SARVA SHiKSHA ABHIYAN PROGRAMME (SSA)

 SARVA SHKSHA ABHIYAN PROGRAMME (SSA)

 Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) is the government’s flagship programme to provide universal access to elementary education for children 6- 14 years age. The scheme aims at improving enrolment, retention, and the quality of education to enable children to achieve grade appropriate levels of learning. It also aims to bridge gender differences and gaps between different social categories. SSA was initiated in 2001 following recommendations from the state education ministers’ conference in 1998.

Essential Features of SSA 
 • It is a programme with a clear time frame for achieving the aims and objectives of universalization of elementary education 
• It is a response of the demand for quality basic education all over the country.
• It is an opportunity for promoting social justice through basic education.
• It is an effort to actively involve Panchayati Raj Institutions, School Management Committees, village Education Committees, Village Education Committees, Parent-teachers associations and local level people in the education of children.
• It is an expression of the political will for universal Elementary Education across the country.
• It involves autonomous councils and other grass root level structures in the management of elementary education.
• It welcomes a partnership between centre, states and the local governments. 
• It is an opportunity for states to develop their own vision of elementary education .
• It is also an opportunity for Public Private Partnership(PPP) in its implementation strategies.
• The SSA programme is also an attempt to provide an opportunity for improving human capabilities in all children through the provision of community owned quality education in a mission mode.
 
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE SSA
Aim of SSA 
l The SarvaShikshaAbhiyan is to provide useful and relevant elementary education for all children in the 6 to 14 age group by 2010. 
l To bridge social, regional and gender gaps, with the active participation of the community in the management of schools.
l  Its aim is to allow children to learn about and master their natural environment in a manner that allows the fullest harnessing of their human potential both spiritually and materially. 
l  Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan realizes the importance of Early Childhood Care and Education and looks at the 0-14 age as a continuum.
 
Objectives of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan 

 • To ensure that all children are in school, Education Guarantee Centre, Alternate School, ‘ Back-to-School’ camp by 2003;(This was later revised to 2005)
• To ensure that all children complete five years of primary schooling by 2007 
• To ensure that all children complete eight years of elementary schooling by 2010
• To focus on elementary education of satisfactory quality with emphasis on education for life
• To bridge all gender and social category gaps at primary stage by 2007 and at elementary education level by 2010
• To ensure Universal retention by 2010
• To allow states to formulate context specific guidelines within the overall framework
• To encourage districts in States and UTs to reflect local specificity
• To promote local need based planning based on broad National Policy norms
• To make planning a realistic exercise by adopting broad national norms.

 
STRATEGIES OF THE SSA PROGRAMME:

• Institutional Reforms - As part of the SSA, the central and the State governments will undertake reforms in order to improve efficiency of the  prevalent education system.

• Sustainable Financing - The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan is based on the premise that financing of elementary education interventions has to be sustainable. This calls for a long -term perspective on financial partnership between the Central and the State governments. 

• Community Ownership - The programme calls for community ownership of school-based interventions through effective decentralisation. This will be augmented by involvement of women’s groups, VEC members and members of Panchayati Raj institutions.

• Institutional Capacity Building -The SSA conceives a major capacity building role for national, state and district level institutions like NIEPA / NCERT / NCTE / SCERT / SIEMAT / DIET.

• Improvement in quality requires a sustainable support system of resource persons and institutions.

• Improving Mainstream Educational Administration - It calls for improvement of mainstream educational administration by institutional development, infusion of new approaches and by adoption of cost effective and efficient methods.

• Community Based Monitoring with Full Transparency - The Programme will have a community based monitoring system. The Educational Management Information System (EMIS) will correlate school level data with community-based information from micro planning and surveys. Besides this, every school will be encouraged to share all information with the community, including grants received.

 • Habitation as a Unit of Planning - The SSA works on a community based approach to planning with habitation as a unit of planning. Habitation plans will be the basis for formulating district plans.

• Accountability to Community - SSA envisages cooperation between teachers, parents and PRIs, as well as accountability and transparency to the community.

• Priority to Education of Girls - Education of girls, especially those belonging to the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes and minorities, will be one of the principal concerns in Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.

• Focus on Special Groups - There will be a focus on the inclusion and participation of children from SC/ST, minority groups, urban deprived children disadvantaged groups and the children with special needs, in the educational process.

• Thrust on Quality - SSA lays a special thrust on making education at the elementary level useful and relevant for children by improving the curriculum, child-centered activities and effective teaching learning strategies.

• Role of teachers - SSA recognizes the critical and central role of teachers and advocates a focus on their development needs. Setting up of Block Resource Centres/Cluster Resource Centres, recruitment of qualified teachers, opportunities for teacher development through participation in curriculum-related material development and exposure visits for teachers are all designed to develop the human resource among teachers.

• District Elementary Education Plans - As per the SSA framework, each district will prepare a District Elementary Education Plan reflecting all the investments being made and required in the elementary education sector.
 
Facilities in SSA 
l AIE - Alternative and innovative education (AIE) is one of the major interventions of SSA to provide access for all children to primary education. Various strategies has been developed for ensuring participation of children of marginalized and deprived groups in tribal and coastal areas.

l Infrastructure- Provision of school infrastructure helps in providing access to children, and also helps in their retention, both of which are important objectives of the SSA. Provision of infrastructure for Resources Centers at sub-district levels helps in creating academic support.

l Innovative activities: The innovative programmes implemented in schools are acting as a catalyst in the process of achieving useful and relevant elementary education for all children in the 6-14 age groups and to bridge social, regional and gender gaps in the active participation of the community.  The schemes implemented under Innovative Schemes are: Early Childhood Care and Education, Girls Education, SC/ST Education and Computer Education

l R&E (Research and Evaluation): This intervention consists of research, evaluation, supervision and monitoring. There are provisions for regular school mapping/micro planning for updating of household data. The funds can be utilized for both government and government aided schools. Following activities are proposed under the intervention.
• Creating a pool of resource persons for effective field based monitoring
• Providing regular generation of community based data
• Conducting achievement test, evaluation studies
• Undertaking research activities
• Setting up special task force for low female literacy districts and for special monitoring of girls, SC, ST etc.
 • Incurring expenditure on Education Management Information System
• Undertaking contingent expenditure like charts, posters, sketch pen, OHP pen etc. for visual monitoring systems
• Conduct cohort studies

l School grant: School grant at Rs.2,000 each was given to schools under the project. Out of the school grant Rs.1000 was given for improvement of school library facilities. The rest money is utilized towards making the non functional equipment functional, school beautification, repair and maintenance of furniture, musical instruments and over all environment development of schools.

l Teacher grant: In order to improve the classroom transactions and preparation of teaching aids grant Rs.500 is given to each teacher. The teachers utilized the grant to produce and procure Teacher Learning Material (TLM) for effective classroom transactions.

l  Teacher training: Imparting quality education to all children is the most important goal of SSA.  One of the major initiatives of SSA is continuous teacher training on content up-gradation pedagogy and contextual issues. The main objectives of the in-service training of teachers is to develop competency in them so that they are able to facilitate child learning. There is a provision to thoroughly train master trainers orient them to the different issues and concerns of UEE, who will in turn train his teachers and other functionaries.  Important strategies are as follows:
• Training and retraining of teachers • Familiarization training on new curriculum and text books • Familiarization training on National Curriculum Frame Work (NCF 2005) • Examination reforms • Training on grading system and assessment and the impact of grading system • Scholastic and non-Scholastic areas improvement • Training of teachers on Inclusive Education for children with special needs • Planning and implementation of quality education measures • Resource groups are strengthened at all levels (separate resource groups for each subjects) 300-350 Resource Person per district) Follow up activities, on-site support and review meetings are ensured. DIETs identified training needs - hard spots and develop training modules for teachers. This process helped to improve the quality of training.

l Distance education: The Distance Education Programme (DEP) is a national component of SSA, sponsored by Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. The responsibilities to implement DEP activities is entrusted to Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) in collaboration with all States/ Union Territories of India. The DEP-SSA plays an important role in empowering teachers and other personnel associated with elementary education. It supplements the face-to-face training by using multi-media packages like self- learning materials, audio-video programmes, radio broadcast, teleconferencing, etc