Write a short note on Sarva Siksha Abhiyan?

WHAT IS SARVA SHIKSHA ABHIYAN?

a A programme with a clear time frame for universal elementary education.

b. A response to the demand for quality basic education all over the country.

c. An opportunity for promoting social justice through basic education.

d. An effort at effectively involving the Panchayati Raj Institutions, School

Management Committees, Village and Urban Slum level Education Committees,

Parents' Teachers' Associations, Mother Teacher Associations, Tribal Autonomous

Councils and other grass root level structures in the management of elementary

schools.

e. An expression of political will for universal elementary education across the

country.

f. A partnership between the Central, State and the local government.

g. An opportunity for States to develop their own vision of elementary education

1.3 AIMS OF SARVA SHIKSHA ABHIYAN

1.3.1 The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan is to provide useful and relevant

elementary education for all children in the 6 to 14 age group by 2010.

There is also another goal to bridge social, regional and gender gaps, with

the active participation of the community in the management of schools.

1.3.2 Useful and relevant education signifies a quest for an education system that is

not alienating and that draws on community solidarity. Its aim is to allow children to

learn about and master their natural environment in a manner that allows the fullest

harnessing of their human potential both spiritually and materially. This quest must

also be a process of value based learning that allows children an opportunity to work

for each other's well being rather than to permit mere selfish pursuits.

1.3.3 Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan realizes the importance of Early Childhood Care and

Education and looks at the 0-14 age as a continuum. All efforts to support pre-school

learning in ICDS centres or special pre-school centres in non ICDS areas will be

made to supplement the efforts being made by the Ministry of Women and Child

Development.

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1.4 MISSION STATEMENT OF SARVA SHIKSHA ABHIYAN

1.4.1 The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Mission strives to secure the right to quality

basic education for all children in the 6-14 years age group. The goals of the

SSA Mission are:

(a) Enrolment of all children in school, Education Guarantee Centre, Alternate

school, ’ Back- to- School’ camp by 2005

(b) Retention of all children till the upper primary stage by 2010

(c) Bridging of gender and social category gaps in enrolment, retention and

learning

(d) Ensuring that there is significant enhancement in the learning achievement

levels of children at the primary and upper primary stage.

1.4.2 Each State and district would set target dates by which the super goals of

SSA would be achieved in their specific context, but not later than 2010.

1.4.3 National Norms would be developed for expected learning outcomes in

certain essential skills. The progress towards enhancement in achievement

levels on these norms would be assessed regularly on a sample basis at

national level. In addition, States would evolve a mechanism for regular

objective assessment of students’ learning levels.

1.4.4 The Mission Promotes:

(a) Empowering of children to be active participants in a knowledge society

(b) A result oriented approach with accountability towards performance and

output at all levels

(c) A people centred mode of implementation of educational interventions with

involvement of all stakeholders, especially teachers, parents, community

and Panchayati Raj Institutions and voluntary organizations.

(d) An equity based approach that focuses on the needs of educationally

backward areas and disadvantaged social groups including children with

special needs.

(e) A holistic effort to ensure convergence of investments and initiatives for

improving the efficiency of the elementary education system.

(f) Institutional reforms and capacity building to ensure a sustained effort for

UEE.

(Ref: Para 1.4 of OM No. F-2-9/2005- EE.3 dated 19/08/2005)

1.5. WHY A FRAMEWORK FOR IMPLEMENTATION (AND NOT A GUIDELINE)

1.5.1 (a) To allow States to formulate context specific guidelines within the overall

framework

(b) To encourage districts in States and UTs to reflect local specificity

(c) To promote local need based planning based on broad National Policy norms

(d) To make planning a realistic exercise by adopting broad national norms.

1.5.2 The objectives are expressed nationally though it is expected that various districts

and States are likely to achieve universalisation in their own respective contexts and in

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their own time frame. 2010 is the outer limit for such achievements. The emphasis is

on mainstreaming out-of-school children through diverse strategies, as far as possible,

and on providing eight years of schooling for all children in 6-14 age group. The thrust is

on bridging of gender and social gaps and a total retention of all children in schools.

Within this framework it is expected that the education system will be made relevant so

that children and parents find the schooling system useful and absorbing, according to

their natural and social environment.

1.6 SARVA SHIKSHA ABHIYAN AS A FRAMEWORK AND AS A PROGRAMME

1.6.1 Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) has two aspects:

(i) It provides a wide convergent framework for implementation of Elementary

Education schemes.

(ii) It is also a programme with budget provision for strengthening vital areas to

achieve universalisation of elementary education.

1.6.2 While all investments in the elementary education sector from the State and the

Central Plans will reflect as part of the SSA framework, they will all merge into the

SSA programme within the next few years. As a programme, it reflects the additional

resource provision for UEE.

1.7 BROAD STRATEGIES CENTRAL TO SSA PROGRAMME

1.7.1 Institutional Reforms - As part of the SSA, the Central and the State governments

will undertake reforms in order to improve efficiency of the delivery system. The

States will have to make an objective assessment of their prevalent education

system including educational administration, achievement levels in schools, financial

issues, decentralisation and community ownership, review of State Education Act,

rationalization of teacher deployment and recruitment of teachers, monitoring and

evaluation, status of education of girls, SC/ST and disadvantaged groups, policy

regarding private schools and ECCE. Many States have already carried out several

changes to improve the delivery system for elementary education.

1.7.2 Sustainable Financing - The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan is based on the premise that

financing of elementary education interventions has to be sustainable. This calls

for a long -term perspective on financial partnership between the Central and the

State governments.

1.7.3 Community Ownership - The programme calls for community ownership of schoolbased

interventions through effective decentralisation. This will be augmented by

involvement of women's groups, VEC members and members of Panchayati Raj

Institutions.

1.7.4 Institutional Capacity Building - The SSA conceives a major capacity building role

for national, State and district level Institutions like NUEPA / NCERT / NCTE / SCERT

/ SIEMAT / DIET. Improvement in quality requires a sustainable support system of

resource persons and institutions.

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1.7.5 Improving Mainstream Educational Administration - It calls for improvement

of mainstream educational administration by institutional development, infusion

of new approaches and by adoption of cost effective and efficient methods.

1.7.6 Community Based Monitoring with Full Transparency - The Programme will

have a community based monitoring system. The Educational Management

Information System (EMIS) will correlate school level data with community-based

information from micro planning and surveys. Besides this, every school will be

encouraged to share all information with the community, including grants received. A

notice board would be put up in every school for this purpose.

1.7.7 Habitation as a Unit of Planning - The SSA works on a community based

approach to planning with habitation as a unit of planning. Habitation plans will be

the basis for formulating district plans.

1.7.8 Accountability to Community - SSA envisages cooperation between teachers,

parents and PRIs, as well as accountability and transparency to the

community.

1.7.9 Priority to Education of Girls - Education of girls, especially those belonging to the

scheduled castes and scheduled tribes and minorities, will be one of the principal

concerns in Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.

1.7.10 Focus on Special Groups - There will be a focus on the inclusion and participation

of children from SC/ST, minority groups, urban deprived children, children of other

disadvantaged groups and the children with special needs, in the educational

process.,

1.7.11 Pre-Project Phase - SSA will commence throughout the country with a wellplanned

pre-project phase that provides for a large number of interventions for

capacity development to improve the delivery and monitoring system. These

include provision for household surveys, community-based micro-planning and

school mapping, training of community leaders, school level activities, support for

setting up information system, office equipment, diagnostic studies, etc.

1.7.12 Thrust on Quality - SSA lays a special thrust on making education at the

elementary level useful and relevant for children by improving the curriculum, childcentered

activities and effective teaching learning strategies.

1.7.13 Role of teachers - SSA recognizes the critical and central role of teachers and

advocates a focus on their development needs. Setting up of Block Resource

Centres/Cluster Resource Centres, recruitment of qualified teachers, opportunities

for teacher development through participation in curriculum-related material

development, focus on classroom process and exposure visits for teachers are all

designed to develop the human resource among teachers.

1.7.14 District Elementary Education Plans - As per the SSA framework, each district

will prepare a District Elementary Education Plan reflecting all the investments being

made and required in the elementary education sector, with a holistic and

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convergent approach. There will be a Perspective Plan that will give a framework of

activities over a longer time frame to achieve UEE. There will also be an Annual Work

Plan and Budget that will list the prioritized activities to be carried out in that year.

The Perspective Plan will also be a dynamic document subject to constant

improvement in the course of programme implementation.

1.8 PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP IN SSA

Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan takes note of the fact that provision of elementary education

is largely made by the government and government aided schools. There are also

private unaided schools in many parts of the country that provide elementary education.

Poorer households are not able to afford the fees charged in private schools in many

parts of the country. There are also private schools that charge relatively modest fees

and where poorer children are also attending. Some of these schools are marked by

poor infrastructure and low paid teachers. Efforts will be made to explore areas of public

private partnership. Government, Local Body, and government aided schools would be

covered under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, as is the practice under the Mid Day Meal

scheme and DPEP. In case private sector wishes to improve the functioning of a

government, local body or a private aided school, efforts to develop a partnership would

be made within the broad parameters of State policy in this regard. Depending on the

State policies, DIETs and other Government teacher-training institutes could be used to

provide resource support to private unaided institutions, if the additional costs are to be

met by these private bodies.