Enlightening Young Minds

ENHANCING THE QUALITY OF

PRIMARY EDUCATION

PRESENTED BY:

Team Name- Ignatius College- Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology, Bhubaneswar.

“Let us change the world, let us enhance the grass root “

WHAT COMPELLED US TO THINK…..

The present educational system of India is an implantation of British rulers.

Wood's Dispatch of 1854 laid the foundation of present system of education in

India. With the introduction of Wood's Dispatch known as Magna Carta of Indian

education, the whole scenario changed. The main purpose of it was to prepare

Indian Clerks for running local administration.

Education quality has received a great deal of attention in recent years. The

agreement is that quality needs to be improved, very little consensus on what

improved quality really means in India.

Yet, the country ranked 63 out of 64 in the latest Program for International Student

Assessment (PISA) study, with some of its best schools ranked about the average

among those surveyed.

“Primary education is the foundation on which the development of every citizen

and the nation as a whole is built on.”

PRESENT STATUS AT PRIMARY LEVEL:

Boys Girls

0 50 100 150

2008-09

2009-10

2010-11

Retention Rate

Net Enrolment Ratio

Source: The National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA)

Enrolment Ratio vs. Retention Rate: Drop-out Ratio:

25

30

35

40

Student-Teacher Ratio

0

1

2

3

4

Average no. of classrooms

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

20

05

-06

20

06

-07

20

07

-08

20

08

-09

20

09

-10

20

10

-11

20

11

-12

Government-

managed

Private-

managed

Source: FLASH-2012, DISE Report

BARRIERS TO PRIMARY EDUCATION:

Government concerns:

Poor Infrastructure

Inadequate Teacher Qualification

and Support

Low Teacher Motivation and

High Absenteeism

Linguistic Diversity

Unavailability of proper

amenities

Poor student-teacher ratio

Inadequate number of classes in

schools

Absence of quality and

experienced teachers

Time devoted by teacher on non-

educational activities

Poor quality of mid-day meals

served

Social concerns:

Improper facilities in urban and

rural area

Poverty

Caste and gender bias

Lack of awareness among parents

Poor or lack of quality education

Hidden cost of schooling

Primary education concern mainly comes under two broad categories:-

{All the above factor leads to the increase in the drop-out ratio in

primary education.}

Some facts which need to be looked upon…

Gap between teacher competence and curricular demand.

Lack of a proper language strategy.

Lack of communication between the teacher and the children

due to difference in the home language and the school language of the child is

a major factor in drop out and stagnation.

Irrelevance of education to the needs of the learner.

Teachers universally blame the syllabus for denying them the flexibility to be

creative and involve students. This argument can be diluted by the fact that the

system offers teachers sufficient freedom to interpret the syllabus accordingly.

Parents hesitate to send their daughters to schools far away from home due to

security reasons.

Increase in dropout ratio.

Goldman Sachs counts

THE LACK OF QUALITY EDUCATION

as one of the 10 factors holding India back

from rapid economic growth that can push

the nearly 300 million poor out of poverty.

Solutions to the hindrance: Build Teacher Collaboration and Professional Communities - strong

professional communities that strive to help students succeed and teachers

collaboration where teachers are constantly collaborating, or working together,

to plan their lessons and discuss student needs.

Increasing appointment and training of teachers

Reconstructing of teacher training curriculum as well as the training

methodologies.

It must also need to have a separate body of highly educated persons

which will conduct free test and interview at a national level to appoint

trained and well qualified teachers

Improvement in elementary education content and techniques.

Good assessment techniques.

It will provide accurate estimates of student performance and enables

teachers and decision makers to take appropriate decisions.

Teachers must understand that they are ‘teaching for the cause’ and not

for profit.

Provision of teaching materials.

Improvement in infrastructure.

Awareness campaign by NGOs, NSS, government, panchayats and students

should be organized to teach the value of education to the parents. .

Compulsory internship (to teach the children at primary level) for

meritorious students should be included in the curriculum.

NGOs like (ASHAs) should be indulged to take care of the quality of food

provided as mid-day meals in schools.

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SOLUTIONS:

Government must build a separate Body or council with a few heads and numerous

numbers of employees which will strive hard to implement the laws in the country.

(Example: as HRD Ministry has set up National Advisory Council).

The rural people should be made aware of the several funds offered by the

government, which can be used to educate their children for a better future ahead. Thus

their education-related financial problems can be solved.

All duties and responsibilities should be shared between the central government,

state government and the government established organization.

Both governmental and non-governmental bodies must check that every child between

the age group of 6-14, gets an admission to the neighborhood school according to their

age group class. These bodies:

Must stop any form of child labour which exploits their life.

The bodies also need to maintain pupil-teacher ratio to around 30:1, as per norms.

But we would suggest that pupil-teacher ratio must be varying according to class. For

primary classes it should be near 30:1, for secondary classes 45:1.

It must decide the working hours, no. of working days and duties of teachers

and also provides for prohibition of deployment of teachers for non educational

works, other than decennial census, election and disaster relief.

Must keep their eyes wide open so as to prevent any

kind of physical punishment or harassment in class.

Must ensure that other students of the class, those who are regular to schools,

should treat these children as their friend; there must not be any kind of

untouchability or hatred among them.

Must conduct meetings among themselves every week at constituency level, and

must have a district level meeting with the head authorities per month. So that all

must be informed about the progress.

Scholarships must be awarded to meritorious students of economically weaker

sections to arrest their drop-out rates and encourage them to continue their

secondary education up to class XII.

Apart from these, both state and central government

also need to perform a few duties.

So that this act would acts as a ‘Silver Lining’

in the life of out-of-school children.

FUTURE IMPLICATIONS

Drop-out rate in elementary and higher education decrease will result in an increase

in the productive way for the progress of our country.

This would also lead to an increase in the literacy rate in our country.

Enlightening the young minds would bridge the gap between primary and secondary

education.

Enhancing the quality of primary education will give India, a leader who has the

vision of making country developed from developing.

CONCLUSION

Education in India has improved dramatically over the last

three decades. The RTE Act guarantees a quality education to

a wider range of students than ever before.

However, challenges in implementing and monitoring high standards in teaching and learning outcomes across regional, cultural and socioeconomic subsets prevent India from fully achieving this goal.

Teacher support and scalability of high-performing teaching professionals in disparate areas, funding allocation for schools in remote districts and limited use of technology in the classroom remain barriers to reforming primary education.

A weak foundation in primary education can derail the lives, careers and productivity of tens of millions of its citizens. Already, a significant proportion of the adult workforce in India is severely under-equipped to perform skilled and semi-skilled jobs.

Furthermore, in order to develop India as a consumer market of global standards, it is imperative that all of its children reap the full benefits of a high-quality education. And thus we have come up with these solutions so that every child of the nation could make his/her life better. These solutions would improve the basic of primary level of education in our country and make our nation a well developed one.

Infrastructure: S&T Education", Science and Technology in India edited by R.K.

Suri and Kalapana Rajaram (2008).

UNICEF

Prabhu, Joseph (2006), "Educational Institutions and Philosophies, Traditional

and Modern“

Primary school. In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved on 12 June 2007, from

Encyclopædia Britannica Online

DISE primary education report and FLASH 2011- 2012

India 2013 : A Reference Annual by Ministry of Information & Broadcasting

India 2009: A Reference Annual (53rd edition)

THANK

YOU!