shows improvement
New Delhi, Jan 5 (UNI) Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia today hinted at a substantial hike in fund allocation for the education sector in the Eleventh Plan (2007-11) and accepted that there were differences among states on the Commission's proposal to make the funding pattern of Sarva Siksha Abhyan to 50:50 (State: Centre) instead of the present formula of 75:25.
"The Kothari Committee, some decades ago, had recommended that allocation for the education sector be hiked to 6 per cent of the GDP. The target of the UPA government in this regard is also the same. The present allocation for education is four per cent.
This will be substantially stepped up in the next Plan," Dr Ahluwalia told newspersons after releasing a report.
The report entitled "Annual Status of Education Report (Rural) 2006' (ASER) has been brought out by 'Pratham', an NGO dedicated to putting every child in school.
Also present on the occasion were Secretary, School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Human Resource Development, and UNICEF Representative Elmar Barr.
Dr Ahluwalia said the Commission had proposed that the funding pattern of Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) be changed from 75:25 to 50:50. "It is natural that some States will support this while others will oppose," Dr Ahluwalia said.
He said after the imposition of the two per cent education cess, funding for this sector has gone up substantially.
The SSA is geared to improving the quality and quantity of elementary education. It is the principal programme of the government for universalitsation of elementary education.
SSA aims to provide useful and relevant elementary education for all children in the 6-14 age-groups by 2010. The other objective is to bridge social, regional, and gender gaps with an active participation of the community in the management of schools.
Dr Ahluwalia said it was necessary to improve the quality of education as well as to ensure that all children go to school. This would entail a major effort at training of teachers.
The Plan Panel Deputy Chief said the emphasis in the government has shifted to more intensive monitoring of the programmes and with this in view the 'Outcome Budget' was introduced.
Earlier, releasing the report, Dr Ahlulwalia said the co-relation between the states doing well and enrolment in schools was weak. In other words, it was not necessary that the states which were doing well were also those which had high enrollment.
He asked Pratham to study why this was so and incorporate the reasons in their next year's report.
Dr Ahluwalia said the government will continue to play a major role in the provision of services relating to education and health, even though private initiatives were welcome.
The report highlights that there is no discernable change in enrollment levels since ASER 2005. Some states like Rajasthan and Bihar have been found to have significant high percentage of out of school girls in the age group 11 to 14. There are encouraging signs in Standard -11, where the proportion of children who can at least read alphabets and numbers has increased significantly.
The survey does not observe any significant change in the percentage of children who can read in Standard III and IV although an improvement in math learning in this group has been recorded.
States such as Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab and Harayana have shown significant progress in the area of learning achievement in Standard I and II. Among these Madhya Pradesh has come up with the most remarkable achievement by climbing from the list of bottom five to the top five, behind only Kerala and West Bengal, in reading and arithmetic.
UNI