Lesson 13: Government Education plans, policies and schemes on ECCE
Sarva Siksha Abhiyan
In order to fulfill the goal of universal elementary education, a comprehensive programme called SSA (Sarva Siksha Abhiyan) was launched in November 2000 in partnership with the states. The programme aims to improve the performance of school system through community owned approach and to impart quality elementary education to all children in the age group of 6-14 by 2010.
It seeks to bridge the gender and social disparities at elementary level. It subsumes all existing programmes including externally aided programmes within its overall framework with district as unit of implementation. NPEGEL (National Programme of Education for Girls at Elementary Level) has been launched for education of girls at elementary level under SSA.
SSA was launched in 2001 under the Department of Elementary Education and Literacy, Ministry of HRD, for ensuring free, useful and relevant elementary education to all children between the ages of 6-14.
The main objectives are:
All children to be in school by 2003
All children to complete five years of schooling by 2007
All children to complete eight years of schooling by 2010
Focus on elementary education of satisfactory quality with emphasis on education for life
Bridge all gender and social category gaps at primary stage by 2007 and at elementary age by 2010
Universal retention by 2010
Achievements of SSA:
The number of teachers and number of schools have increased substantially over the years.
Participation of girls at all levels of school education has improved appreciably over the years.
Number of dropouts has steadily reduced since 2002-2003. This came down to 1.35 crore in November 2005 and to 95 lakhs by March 2006 (India Year Book, 2008).
Current Strategies:
The existing challenges are to bring the 6-7% children under the hard-to-reach category into the fold of education, issues pertaining to quality improvement, bridging social gaps and reducing interstate, inter district and inter block disparities.
The goal of universalisation of elementary education includes education for children with special needs.
Quality of education in terms of better educational attainment levels are a thrust area for the next phase of SSA.
Special emphasis should be made on education of girls to launch a frontal attack on gender gap with a focus on inclusion and quality.
SSA seeks to provide elementary education to all children in the age group of 6-14 yrs by 2010.
In the present plan 1, 32,623 primary schools have been sanctioned and it is estimated that more than 96% of habitations now have primary school within 1 km (previously 87%).
Participants