Summary of 11th plan approach relating to education strategies

STRATEGIC INITIATIVES FOR INCLUSIVE DEVELOPMENT

Empowerment Through Education

            Education is the most critical element in empowering people with skills and knowledge and giving them access to productive employment in the future

a)              Elementary Education: Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA)

One of the main tasks before Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) is to make school a more attractive, interesting, and a joyful place.  The goal should be for all schools in India to have physical infrastructure and quality and level of teaching equivalent to Kendriya Vidyalayas, and the 11^th Plan must make significant progress toward this goal.

 b)         Helping  Disadvantaged Children

Efforts will be made to identify and mainstream street children, differently abled and other disadvantaged children. Children from socially disadvantaged families often have learning difficulties as among other things their vocabulary is limited. Special help in pre-primary schools can help them overcome this handicap. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has a great potential for enhancing learning levels and improving quality of education.        

c)            Secondary Education

As we ready ourselves for the knowledge economy, we cannot be satisfied with universalisation of primary education. The 11th Plan should therefore aim at a progressive rise in the minimum level of education towards high school level or Class X. 

d)                  Technical/Vocational Education and Skill Development

With rapid expansion of information technology, schools will focus on vocations in the tertiary sector, requiring limited infrastructure, in areas such as IT, insurance, banking, tourism and retail trade. For more intensive training the industrial training institutions (ITIs) will be increased in number. More importantly, the scope and content of the training they provide must be made relevant to the needs of industry and available jobs by involving industries and industrial associations in running them.

e)         Higher Education

need to undertake major expansion.  There is also a serious problem of quality.  While some of our institutions of higher education compare well with the best in the world, the average standard is much lower. Disturbingly, the high quality institutions are finding it difficult to get faculty of suitable quality given the enormous increase in opportunities in the private sector for many of the skills most in demand. The 11^th Plan must undertake a major effort to expand capacity in our institutions while also improving quality.

New colleges and universities must be set up, to provide easier access to students in educationally backward districts. Existing institutions must be strengthened and expanded where possible and open and distance education encouraged.  In addition, a specific plan for upgrading a few “existing” select universities with “potential for excellence” will be formulated laying down specific parameters which are in tune with global standards. At least 20 universities, with the potential for excellence, may be upgraded in the 11th Plan period.

Conclusions

A central part of the vision of the 11^th Plan must be to extend access to essential public services such as health, education, clean drinking water, sanitation, etc. which are currently denied to large parts of our population especially in rural areas. The provision of good quality education is the most important equalizer in society and it is time we launched a major effort in this area. We must go beyond primary education, on which we have made a good start through the SSA, to tackle the looming problems in secondary education and also in higher education.

adequate provision must be made by the state governments on the non-Plan side.

In addition to inadequate staffing, there is also the serious problem of the poor quality of performance of government staff reflecting lack of accountability in the system. The planned increase in expenditure will be infructuous if accountability is not improved.

Involvement by NGOs has had very positive effects in many areas on the design and implementation of government programmes especially at the local level. Innovative steps such as measuring the quality of public satisfaction with services offered in different states help to create a climate of public accountability.