Primary education under hard assesment before 11th Plan :Arjun

New Delhi, July 17 (UNI) The working of the primary education system is under hard assessment and measures would follow soon to improve it, Union Minister for Human Resource Development Arjun Singh has indicated.

''Time has come to make a hard assessment of the Primary Education in India,'' he said responding to the suggestions offered by Members of the Consultative Committee for the Ministry.

The Minister said a pragmatic plan should be ready to be incorporated in the 11th Plan.

''This is the last year when we can do something about it. We should take proper stock of things as we still have four to five months to go before the 11th Plan is operationalised,' Mr Singh said. Earlier in a power point presentation before the members, the Ministry informed that the number of drop-out rate of primary school children in the age group 6-11 years had decreased from 39 per cent (2001) to 29 per cent (2004) that is by 11 per cent points.

The girls enrollment had increased from 43.7 per cent (2001) to 46.7 per cent (2004) in the age group 6-11 at primary level, and gender gap reduced from 19 to 6 per cent point in the same period.

The Ministry said the pupil teacher ratio had improved to 1:41 (2005) at primary level, and many States were in the process of recruiting teachers against the sanctioned posts.

The Mid-day Meal programme reaches out to 10 crore children at the primary stage. The Committee was informed that as per the revised scheme (2006), the cooking cost has been enhanced to Rs two per child per school day.

In the case of NER States, Central assistance is provided at Rs 1.8 per child per school day, while for non NER States, Central assistance of Rs 1.50 per child is provided.

Special attention was being paid to safety specifications, cleanliness and hygiene. The Ministry has also provided funds for construction of 2.21 lakh kitchen sheds as well as procurement of kitchen devices for 5.20 lakh schools.

The Ministry has prescribed a comprehensive and elaborate mechanism for monitoring and supervision of the Mid-day Meal scheme, which includes suo moto declaration of information under the Right to Information Act.

The Members were also informed that with the imposition of education cess, resources for elementary education have been significantly augmented.

This has resulted in better funding of the two flagship programmes viz SSA and MDM scheme with the objective of attaining the goal of Universal Elementary Education (UEE).

In 2006-07 the proceeds of education cess were released to various States and Union Territories as follows: SSA (Rs 5830.67 crore) and Mid-day Meal (Rs 2911 crore).

The meeting was attended by MPs Dr Harisinh Chavda, Dr Chinta Mohan, Kumari Bhavana P Gawali, Asaduddin Owaisi and Mr Ramesh Dube from Lok Sabha and Raashid Alvi, Krishna Lal Balmiki and Dr Ram Prakash from Rajya Sabha.

UNI