Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA)

Building on the varied experience of European Commission (EC)- India collaboration under the District Primary Education Programme (DPEP), the EC signed an agreement with the Government of India (GOI) in November 2001 to support the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) programme—the new national initiative for Universalisation of Elementary Education (UEE). The EC has committed 200 million euro for seven years of implementation with the main objective to reinforce GOI’s own efforts to universalise elementary education. The EC funds will support the GOI to deepen and accelerate the process of reform in the education sector and pave the way for new initiatives to provide education to the disadvantaged and the deprived, especially girls.

In particular, these reforms and initiatives aim at enhancing quality of schooling at the primary level (6-11 years of age). The SSA programme seeks to carry forward the good experiences of DPEP in areas of decentralised planning, community participation, pedagogical renewal, child friendly classrooms, etc., and to cover the full elementary education cycle (6-14 years of age). The 93rd Constitution Amendment making Universal Elementary Education a fundamental Right, along with the Education for All (EFA) and Millennium Development Goals (MDG) for education provide the backdrop for concerted efforts by central and state governments to achieve EFA goals.

Some of the objectives of SSA

• all children enroll in school, of one kind or another, by 2003

• all children complete five years of primary schooling by 2007

• all children complete eight years of elementary schooling by 2010

• gaps between the schooling of girls and boys and between all social groups (e.g. scheduled caste and tribal children) by 2007 at the primary level and by 2010 at the elementary level are bridged

• education of satisfactory quality is provided, with emphasis on education for life.

In December 2002 the EC commenced providing grant assistance to GOI to implement the strategies of SSA, particularly in the deprived and disadvantaged pockets of India. The first tranche of 30 million euro was released in December 2002, based on an agreed pre-appraisal of the EC support to SSA. The EC grant to SSA is in the form of sectoral support, whereby GOI will have the flexibility to deploy EC resources to implement its priorities; EC funds are to be released against outcome and progress towards the goals and objectives of SSA. Building on the good experience of the donor consortium that supported DPEP, efforts will be made to develop a similar approach for external financing for SSA, whereby major donors act concertedly to support and jointly monitor a programme to improve elementary education with GOI.

District Primary Education Programme

In 1994 the EC entered into an agreement supporting the Indian Government’s District Primary Education Programme (DPEP), with a grant of 150 million euro. This was EC’s first major initiative to provide sector development support to India to reform and improve primary education with a focus on reducing disparities across social groups and across regions. The support to DPEP, which ended in December 2002, was the first round of an enduring collaboration in the education sector beginning with primary education and is followed by a long-term commitment to universalising elementary education with the signing of a new agreement with the Government of India supporting SSA.

DPEP has been a target-oriented time bound programme aiming at overall improvement of the quality of primary education. In fact, it was DPEP’s focus on the poorest and most deprived children, and emphasis on girls’ education that catalysed the EC’s decision to support the programme. Initiated in 42 districts with female literacy lower than the national average across 8 states, the DPEP eventually expanded to 275 districts in 18 states.

According to the findings of studies conducted within the programme and review missions, dropout rates among children have reduced, and learning achievement studies have shown positive trends. The DPEP has contributed to decreasing differences in enrolment, dropout and learning achievement among gender and social groups.

The Education Guarantee Scheme (EGS): Breaking Centuries of Isolation

On 20 August 1998, Madhya Pradesh (MP) declared that it had completed the task of universalising access to primary schooling. How was the State able to accomplish this in such a short period?

Acknowledging that the immediate challenge was to improve the outreach in remote habitations, a Lok Sampark Abhiyan (LSA)—People’s Contact Campaign—was organised in 1996 in all districts of MP. It revealed that only 70 percent of habitations had access to schools within a radius of 1 km and that 30 percent of the children from 6-11 years of age were out of school. Most of them had never enrolled.

An alternative to formal schools was to be found that could be implemented immediately, would be cost effective and cover large numbers. The Education Guarantee Scheme (EGS) was mooted in 1997 not only as a simple and practical strategy to universalise access to primary education but also as a means to evoke community ownership of the village school and processes of schooling. If a tribal area had 25 children (40 for non-tribal) and no access to a school within a 1 km radius, the community could write to the administration through the village panchayat demanding a school. The government for its part guaranteed that a school would be provided within 90 days of the demand. The community would identify an educated young person to be appointed as the teacher and provide a place to run the school. This guarantee was the beginning of a partnership between the community and the government based on mutual trust and sharing of responsibilities.

Programme for Enrichment of School Level Education (PESLE)

This innovative project with a consortium of NGOs, collaborating under the umbrella of the Aga Khan Foundation was funded by the EC in 1999 with 11 million euro. The project aims to improve the quality of school level education in selected states of India by mainstreaming innovative small-scale experiments carried out by Indian NGOs into the larger government and other systems, with a particular focus on marginalised and disadvantaged groups. The project partners are aiming to develop and enhance ‘good school practice’ in a variety of socio-economic ­geographic settings to include the urban poor, working children, minority communities and children in poorly resourced government schools. These strategies and tools will be disseminated and mainstreamed in larger educational systems. The project is expected to generate a number of various approaches by which school quality can be improved.

(Source: Information Centre, Delegation of the European Commission in India)