2. 2
Why is Primary education important?
Around 29.5% of the total population in INDIA are below 15 years. And to compete in global
knowledge economy increasingly depends on whether we can meet a fast growing demand for
high level skills. A strong education system is always a cornerstone of any country’s growth and
prosperity.
Current status of INDIAN Primary education
• INDIA was ranked 73rd among 74 countries that participated in PISA 2009(Programme for
international student Assessment)
• Reading levels continue to cause serious
concern .The % of children able to read is
decreasing considerably year by year.
Source : ASER 2012
• Rapid improvement in enrollment rates
SSA(Sarva Siksha Abhiyan) gets most of its
credit.
3. 3
Cont..
• Even after many measures taken by the
government providing minimum
infrastructure still remains a challenge.
• All India Private school enrollment is steadily
rising since 2006 from 18.6% to 28.7%
in 2012. This raises concern over the
quality of education in government schools
which today provides education to majority
of the children.
• No significant increase in
retention rate(of students).It has
remained nearly the same since
3 years.
Source: DISE 11-12
Source: DISE 11-12
4. 4
• The only way to improve education is to improve instruction.
• We are still following the old conventional teacher-classroom methods
which have not yielded any considerable results even after substantial
efforts. Now it has become necessary to adopt a new feasible method
which can significantly overcome todays problems.
Uninteresting
Methods of
instruction
• The quality of students can never exceed the quality of its
teachers
• Teacher Absence – dismissing teacher for repeated absence
occurs rarely in government schools 1-3000(govt. schools)
7-120(pvt. schools).
• Though programs of SSA like mid-day meal scheme have given
encouraging results in terms of intake but the retention rate
has remained low due to the quality of instruction.
Teacher’s
-absenteeism
-quality of instruction
• Though in year 2000 INDIA invested 4.3% of its GDP in
education but in course of time surprisingly its decreasing. In
2009-3.2%, 2010-3.3% of GDP which is quite low when
compared at global level.
Educational Facilities
• Nevertheless today in most of the INDIAN states this has
improved but poor performing states in education like Bihar ,
Jharkhand , Uttar Pradesh ,West Bengal still have a pathetic
ratio.
Teacher-pupil ratio
Hypothesis for current status
Source : Worldbank.org
6. 6
What is Activity Based Learning?
Activity Based Learning - learning where student physically and mentally explore subject by
simulation of the work environment, manipulation of tools and materials associated with the
world of work, or performance of a real work task.
Conventional classroom ABL classroom
It is multi-grade multi-level learning program. Every child has an individualized
learning plan. Here the curriculum is converted into a series of learning goals
called milestones which are transacted through activities instead of textbooks.
Why is it important?
• All genuine learning comes through experience.
• Diminishes physical and psychological distance b/w teacher and student
by changing the role of teacher to a facilitator.
7. 7
Cont..
• Tamilnadu(TN) has implemented ABL
efficiently in its region. Its Drop Out rate in
primary education is far below national
average.
National average-6.5%
TN average-0.98%
• After receiving encouraging results states
of Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat,
Madhya Pradesh, Kerala have taken
initiatives to adopt ABL methodology.
Source : TN education report
Few statistics of TN after implementation of ABL
Implementation
1.Required Resources/Inputs
Finance
Local Govt.
State govt.
Central govt.
IFA’s
VEC’s
Human
Teacher Trainers
Teachers
NGO’s
EAF
VEC’s
Materials
Self-Learning
materials
Infrastructure for CR
management
Training Materials
• IFA-International
funding agencies.
• VEC-Village
Education
Committee.
• EAF-Educational
Administrators and
Functionaries.
• CR-classroom.
• Funds in SSA Scheme can be utilized for finance.
8. 8
2.Execution of these resources.
• A few institutional mechanisms, like setting up the resource centers at the block and cluster
levels, evolved during the DPEP, are now replicated in SSA called BRCs and CRCs which have
played a major role.
• The TNSSA recruited a considerable number of BRTEs to provide training and monitor the
progress of all the SSA initiatives including ABL. The role of BRTEs in Blocks is also providing
on-site support to the teachers in schools.
• Resource Books have been provided to all BRCs which remain permanent resource materials
to be used by BRTEs and Teachers.
• One CRC established for 10 to 15 schools provides opportunities to teachers working within
the cluster to share their experiences and innovative practices through monthly meetings.
• BRC-Block Resource Centre.
• CRC-Cluster Resource Centre.
• DPEP-District Primary Education Program
• BRTE-Block Resource Teacher Educators
• SSA-Sarva Siksha AbhiyanAn Overview of TN model
• The activity based instruction method requires long term planning with minute details
of the whole process because before engaging the learners, the teacher has to make
sure that all students have sufficient knowledge and skills regarding the task they are
going to perform.
• It becomes a difficult task for teacher to pay attention to each and every student . This
can be addressed buy decreasing Teacher-pupil ratio.
• Requires great effort with a proper research to design a effective curriculum. A feeble
curriculum will do more harm than good.
• ABL requires the production of a variety of teaching learning materials on a large
scale .
Challenges and remedial measures
9. 9
Promote Public Private Partnership in Education
Why?
• PPP ensures inclusiveness and raises quality as a result of greater competition in education
market.
• Risk sharing between govt. and pvt. Sector, in turn increasing efficiency in delivery of resources
and channeling of new resources.
• Private delivery of public services which majority of the times have given good results.
• Ultimate responsibility remains with public sector(define scope , set priorities, targets, outputs).
• PPP can be developed to build primary school
infrastructure in rural areas where private players are
reluctant to go because of low return. (See Ex:1)
Government do not
have sufficient funds
to build infrastructure
Govt. provides Tax
benefits, Commercial
FSI to private Players
Private player builds
the infrastructure
What can be done? Example:1
• In India % of Pvt. Aided Schools -3.48% where as govt. schools -
87.53%. And in primary education sector Pvt. Aided or Unaided
schools have shown better results than govt.. Therefore,
initiatives must be taken to increase number of Pvt. Aided
schools. Source: 8th Aises
• *FSI: Floor Space Index.
10. 10
Increase % of GDP Expenditure on Education
Source : worldbank.org
• Though five decades ago, the Kothari Commission
had given deep insights into the need to spend more
on education at all levels i.e atleast upto 6% of
GDP still no time more than 4.3% of GDP was spent
on education sector.
• The global average by OECD* stands at 5.1% of GDP.
• By observing (graph1) it is evident that India’s % GDP
on education sector is way below other countries that
perform well in education sector.
Graph 1
*OECD: Organization for economic co-operation and development
• Providing minimum infrastructure has been a major concern of the govt.
since a longtime And there is necessity for the govt. to speed up in this
regard. This reality can be achieved solely by maximizing % GDP on
Education sector.
11. 11
Enhancing Quality of instruction
• To achieve global standards in education one requires globally competitive teachers. Today it
is need of the hour to set-up an institute with holistic training components, value-education
and skill-orientation which will train students exclusively for teaching. IITE* is one such good
initiative taken by Gujarat govt. in this direction.
• Incentive should be taken to promote attendance of teachers.
- Bonuses should be provided to teachers whose attendance is above a certain
standard. These standards should be set individually for each state.
- As per a survey where unannounced visits were made to 3700 Schools in 20
states shows that Salaries do not have any co-relation with absence rather
schools with frequent inspection have less absence rates.
Source: DISE website
• The responsibility of cooking and providing Mid-Day Meals should not be
burdened on the teachers. Rather the Gram panchayat should be given
its responsibility.
*IITE : Indian Institute of Teacher Education
12. 12
• TN education report 2011-12.
• Annual status of Education report-2012(ASER).
• 8th all India school education survey(AISES) by NCERT.
• Flash statistics 2011-12 DISE(District information system for education).
• DISE analytical tables 2011-12.
• ASER 2012-national findings.
• NCERT Program evaluation report ABL.
• http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.XPD.TOTL.GD.ZS
• http://dise.in/Downloads/Use%20of%20Dise%20Data/Ajay%20Deshpande,Sayan%
20Mitra.pdf
• http://www.iite.ac.in/
• http://www.censusindia.gov.in/vital_statistics/SRS_Report/9Chap%202%20-
%202011.pdf
References
