of education in Bihar can be improved further.
On the issue of learning, states like Madhya Pradesh,
Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, have being successful
in their special efforts.
There is a very interesting exercise happening
in Tamil Nadu, called activity based learning,
but we don’t see any learning improvement.
In the activity, they have converted the textbooks
into reading cards. It is essentially saying that
a child can learn according to a learning ladder
at his/her own pace rather than allotting them
in standards. The teachers are not allowed to
teach as much as the child is allowed to learn.
Based on the Rishi-valley school method, it is
an interesting exercise but on scale with the
kinds of schools and children the method has not
been successful. We don’t see much change
in the learning levels, it seems that children
who were learning and could learn have benefited
while the children who are lagging behind are
not picking up either.
Dr. Chavan
on the quality of education being affected over
the rush of putting every child in school.
Every child must be in school. However the problem
does not lie in about putting every child in school
but we being a semiliterate country.
All our human resources are of a semiliterate country.
In an educated country, you have many well-informed
people.
In a semiliterate country, teachers even to the
extend of some of our engineers do not know what
they are doing. As the quality of education and
higher education is poor, the product also of it
is also deprived.
We have multiple problems. I think we have to raise
quality of our teachers; apart from the teaching
methods, their knowledge base should be improved.
It
is not about the hurry of putting the children
into schools, they should be in school.
Even though I complain that children are not learning,
it is for them to come to school and learn to
socialize, get to know how to deal with each other.
There is evidence that once a child gone to school
will get their children educated. There is enough
proof that when a child spends 5 or 6 years of
his life in school, even with out learning too
much; It does impact the family environment of
the chills
So the result not of a small value but has large
values. It is a very important achievement.
Dr
Madhav Chavan on Education in Eastern India
They are doing fairly well, although the schools
in Northeast are not educationally advanced. We
see population from the Northeast among the educated
middle classes in cities like Mumbai, Delhi etc.
Assam is not doing too well. But if you look at
smaller states Nagaland , Mizoram, Manipur are
doing quite well. They have a large proportion
of private and government schools.
Within the range of states of India, they are
not above average neither they have highly quality
education. I wouldn’t say that they are
any more backward than the rest of the states
or even more advanced than any other states
In Arunachal Pradesh the problems are quite different,
the population is spread out in the hilly areas.
In this case we have to start looking at different
models and schooling efforts. For example in deserts
of Australia, the houses are miles apart and how
do they provide education. We can use that at
Ladakh, Arunachal Pradesh.
