School Education

• 27% disabled never able to go school UNESCO State of education report for india children with disability  
• Kerala and Rajasthan- States with the best quality of school educa­tion in the country, with scores of 76.6% and 72.9% respectively, in the NITI Aayog’s School Education Quality Index. Haryana, Odisha, and Assam are the big states that have improved the most whereas Karnataka and Uttarakhand saw the biggest drop. Among smaller states- Meghalaya, Nagaland and Goa improved considerably while Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram have shown a drop. Among UTs- Delhi, along with Chandigarh, has retained its overall performance.
• government expenditure on education is less than 3% of the GDP and the pupil-teacher ratio for elementary school stands at 24:1, lower than that of comparable countries such as Brazil and China.
• Lifelong education is based on four pillars learning to know, Learning to do, learning to live together, learning to be

Govt measures

• sarva shiksha Abhiyaan to achieve total literacy has resulted in better targeted outcomes
• Right to education act 2009 helped in reducing primary level dropout rate where India has almost achieved universal education level at primary level
• Ministry of skill development programs to improve the deprived sections like Deendayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana skill development along with placement opportunities for rural youth.
• upgrading skill And training for traditional art and craft development USTAD minority community training them to be part of market system
• Nai Roshni Nai Manzil to absorb dropouts into mainstream education
• stress on qualitative improvement than quantitative approach providing better infrastructure and having a dedicated cadre to teachers through a national education program
• NISHTHA – National Initiative for School Heads’ and Teachers’ Holistic Advancement National Mission to improve learning outcomes at the elementary level through an Integrated Teacher Training Programme
• Pradhan Mantri Innovative Learning Programme- DHRUV’ explore the talent of outshining and meritorious students, and help them achieve excellence
• Shagun’ Portal to improve school education system junction for all online portals and websites relating to various activities of the Department of School Education and Literacy
• Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing (DIKSHA) 2.0 portal for providing digital platform to teachers giving them an opportunity to learn and train themselves and connect with teacher community.
• Performance Grading Index (PGI) To evaluate the performance of the school education system in the States/UTs, MHRD has designed a 70 indicators based matrix to grade the States and UTs.
• Operation Digital Board (ODB) to provide by March 2023, two smart classrooms for every Secondary/Senior Secondary schools  in Government and Aided schools in all States/UTs
• Mid-Day Meal (MDM) school children studying in Classes I-VIII of Government, Government-Aided, Special Training Centres including Madarsas and Maqtabs supported under Samagra Shiksha.

Pratham’s ASER Report 2019 Measures suggested:

• Focus on cognitive skills rather than subject learning in the early years
• focussing on play-based activities that build memory, reasoning and problem-solving abilities
• quality of early childhood education has a crucial impact on the development and long-term schooling of a child.
• curriculum progression across grades and schooling stages to keep ground realities in mind.
• Expand and strengthen the existing network of anganwadi centres
• Parents exhibit a Unique Bias: prefer private schools for education of boys while girl students are primarily sent to government schools

Delhi Model on Education

• 1st step is transformation of school infrastructure.
• 2nd - train­ing of teachers and principals.
• 3rd - en­gaging with the community by reconsti­tuting school management committees (SMC).
• 4th - major curricu­lar reforms in teaching learning.
• 5th - no fee increase in private schools.
• Agenda 2.0 Going forward, there will be three key areas of reform apart from consolidating the gains of the past
• syllabus of Classes 1 to 8 will be reviewed to emphasise foun­dational learning skills, the ‘happiness curriculum’ and the ‘deshbhakti’ curri­culum.
• Delhi Education Board will be set up to promote learning that en­courages critical thinking, problem solving and application of knowledge among children.
• specialised schools will be created in each of the 29 zones of Delhi to nurture the aptitude and talent of children

Niti aayog strategy @75

Objective

• Hundred per cent enrolment and retention at elementary education and secondary education levels.
• Equitable participation by all society segments, in terms of attendance, retention and years of schooling to ensure maximum social inclusion.
• Creating a robust framework for tracking individual students across their schooling years that incorporates data on their learning outcomes.

Constraints

• Disproportionate focus on school infrastructure as opposed to learning outcomes.
• Challenges in governance and monitoring mechanisms for learning outcomes.
• Accountability systems in government schools.
• Inadequate teacher training, large number of teaching vacancies and rampant absenteeism.
• Limited options for vocational education in the school system.

Way Forward

• Government spending on education as a whole should increase to at least 6 per cent of GDP by 2022 which stands at 3 % and according to World Bank world’s average is 4.7%.
• Robust mechanisms to enforce regulations on teacher qualifications, teacher absenteeism and learning outcomes.
• electronic national educational registry for tracking each child’s learning outcomes based on CCE and final exams through a unique ID.
• Improving the quality of teaching
• Life skills, including coping with failure/crises and stress management, should be included as part of the school curriculum.