Convergence in education The Samagra Shikshana Yojane approach Education is not the amount of information that is put into your brain and runs riot there, undigested, all your life. We must have life-building, man- making, character-making assimilation of ideas. If you have assimilated five ideas and made them your life and character, you have more education than any man who has got by heart a whole library. - SWAMY VIVEKANANDA Author Bharathi Ghanashyam
[email protected] Research and support Ujjwala Jatkar Photographs Bharathi Ghanashyam and Karuna Trust Design The Pen & Mouse Printed at Aditya Prints © Karuna Trust 2008 686, 16th Main 39th Cross, 4th T Block Jayanagar Bangalore 560 041 Ph: 91 80 22447612 Email:
[email protected] Website: www.karunatrust.org The Samagra Shikshana Yojane approach KARUNA TRUST Contents Chapter One The land, the people, the issues Page 1 Chapter Two An integrated approach to education Page 7 Chapter Three SSY - a multi-layered process Page 13 Chapter Four Seeing the difference Page 23 Chapter Five Dealing with challenges, looking ahead Page 33 Preface Karuna Trust has worked for the last two decades and a half on development programmes for the rural poor. Having begun with a programme on leprosy control in Yelandur taluk, we progressed to other health issues, education and livelihoods in response to the needs that became evident to us as the years progressed. In the course of our work, we noticed that whether it was health, education or livelihoods, one factor which hampered real progress was the lack of convergence between the various departments of the government, even within specific areas such as health or education.