| Elementary Education | ||||||
| The objectives of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA), the government of India’s flagship programme for ensuring universal elementary education, state that by bridging gender and social gaps in education, all children from the age group of 6-14 years should have completed five years of primary schooling by 2007.
In an effort to achieve this objective, the government has focused on the availability of school premises within habitations. Access to schools is an area of utmost concern. Encouragingly, statistics indicate that 96 per cent of habitations have access to primary schools, while 80 per cent have access to upper primary school facilities.
However, a school’s physical presence does not necessarily assure social access to schools or the quality of education in its classrooms. In consequence, constructing schools within the stipulated one-kilometre radius and developing the physical infrastructure has not resulted in a drastic qualitative shift in the education system. Student retention, quality of instruction, classroom transactions, and effectiveness of teacher training are some areas where the delivery system fared dismally.
In an effort to bring about improvements within SSA, the state has been shifting its focus from access and infrastructure to enhancing retention and improving the quality of education. Individual states have taken up initiatives to improve the quality of education, instituting systems for large-scale independent assessment of pupil achievement levels. The results of this assessment are used for systemic improvement like developing remedial teaching programmes. A revived thrust on quality standards complement other efforts to improve the training institutes at the state and district level.
However, care needs to be taken to avoid an overdependence on quantitative testing. Teacher education curriculum and practice need to undergo a radical transformation if the National Curricular Framework is to percolate down into our classrooms. The sector has a long way to go in this direction.
The Trusts have long maintained that the quality of the educational system is of utmost importance, forming a key area for initiating reform. The Trusts believe that philanthropic agencies should not be creating parallel structures, but should engage with the largest player in education, i.e. the State, to improve the system by demonstrating change through field projects, address key gaps in the sector and contribute towards development of elementary education as a discipline through grounded research and reflection. This belief guides the Trusts' work in the field of education.
Based on the recommendations made in the Strategic Review of the Education Portfolio(2005), enabling the system to reform itself forms one of the thrust areas for the Trusts. Hence, the Trusts have focused their grant making efforts within Elementary Education through the following three sub-themes:
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Elementary Education
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