Background: Under India’s federal constitution, education is a concern of both the central and state governments. Since independence, state governments have been the major providers of elementary education in India. However the wide differences between states in the emphasis they placed on education and in their capacity to invest in it, accentuated the disparities in the educational attainments of their people.
In 1986, the Government of India brought out its landmark New Education Policy. The policy made primary education a national priority and envisaged an increase in resources committed – to at least 6 percent of GDP. At the same time, the central government also launched several centrally sponsored schemes to improve primary education across the country.
In the mid 1990s, a series of District Primary Education Programs (DPEP) were introduced in districts where female literacy rates were low. The DPEPs pioneered new initiatives to bring out-of-school children into school, and were the first to decentralize planning for primary education and actively involve communities.
India's Flagship Elementary Education Program - Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan
In 2001, the Central Government introduced its flagship Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) program to provide elementary education for all India’s children. The SSA is one of the largest programs of its kind in the world. It builds on the pioneering initiatives of the DPEPs and seeks to meet the needs of almost 200 million children living in over a million habitations across the country. It is one of India’s first major programs to cover upper primary education – grades 6-8 – as well.
Enrolling all 6-14 year-olds by 2010: The program aims to enroll all 6-14 year-olds in school by 2010, retain them in school, and provide them with quality education at least till grade eight - a much tougher requirement than meeting the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) by 2015. To achieve this goal, the program is improving access to education by making a primary school available within one kilometer of all habitations, mobilizing communities in favor of education, supporting the training of teachers, developing teaching materials, and monitoring learning outcomes.
Bringing the hardest-to-reach children into school The program seeks to reduce gender and social gaps by specially focusing on girls, children from disadvantaged groups such as scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, those belonging to minority communities, as well as children with special needs.
Catering to India's enormous diversity: Given India’s diversity and its large federal system, the program is highly decentralized. While overall directions are set centrally, the SSA provides ample flexibility to India’s states to design their own context-specific strategies. Schemes are delivered through implementing agencies at the state, district and, most importantly, the village level.
Over 7,000 NGOs are participating in the SSA: They are helping to bring out-of-school children into school by providing alternative education programs or “bridge courses”. They are also building the capacity of local village education committees, and monitoring the quality of education provided. The SSA is complemented by another national program - the Mid-Day Meal Scheme - which provides free hot cooked meals to all children in state primary schools every day as an incentive for them to remain in school.
The central government has invested major financial resources into the program: In 2006-07, 3.6 percent of the country’s GDP was invested in education. State and central government expenditure on education together accounted for 13 percent of their combined budgets. Expenditure on elementary education alone accounted for 53.5 percent of the total education budget in the country (2006-07). An education cess of 2 percent is levied on both direct and indirect taxes to generate resources for the program.
World Bank Support: The program, which is essentially government–led, is collectively supported by the World Bank, the European Commission and United Kingdom’s DFID; of these the World Bank is the single largest contributor. In the first phase of support (SSA I: 2003-2006) the World Bank contributed $500 million of the total program cost of $3.5 billion.
Going forward - SSA II: In the second phase of support (coinciding with the 11th Plan: 2007 - 2012) the World Bank is providing US$600 million. With the country estimated to spend an enormous US$17.75 billion on primary education, the Bank remains a small player, financing less than 6 percent of the total government expenditures on the program.
RSS