This April Sarv Siksha Abhiyaan will complete its 15 years in Chandigarh as well in the whole country. SSA started in 2002-03 with the funding pattern of 75:25 in its initial stage. Current funding pattern between the Centre and the State is 65:35. Since 2003 it has been a great success as per the Sarv Siksha Abhiyaan Society, Chandigarh.
But my opinion is tilted towards the 'actual' success of SSA. I was attached to SSA when I was a science undergraduate student. As a science student I was advised not to absent from the lectures in the college, not to escape from the last door of the lecture hall or not to involve in other activities which might distract a student from the studies. But I did all these. I kept myself away from mathematics lectures which were most of times starts after 1:00 pm. I used to escape from the backdoor and flee away on my bicycle. My friends always ask why I do this on regular basis but I kept it secret.
For me, it was more important to attend the Govt. High School, Mauli Jagran, where I joined the SSA as a Volunteer-cum-Teacher in 2004. I was living in the school’s vicinity since 1992. I and the two female teachers also joined it and we were the first source of imparting benefits of the Govt. Scheme to the children between the ages of 6-14 years. Since we were part of the pilot batch we had to survey the locality to get the data of the targeted age group. We visited every door, streets, jhuggis etc. and were successful to take out around 200 children most of them are helping their family to earn the livelihood. Children were working as scavenger, to helping their parents to make Dholkis and selling it in the nearby markets. Girl child are active as a backseat mothers for their infant brothers and sisters.
After two months of diligent work we pulled them in school by assuring them better futures. Children are divided into sections, classes with respect to their educational level. Around seventy percent of the students belong to Muslim community and most of them are the students of nearby Madarsas. On contrary the parents or guardians were unpleased due to stagnation of their family income, they don’t want to send their children in school as they consider it unproductive.
This episode went on for two years, the student were attached to me just like a family. I visited their homes quite a number of time. I personally gave home tuition to many of them without fee. We are able to push some of them into the mainstream education pattern, but the number was very low, as their education standard was not compatible with their ages. Anyhow SSA was turning out to be a success. I was expelled from college due to shortage of attendance. But I have never regretted to this as somewhere in my heart I feel that I had done a better job.
Recently after 15 years I got a chance to visit the same locality, which is somehow more urbanized and cleaned as compared to the past. The big heaps of garbage are somewhat gets lowered now. The streets are wider, the number of small houses increased. Stray animals are not easily noticeable on the streets now. But what is not changed is the children searching for dumped plastic, glass bottle, polythene on the heaps of garbage. I went close to them, they saw me and some of them began to run away from me, for that moment I did not understand the reason. Two of them come to me and greeted me. I was surprised to see as they were the students of SSA when I left it.
The more heartening was the moment when I came to know about the other children who stopped attending schools and began to do what they were doing in the past. On papers SSA may be successful but I came to know about the ground realties. The enrollments are around 66810 in 2004-05. During the initial years it grows 8 percent annually. But after that the teachers or the concerned authorities failed to get hold on the enrolled children. The last household survey took place in 2006. On the other hand in the recent annual examinations 29 % Boys and 38% girls out of the total enrolled students got more than 60% marks in class V. It means 71% of Boys and 62% of Girls are below 60% marks and only god knows even if they could write their own name or not !!
The question arises from the above statistics is 'Are we heading towards making a group of ‘educated’ illiterate people?' and in the growing competitive scenario where they will stand?
As per the SSA sources the remedial teaching was undertaken by hiring the services of meritorious teachers. These tutors were supposed to teach two hours daily for at least 25 days in a month for 5 months. As they claim that their efforts improved of the performance of 58% students. But their calculations fall in red circle.
The household survey-2006 shows that 5267 children never enrolled, 1,468 dropped out and 29% of the children are between the age group of 0-14 years. I think the condition is same around more than 16 villages and town around Chandigarh. From 2002-2017 the central government spent huge money on mid day meal scheme. Now it is the duty of the people to educate their children and let them live with dignity. Also the concerned authority, should frame such policies which would be helpful to retain students till they acquires an educationally matured state. Instead of showing skills on 'papers' Government should regularly keep check on the absentees students, rather just to struck off their names after two or three months of their continuous absenteeism. Impart them the education which they were deprived off. They are the part of our nation’s strong demographic dividend.
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Vikram Dharia, Sub Editor
vikramdharia@gmail.com
Phone No. : +919416725433
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