One of the biggest government sponsored education programmes of the world ? Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) of the Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry ? is expected to get bigger from the next financial year.
One of the biggest government sponsored education programmes of the world — Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) of the Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry — is expected to get bigger from the next financial year.
While the Planning Commission is expected add over Rs 5,000 crore more in the existing Rs 15,000 crore scheme from the next financial year, the HRD ministry has decided to incorporate all teacher-training programmes under SSA.
“The idea is to further improve quality of education in government schools. Under SSA, district committees would monitor teacher training programmes like any other scheme under the Abhiyan,” a senior ministry official said, adding the budget for the scheme is expected to be increased to over Rs 30,000 crore by the year 2010.
Despite huge funds provided by the ministry to district teacher-training centers, also called DIET, for training of primary and upper primary level teachers, the results have not been of the desired levels.
“Still absenteeism of teachers and drop out rate of students in government schools is very high. It is indicative of quality of education being delivered. Bringing teachers’ training under SSA will improve monitoring of the training programmes and the results achieved,” a senior official explained.
The need for including teacher training in SSA is also felt as in the 11th five-year plan the scheme is likely to expanded to include secondary level schools — an additional expenditure of Rs 3,000 crores.
The ministry plans to open new schools in un-served areas, provide flexible schooling to elder children who have never enrolled in school and children in difficult circumstances. “The rigorous monitoring will then include the teachers’ performance also,” an official said. That’s not all. Another success story of the HRD ministry, mid-day meal scheme appears to be on its way for inclusion in SSA from the 11th plan.
A strong voice is being raised in the ministry to include the scheme in SSA for deriving better results. “Both the schemes work on a similar platform on the village level. Merger of the schemes will bring financial prudence and improve quality of service,” a ministry official said. HRD minister Arjun Singh however, has some other ideas.
He wants to transfer the mid-day meal scheme to the Rural Development Ministry and emphasised this in a letter to the Planning Commission recently. “I don’t know where this proposal has come from. We want the scheme to remain in the ministry and most likely under SSA,” an official said.
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.
