The Hindu : Concern over reaching out to massive sections

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 14, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu

Concern over reaching out to massive sections

By K. Ramachandran

CHENNAI May 13 . Tamil Nadu's educational administrators are happy that the Union Human Resource Development Ministry has approved a sanction of Rs. 340 crores to the State for 2003-04, under for the `Education for All'- EfA (Sarva Siksha Abhiyan).

But, they are concerned at reaching out to 4.66 lakh children, who, by official figures, are yet to be brought under the scheme. The concern in the non-governmental sector is even more serious, as its estimate of children out of school is much higher.

In the last two financial years, the State spent over Rs. 184 crores to build up infrastructure for meeting the rising demand for primary education. Thousands of teachers were appointed, 385 block resource centres — focal point of activity for improving teacher capability — created, equipment and building provided, training programmes initiated and dozens of non-governmental organisations and agencies involved.

All this to meet the EfA objective of enrolling all children of school-going age in primary sections. The scheme envisages that all enrolled children complete five years of school in the first phase and complete eight years of good quality elementary education by 2010; bridging gender and all other disparities at the primary and elementary stage and finally eradication of dropout by 2010.

At a project board meeting held in Delhi last week, Tamil Nadu's educational managers made a presentation of their `achievements' in the past two years and how it had made "substantial progress" in building up infrastructure, in recruiting and training teachers and resource persons, preparing modules for training programmes and carrying on awareness campaigns for enrolling all children.

The State officers presented some of the important activities proposed for implementation in 2003-04 including construction of 372 new primary schools and recruitment of 744 teachers there, starting of 422 middle schools and provision of one teacher for each of them, building of over 1,800 classrooms in existing schools and improvement of water and sanitation facilities there, and training of 2.07 lakh teachers and block and city level resource centre members.

Members of village education committees (VECs) which oversee the implementation of the scheme at the panchayat level are also being trained, say administrators. They note that the VECs demonstrate the avowed aim of "people's involvement" in the campaign. The panels, headed by panchayat presidents, have contributed more than Rs. 1.50 crores, in the form of labour or material to local schools. "The HRD officials appreciated Tamil Nadu's progress and offered to sanction the entire Rs. 340 crores we sought for the year," said a senior department official.

However, the programme managers are now focussing on over 5.7 lakh children, who, in a household survey conducted last year, were seen as "the unreached sections". These include child labourers (a major chunk), children of migrant labourers and children in remote hilly and tribal areas. The enrolment campaign has so far brought into under EfA campaign only about 1.2 lakh children. "We need to evolve better methods to get at the other 4.66 lakh children," concede officials.

But NGOs such as the TANPIC and the HRF estimate the number of children out of school at over 35 lakhs, going by figures given by the Department of Non-Formal Education. A good percentage of these are child labourers, spread across the organised as well as the semi-organised and fully unorganised sectors such as farming and construction.

They demand a more significant role for the non-governmental players to meet the ends of EfA. They also want the organisation structure for implementing the EfA project strengthened.

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