Meaning, Initiatives and Strategies of Universalisation of Elementary Education IN INDIA

1. Meaning, Initiatives and Strategies of
Universalisation of Elementary Education
IN INDIA
Dr. Bani Barman Roy
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
HOD of Deptt. Of Education
RADHAMADHAB COLLEGE, SILCHAR

2. Meaning and concept of
Universalisation of Elementary
Education (UEE)
The term universalisation of Primary Education is mainly deduced
from the Directive Principles of State Policy as contained in Article 45 (now
Art. 21A) of the Indian Constitution. The policy envisages free and
compulsory education to all children up to the age of 14 years irrespective
of all caste, creed, community and sex. Universalisation of education in
India implies “Elementary Education for All” (class I to VIII) and not for a
selected few. This concept accepts that education is the birth right of
every child. This means that all children belonging to the rich and the
poor, living in towns as well as rural areas and in places which are
accessible with difficulty have to be provided with facilities for elementary
education. UEE also means free education. In some of the advanced
countries free education means no fees, free books and stationery, free
mid-day meals and free school transport. But in developing countries like
India, it has not been possible to provide all these facilities free of cost. Of
course, education at this stage is free of tuition fee. Other facilities on a
selective basis are also provided. Thus, universalisation of primary
education has been accepted as the national goal.

3. Universalisation of primary or elementary education
involve the following three stages or steps:-
Universalisation of Provision:- It means that school facilities should
be provided to all the children between the age group 6 to 11 years
in the country. The schools be easily accessible-within the walking
distance of a child.
• Universalisation of Enrolment:- It means all children between the
age group 6 to 11 years must be enrolled. For this, compulsory
legislation must be passed. Under legislation, parents can be fined
for not sending their children to schools. However this provision
has remained on paper only.
• Universalisation of Retention:- It means that once a child joins a
primary school, he should remain there till he completes all 8
classes. If the child leaves the school in between, the idea of
universalisation stands defeated.
The Ninth Plan envisages such universalisation in terms of
access, retention and achievement. The combined effort of access,
enrolment and retention of children up to the age of 14 years is
called universalisation of primary education.

4. Initiatives in UEE
Since the formulation of the NPE(1986)
and the POA(1986), several new
schemes for the qualitative as well as
quantitative improvement of primary
education and reaching the goal of UEE,
have been initiated by the Govt. of
India, MHRD. They are :-

5. District Primary Education Programme:-
DPEP launched in 1993 is a national initiative to
achieve UEE through district level intervention. The
overall goal of the programme is the reconstruction
of primary education system to operationalize the
strategy of UEE as envisaged in NPE 1986 (as
updated in 1992) and its POA (1992) through
decentralized planning and management
disaggregated target setting, community mobilization
and population specific planning. Its one of the
objective is to provide primary education to all
children.

6. Elementary Education as a Fundamental
Right
The cabinet of Govt. of India, in its meeting
held on May16,1997, approved the proposal
of making right to free and compulsory
education as a fundamental right. This step
was taken on the recommendations of the
Committee of State Minister of Education. It
involves amending the constitution of India.
With this amendment, it would be possible to
achieve the target of providing UEE.

7. Lok Jumbish
This project was initiated in Rajasthan for
universalisation of primary education during
1992-94in the first phase and extended up to
1998 in the second phase. The basic objective
of the project is to achieve education for all by
the year 2000 through peoples mobilization and
their participation. The Lok Jumbish has
undertaken environment building activities in
5,683 villages, 383 new schools have been
opened while 227 primary schools have been
upgraded.

8. National Elementary Education
Mission
The objective of NEEM is to mobilize
all the resources- human, financial
and institutional- necessary for
achieving the goal of UEE. It is
expected to boost the efforts being
made by the Govt. and NGOs to
achieve UEE.

9. Minimum Levels of Learning
In accordance with the direction of NPE, the
initiative was taken in India in 1991 to lay
down MLLs to be achieved at the primary
stage. The concept of MLL implies well
defined standards of learning by children. All
children irrespective of their background are
expected to reach a minimum level of
learning before they finish primary
education.

10. National Programme of Media Publicity
and Advocacy of UEE
For building up public opinion and mobilizing social
support, a national programme of media publicity
and advocacy for UEE is proposed to be launched.
The programme has 4 focal points:-
i) Teachers and all those involved in education of
children.
ii) Students and parents, particularly non-literate
parents.
iii) Community opinion builders.
iv) Policy makers and public representatives.

11. Non-Formal Education
This envisages a large systematic
programme of NFE for those who can not
attend the full day school. It aims at
providing education comparable in
quality with formal schooling. Its focus
on educationally backward states with
special attention to urban slum areas,
hilly tribal and desert areas and
education of working children.

12. National Programme of Nutritional Support to
Primary Education
A nation-wide programme of NP-NSPE launched
on August15, 1995 is intended to give a boost to
universalisation of primary education by
increasing enrolment, retention and attendance
and simultaneously to make an impact on
nutritional levels of students in primary classes.
The ultimate aim under the programme is the
provision of wholesome cooked food having a
calorific value equivalent to 100 gms of
wheat/rice per student per school day.

13. KASTURBA GANDHI BALIKA
VIDYALAYA(KGBV)
• The scheme has been approved by
the Government of India to set up to
750 residential schools with boarding
facilities at elementary level for girls
belonging to SC, ST, OBC and
minorities in difficult areas

14. Operation Blackboard
The scheme of operation blackboard
was launched in 1987. This is a
centrally sponsored scheme for
bringing about improvement in
primary education by providing
additional facilities to the schools
already established.

15. Shiksha Karmi Project
It was a scheme jointly sponsored by Swedish
International Development Agency (SIDA).
Govt. of India and the states of Rajasthan.
Aims of the project:-
i) Universlisation of Education .
ii) Checking Drop-out.
iii) Qualitative improvement of primary
education.

16. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan-SSA (Education for
All mission)
Today nearly four out of five children in the age
group 6-14 years are in the school. Two out of
three persons are functionally literate. Progress
achieved is by no mans small. But it falls short of
meeting the goal of Education For All.
The World Declaration ‘On Education for All-
EFA’(1990) adopted in Jomiten gave fillip to
national commitment for reaching basic
education for all children.

17. Strategies for achieveing UEE
• Make each school, primary or middle, fully
responsible accountable or formulating and
implementing strategies for UEE in
villages/habitations/mohallas in the area
under its coverage.
• Authorize the school HM to recruit para-
teachers for reaching out either to unserved
habitations or to those children who can not
attend the school in the day hours.

18. Strategies for achieveing UEE
• Encourage innovation by teachers themselves
in building up diverse models of child- centred
approach to education.
• In order to increase the relevance of
education from the standpoint of working
children, especially girls, it would be necessary
to emphasize vocationalisation of the entire
educational process up to class VIII level.

19. Strategies for achieveing UEE
• The goal of universalisation of education may be
viewed in two phases- the first phase of UPE and
the second phase of UEE.
• Adopt the principle of differentiated or
disaggregated targets and pluralistic educational
strategies for achieving UEE.
• Monitoring of the move towards UEE shall be
integral to the planning process and may operate
at 3 independent but co-ordinated levels.

20. THANK YOU