Why Education is important ?

• Education is the most important tool for social, economic and political transformation and a key instrument for building equitable society.
• A well educated population, equipped with the relevant knowledge, attitudes and skills is essential for economic and social development in the 21st century.
• This holds true especially in India which has the world's highest number of 10 to 24 year olds and who lay the foundation of the country's future.

How India is committed to elementary education ?

• With the formulation of National policy on Education 1986 , India initiated a wide range of programmes for achieving the goal of Universalisation of Elementary Education (UEE).
• These efforts were intensified in the 1980s and 1990s through schematic and program interventions like Operation Black Board, etc.,.
• And then Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, the flagship scheme in partnership with the state governments for UEE across the country was launched.
• This was further strengthened with the passage of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 which gave an legal mandate to provide free and compulsory elementary education to every child in the age group of 6 to 14 years.

What is the progress achieved at elementary level ?

• Today SSA has covered 19.67 crore children enrolled in 14.6 lakh elementary schools.
• The spread of SSA is mainly in rural areas as these areas account for 85.4 % of all elementary schools and 74.5 % of total enrollment in the elementary level.
• As per UDISE, Gross Enrollment Ratio is 99.21 % for primary and 92.81 % for upper primary which indicates near universal enrollment at the primary level.
• The Pupil Teacher ratio is improved from 32 in 2009 to 25 in 2016.
• The average dropout rate has come down from 6.76 % in 2009 to 4.16 % in 2016.
• The Gender Parity Index which indicates the gender balance in the total enrollment in schools at elementary level has reached 0.93 for primary level and 0.95 at upper primary level.

What are the recent initiatives ?

• Introduction of four year B.Ed. integrated programme with multiple pathways- with specialization for pre-primary, elementary, secondary and senior secondary teachers for enabling regulatory framework and orientation of all existing Teacher Education Institutions will be introduced from the academic session 2019-2020.
• DIKSHA (Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing) will accelerate and amplify solutions, experiments and innovations that are underway, and is being attempted in the areas of teacher training and professional development.
• In another landmark achievement, the Amendment to the Section 23(2) of the RTE Act to extend the period for training of untrained in-service elementary teachers to 31st March, 2019 has been passed by both the houses of Parliament on 1st August, 2017.
• Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan has initiated a pilot project for connecting students and their teachers through tablets preloaded with relevant e content to facilitate easy classroom transaction, creation of genuine interest among students and effective learning of the students.
• The SHAGUN portal was launched in January 2017 to enable real time monitoring of the SSA components and various decisions on elementary education taken based on the feedbacks obtained in the portal.
• Swachh Vidyalaya Puraskar was launched to recognize, inspire and celebrate excellence in sanitation & hygiene practice in Government Schools in the areas of water, sanitation, hand washing with soap, operations and maintenance, behavior change and capacity building.
• Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) is establishing the National Digital Library (NDL) under the National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT) with the objective to host a national repository of existing e-content available across educational institutions in the country.
• “Swasth Bachche Swasth Bharat” programme was launched to measure various components of physical fitness of all the students in the age group of 5 to 8 years and 9 to 19 Years.