Eleventh Five Year Plan

2 Eleventh Five Year PlanWhile each of these programmes and projects hada specific focus—Operation Blackboard on improvingphysical infrastructure; DPEP on primary education;Shiksha Karmi Project on teacher absenteeism,and Lok Jumbish Project on girls’ education—SSA hasbeen the single largest holistic programme addressingall aspects of elementary education covering over onemillion elementary schools and Education GuaranteeCentre (EGS)/Alternate and Innovative Education(AIE) Centres and about 20 crore children.Performance of SSA and Related Schemesin Tenth Plan1.1.8 The specific goals of SSA during the Tenth Planperiod were as follows:• All children to be in regular school, EGS, AIE, or‘Back-to-School’ camp by 2005;• Bridging all gender and social category gaps at primarystage by 2007 and at elementary educationlevel by 2010;• Universal retention by 2010;• Focus on elementary education of satisfactory qualitywith emphasis on education for life.UNIVERSAL ACCESS1.1.9 SSA has brought primary education to the doorstepof millions of children and enrolled them, includingfirst generation learners, through successive fasttrack initiatives in hitherto unserved and underservedhabitations. According to the VII Educational Survey(2002), the number of habitations that had a primaryschool within a distance of 1 km was 10.71 lakh (87%),the uncovered habitations numbered 1.61 lakh (13%),whereas, the number of habitations that had an upperprimary school within a distance of 3 km was 9.61 lakh(78%). With the opening up of 1.32 lakh primaryschools and 56000 EGS/AIE centres access to primaryeducation is nearly achieved. About 0.89 lakh upperprimary schools (UPS) have been provided up to 2006–07. At primary and at upper primary level the numberof habitations remaining to be covered is estimated atalmost 1 lakh.1.1.10 The number of primary schools (PS) in thecountry increased from 6.64 lakh in 2001–02 to 7.68lakh in 2004–05. In the same period, the number ofUPS increased at a faster rate from 2.20 lakh to 2.75lakh. The sanction of 2.23 lakh new PS/UPS, 1.88 lakhnew school buildings, and 6.70 lakh additional classroomshas made a big dent in reducing the schoolinfrastructure gap.UNIVERSAL ENROLMENT1.1.11 SSA had a sluggish start as States took considerabletime to prepare district perspective plans. By thetime the States realized the full potential of SSA, two anda half years had already rolled on. The urgency calledfor fast track initiatives. Household surveys, schoolmapping, constitution of Village Education Committees(VECs), setting up of Mother Teacher Associationsand Parent Teacher Associations, and a series of campaignsfor enrolment and context-specific strategies, alllearnt from the experience of implementing DPEP, wereused for good results in the next two and a half years.As a result, the second phase of enrolment drive by theStates/union territories (UTs) was more systematic withhousehold survey data reflecting substantially improvedGross Enrolment Ratio (GER) and a significantreduction in the number of out-of-school children. Thestrategy of providing AIE grants to Maktabs/Madarsasfor introducing teaching of general subjects to minoritychildren was also very fruitful.1.1.12 Consequently, the total enrolment at elementaryeducation level increased from 159 million in2001–02 to 182 million in 2004–05, an increase of over23 million (Figure 1.1.1).1.1.13 The following Table 1.1.1 shows GER forprimary, upper primary, and elementary level from2001–02 to 2004–05.1.1.14 Social and gender disparity, existing at bothprimary and upper primary education levels, continuesto be an issue to be tackled with more concertedand sustained efforts, especially in Bihar, Rajasthan,Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh (MP), Gujarat, and UttarPradesh (UP).1.1.15 SSA interventions have brought down the numberof out-of-school children from 32 million in 2001–02 to 7.0 million in 2006–07 (Figure 1.1.2). 48 districtsin 10 States accounted for over 50000 out-of-school