Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Eleventh Joint Review Mission & Mid Term
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Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Eleventh Joint Review Mission & Mid Term Review 15 th to 29 th January, 2010 Aide-Memoire 1 SARVA SHIKSHA ABHIYAN Eleventh Joint Review Mission & Mid Term Review th th 15 to 29 January 2010 Aide-Memoire 1. Introduction 1.1 Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) is a comprehensive and integrated flagship programme of the Government of India (GoI), to attain Universal Elementary Education (UEE) in the country in a mission mode. Launched in partnership with the State Governments, SSA aims to provide quality education to all children in the age group of 6-14 years. The four SSA Goals are as follows: i. All children in school. ii. Bridging gender and social gaps. iii. All children retained in Elementary Education. iv. Education of satisfactory quality. 1.2 SSA is a national programme supported by domestic resources, supplemented partially by external funding from the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA), United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the European Union (EU). As per the Agreements, the GoI and Development Partners (DP) carry out a Joint Review Mission (JRM) twice a year. The main objective of the JRM is to review progress in the implementation of the programme with respect to SSA’s Goals and to discuss follow-up actions in the light of the Terms of Reference (TOR) agreed upon for each JRM. 1.3 The first JRM was held from January - February 2005. This Mission is the Eleventh JRM of SSA and was held from 15th to 29 th January 2010. This JRM also constitutes for the DPs their mid-term review of their support for SSA. The Terms of Reference (ToR) for the Mission and details of the Mission composition are attached at Appendix 1. This Review is based on a study of available documents and discussions with National and State level functionaries and observations from field visits in ten States. 1.4 The Mission records its deep appreciation of the support received from the Department of School Education and Literacy, GoI, the Technical Support Group, national institutions, the State Governments, district officials and community members in making available documents, providing insightful presentations and discussing issues in a transparent and candid manner. The Mission is particularly grateful to the States included in the JRM for facilitating the field visits. Mission Objectives 1.5 The main objective of the JRM is to review progress in the implementation of the programme with respect to SSA Goals and agreed indicators, and to discuss follow-up action, including capacity issues. Progress towards the SSA Goals is 2 reported and summarized in the Results Framework attached at Appendix 2. The purpose of the Eleventh JRM was to look at processes being adopted to achieve the development objectives of SSA, particularly in respect of retention and quality, and to review State and district specific strategies being adopted that underpin the impact of the programme. In addition, as this was the Mid-Term Review for the DPs’ support to SSA, the Mission did assess in terms of both relevance and realism the overall SSA Goals and Implementation Framework to achieve those goals, the recently revised SSA Financial Management and Procurement (FM&P) Manual, and the Results Monitoring Framework. 1.6 The 11 th JRM for SSA visited 22 districts of ten States, viz., Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Tripura and West Bengal. The Mission comprised twenty four members, with 12 members, including Mission Leader, from the Government of India, 6 members from the World Bank, 4 members from DFID and 2 members from the EU. The 11 th JRM for SSA has provided State reports for each of the ten States visited (attached as Appendix 5) and one overall report, this Aide Memoire. 2. Overview of progress 2.1 The 11th JRM has observed with appreciation the continued progress made towards SSA goals since the last Mission submitted its report and the ownership expressed in as many as 20 States by contributing more than their expected financial share. Diversity of approaches and the application of ingenuity to maintain norms and progress in diverse circumstances deserve recognition of the same order as what needs to be given to the sharp and persistent regional disparities across and within States. SSA has the potential to address these disparities by adopting a more flexible approach for both low-performing and high-performing States. 2.2 Enrolment targets having been largely achieved in most parts of the country for the primary classes, attention is now naturally on attendance and retention through completion of the elementary cycle. A nation-wide recognition of the elementary stage of education, consisting of eight years of regular schooling, is now necessary to ensure that the pursuit of quality with equity is not hampered by conceptual contradictions in teacher preparation and the operational problems faced due to institutional fragmentation in the deployment of teachers, age-appropriate curriculum planning and evaluation. 2.3 SSA’s unique status in India’s educational history rests on its recognition of children whose parents’ poverty used to put them beyond the system’s entrenched boundaries. Schemes like EGS and AIE were valuable in serving these children. In its mature phase, SSA’s final success in this endeavour depends on the success of the policy to upgrade all EGS centres into primary schools and to mainstream all children availing AIE services. The Mission finds the progress of these policies in Assam and West Bengal a matter of great concern. The latter has one fifth of its children in EGS centres and accounts for 1.8 million out of the 2.3 million children currently served under the EGS scheme nation-wide. The AIE scheme serves another approximately 1 million children, spread across the nation. These undoubtedly constitute India’s most vulnerable children and demand our greatest attention, especially considering the 3 tremendous potential for the system’s own growth--both in its coverage capacity as well as its quality-- that the resolve to include them in formal schools would imply. 2.4 The Mission has noted the reduction of gender gap in general and its known persistence in certain States and districts, suggesting that the gains are fragile and need consolidation within a holistic reform perspective, especially at the upper primary stage where girls’ retention and academic progress encounters formidable cultural practices and systemic inadequacies. The Mission has also noted the positive difference that KGBV and NPEGEL schemes have played in the lives of girls who face major economic and cultural barriers. Both these schemes require further strengthening, both in conceptual and operational terms, especially with a view to enhancing their capacity to serve SC/ST girls, and particularly Muslim girls whose coverage remains a big concern. 2.5 The 11th JRM emphasizes the need to treat gender and social disadvantage as being integral to the SSA’s larger perspective on quality with equity. The treatment of gender equity as an overarching agenda has the potential to consolidate SSA’s success in all its goals, especially among SC, ST and Muslim minority children. Their proportions in enrolments at the upper primary classes show evidence of greater chances of dropping out. 2.6 Children belonging to the Scheduled Tribes continue to show lower achievement levels. The Mission emphasizes the importance of comprehending— particularly in the case of teachers and their trainers--the role of historical disadvantage and systemic expectations, such as transition from a tribal language to a State language. Language being fundamental to success at school, the Mission recommends the multilingual educational perspective of NCF-2005, which calls for radical reforms in teacher training, especially in the context of the introduction of English in primary classes. 2.7 The Mission underlines the importance of recognizing the negative implications of continued conflict and uncertainty in a child’s social environment. Consequently, the Mission endorses the preparation of a special SSA strategy for regions affected either by conflict, displacement and large-scale migration across States and from villages to urban centres. Migration also presents a conceptual challenge in that it demands the redefinition of ‘retention’ as a responsibility of the larger, national system, rather than merely that of individual schools. Migration also presents a major challenge for 4 metro cities (Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai and Delhi) and other rapidly growing large cities where a substantial and radical intervention strategy needs to be planned. 2.8 Considering that the teacher comprises the single biggest determinant of educational quality, the Mission appreciates SSA’s role in radically expanding the system’s capacity to recruit, deploy and train teachers (with particular concerns regarding Assam, Bihar and West Bengal). At the same time, the 11th JRM expresses deep concern over the tardy progress made in induction training programmes (linked to recruitment delays) and the presence in schools of over 1 million untrained teachers, their largest proportion being in the North-Eastern States, Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar and Jharkhand. The Mission also records its concern over the quality of training and academic support provided to teachers. Structures created at the cluster 4 and block levels are serving far too many schools in many States and are unable to maintain a balance between their administrative and academic roles, the latter suffering in the process. Strengthening of these structures and their linkages with DIETs and SCERTs are necessary, and for this to happen the latter bodies must receive due status and substance. 2.9 The upper primary stage being now in focus for the improvement of enrolment and retention, policy reform and detailed planning are required to balance the academic demands of the two stages of elementary education.