15Jun 2017

PRIMARY EDUCATION IN INDIA: AN ELUCIDATION OF POLICY INITIATIVES, ACCOMPLISHMENT AND CONTRADICTIONS.

  • Research Fellow, Panjab University, Chandigarh (India)-160014.
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India is a signatory to the Millennium Declaration, adopted by 191 United Nations members? states in September 2000, and the plan of Action of a World Fit for Children has been central to the focus of India, which envisage achieving universal access to free and compulsory education by 2015. India has taken several initiative programmes, policies and practices to reach educational goals in the nation especially over the last decade and a half. The central focus of the paper is to identify successful and unsuccessful country efforts to move towards achievement of the universal goals of primary education in India started under the flag of international campaign of ?Education for All?. There has been great progress in the last decade in primary education in India. The gender, caste and demographic disparities in primary education have markedly reduced at national, state and at grass root levels. But challenges like universal enrolment, universal retention, dropout rate and quality education are still big hurdles in achievement of universal goals of primary education in India, which demands strong political will, and administrative dedication of the educational authorities. An attempt has been made to in this paper to discuss the policy initiatives by Government of India, to throw light on the success achieved, challenges faced and remedies for the achievement of 100% enrollment and retention rate in primary education to achieve the goals of universal primary education in India.


Administrative gaps, financial hurdles, quality less education, and other many policy or program lags can be easily taken over by improving governance in India. It is vital for the achievement of MDG 2 at national level in India. Bad governance shows characteristics of loose administrative accountability, unresponsiveness towards demands and need of people and society corruption etc. They act as big hurdles in achievement of primary education goals. Strong political will and administrative accountability can do wonders in upliftment and achievement of desired level of education in India. It may be the scarcity of finances or poor deployment of teacher, teacher training or training untrained or semi trained teacher, (who may be already in service) or may be quality education. Everything lies directly or indirectly in political will and administration dedication. Better monitoring system, transparency, accountability, responsiveness towards educational needs could be very straight away solution to the problems associated to primary education. There is a need to increase financing to reduce financial gaps and to improve the quality of service provision through better policies and stronger institutions. Targeted investment of adequate resources with disaggregated actions are necessary to reduce regional and inter-state disparities and simultaneously focusing on a results-based approach to education in order to pursue primary education goal of ?learning for all? in a post-2015 India. ?

[Uma Sheokand. (2017); PRIMARY EDUCATION IN INDIA: AN ELUCIDATION OF POLICY INITIATIVES, ACCOMPLISHMENT AND CONTRADICTIONS. Int. J. of Adv. Res. 5 (Jun). 482-490] (ISSN 2320-5407). www.journalijar.com


Uma Sheokand
Panjab University

DOI:


Article DOI: 10.21474/IJAR01/4437      
DOI URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.21474/IJAR01/4437