1. Citizens for
Accountable
Governance
ENHANCING THE QUALITY OF PRIMARY EDUCATION IN
INDIA
SIBM Bengaluru Bomabay Rockers
Shubham Singh +91-9663535734
Vishal Patel +91-9986652476
Dilpreeet Singh +91-9972437380
Sreeharsha GN +91-8861222337
Soumya Toppo +91-8904313058
2. About Us :
Indian
Demography
• Increased population from 1.0 to 1.2 Billion
in 10 years
• Females grew faster than males
• Population growth rate have been soled
down in last half centennial
• Overall sex ration has increased but the
child sex ration has declined
• Literacy rates have improved , better
growth in female literacy rate
3. Scenario :
Drop-out rates of Primary School
students 1999-2000 to 2009-2010
The drop out rate
have improved in 16
years till 2006-07.
There was a steep
rise in drop out
rates from 2006-07
to 2009-10.
Dropout rates for
girls declined faster
than boys this
indicates
improvement in the
primary education
of girls.
In last 5-6 years the
cost of living have
significantly
increased , this
might be a
contributor to the
increasing drop out
rates.
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
1999-00
2000-01
2002-03
2003-04
2004-05
2005-06
2006-07*
2009-10**
Primary (I-V)
Total Boys Girls
Source: Selected Educational Statistics 2007-08, Ministry of Human Resource Development, GOI, *DISE report. ***Combined dropout rate for India after
consideration for all states and UTs. Source: Abstract of Selected Educational Statistics 2009-10; Ministry of Human Resources Development; GOI
4. Problems Addressed
Paucity of teachers and trained staff. The report also finds that several states, including Delhi, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra saw a reduction in
number of teachers between 2009-10 and 2010-11viii.
• There was a case in Bihar where the teacher was unaware of the spellings of Sunday , Monday etc.
There exists poor governance and oversight to monitor performance of existing teachers.
Teachers’ absenteeism is high and in last 10 years no significant improvement have been observed
Socio-cultural factors like discrimination against the girl child, prevalence of child labour and cast differences are still present
Government schools have poor infrastructural facilities and does not meet the necessary infrastructure indicators.
5. Proposed Solutions
• 5 Classes with 1 set of a Low End Computer and Projector each so
that they can be taught by slides.
• Will cost approximately INR 220000 per school(considering INR
55000 on each set)
• Standardized courses for the primary education to be distributed
to each primary school
• Addition of regional languages and compulsory English language
in curriculum and will be required for each region/ state
• Connecting all these schools with Internet so that degree of
governance can be improved.
• Feedback will help the system to continuously improve
Promotion of Affordable Technology
Based Teaching Improving the availability and the quality of teaching
staff, the teachers should be well trained as they lay
the foundation of the students education
• Start recruitment programs in the areas suffering form lack of teachers/
less trained teachers , they should be in sink with primary education, to
promote them pay commissions should be introduced.
• Training the basic use of computer so that they can teach using the
standard course
• The use of IT will help the number of errors during teaching as well.
Audits for social discriminations and malpractices
• Boy- Girl discrimination
• For child labor heavy penalties should be imposed which might include
the imprisonment as well
6. Reasons stated for the reform
attempt
Use of IT will connect and centralize the whole
system into one place
Better and precise analysis can be performed on
the performance of the children
Customization will allow the children of the
particular region or ethnicity to understand
better, as it will be centralized for a whole
segment.
Primary Education system can be kept be up to
date by imparting improvements and
suggestions according to the international
standards
Problems will be much more clear , eg
what are their strengths etc and what other
regions are similar to them, clustering can be
done and solutions for a better fundamental
education system can be resolved more
precisely.
Regular audits for social discriminations and
malpractices will keep a check on
• Boy- Girl discrimination
• For child labor heavy penalties should be
imposed which might include the
imprisonment as well
7. A Peek into Past : Pioneers & Exemplars
HEREDITARY EDUCATION POLICY
The reform attempted to increase the number of school-going children within the financial
limitations faced by the Government.
There was an acute shortage of teachers. There were 4,108 single-teacher schools and
more than 60% of the schools with five standards had less than four teachers.
This poor student-teacher ratio was putting a strain on the teachers and led to students
being made to stay in school for longer hours.
This directly contributed to the high drop out ratio. This plural teaching had to stopped
without hiring new teachers.
During the out of school session, the girl students were to learn house keeping
from their mothers in their home environment. The boys were supposed to learn
farming or other crafts from their respective fathers.
In addition to the learning the students were to be utilized in service to the village
like building sheds, laying bricks, attending to village sanitation, improving roads,
etc.. The out of school session would have no strict attendance or work
requirements.
The retention rate of 37% (between 1947 and 1951) had to be improved by making
schools attractive to students of poorer sections.
HEREDITARY EDUCATION POLICY
Reduction of School hours from five hours per day to three.
Introduction of shifts -the students were to be divided into
two batches and the school would function in two sessions.
One batch will attend only one session a day. There were to
be six working days per week.
The second session in which the students would be out of
school was to be utilised - learning through living and training
in self-reliance.
THE KERALA MODEL
•A set of high material quality-of-
life indicators coinciding with low
per-capita incomes.
•High levels of political
participation and activism among
ordinary people along with
substantial numbers of dedicated
leaders at all levels.
•Kerala's mass activism and
committed cadre were able to
function within a largely
democratic structure.
8. Implementation of the solution
HIGH LEVEL DESCRIPTION OF KEY STEPS
INVOLVED IN IMPLEMENTING THE SOLUTION
Checking and Continuous review
Nationwide training program for primary school teachers
Installation of the proposed systems
Development of the Affordable IT Solutions by chosen vendors
Tenders for large scale IT implementation
Formation of a Project Team
Stakeholder(s)
involved at
each step
• Children
• Parents
• State governments / Panchayats and Central
Government
• Education Boards (NCERT ,MPBSE etc)
• Trusts and Society etc
Leveraging
existing
government
infrastructure
• The current internet connectivity can be utilized
where there is availability
• Training of the teachers
Financial and
human
resources
required at
each step
• Capital for New Infrastructure
• IT Implementation Team
• Governance Team
• New teachers and IT Training staff
Proposed
source(s) of
funding
• Funding by the government
• Donations by corporates
• Donations by Trusts and Societies
9. Challanges
Logistical challenges
• Additional training required for operation of the projector
• Training the basic use of computer to the teachers is itself a difficult task to accomplish, specially in rural
areas
Quality & Maintenance
• Maintaining standard of education in more than a million schools nationwide, offering training programs to
teachers, and keeping good balance with education system worldwide is a big challenge. Schools vary in
size and resources and are forced compromise in the all round development opportunities they must
provide to students.
Access • Having infrastructural constraints and social issues, it becomes harder to make education accessible to all
segments of the society (women, minorities, poor).
Cost
• Electricity & Communication infrastructure might be costly in very remote areas.
• Cost of training the teachers will also be significant , specially in remote areas where teachers are isolated
from computers
Confidence of local people
• Winning the trust of the local people for the implementation of the new system can be difficult, people
may react differently in different regions.
• The focus on exams and marks in urban schools is like winning a 100 meter race on steroids
Social & Cultural
•The ethnic diversity in India poses challenges to implement consistent education nationwide.
•There are more than 300 languages spoken in the country and makes it difficult to offer education tailored to specific
social segment. Educating women in some societies is a big issue.
•Children of poor families are forced to work and miss out the learning opportunities.
