GUWAHATI, Jan 18 ? Over 31,000 of the State?s children who have never been to schools, have been brought to the mainstream LP schools, while a new initiative to bring the rest of the out-of-school kids to the mainstream schools is slated to start from February 10 next. A Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) survey has put the number of the State?s out-of-school children, between six and fourteen years of age, to be around 14.5 lakh.
According to SSA sources, the children already enrolled in the LP schools were provided with a brief course of training under the bridge course of the District Primary Education Programme (DPEP), between June 27 and August 15, 2002. The DPEP in the State had covered the nine districts of Darrang, Sonitpur, Karbi Anglong, Marigaon, Goalpara, Dhubri, Kokrajhar, Bongaigaon and Barpeta. The children thus trained were admitted to class I, II and III depending on their merit. Respective District Elementary Education Officers (DEEO) and Block Elementary Education Officers (BEEO) have been monitoring the progress of these children with the help of the Panchayat-level and village-level Education Committees and also the School Management committees, said the sources.
A bridge course is a brief course of study imparted to out-of-school children within a short span of time, so as to bring these children at par with their peers undergoing formal education. In Assam, a 45-day package was developed, in which teaching was done through various activities and games, the sources said. The bridge course was so planned that they could meet the needs of the most needy areas like the char (riverine) areas, tea gardens and those habitations that did not have schools nearby. Villages with at least 20 out-of-school children in the five to seven years age group were selected for setting up bridge course centres. The guidelines for the bridge course implementation had made community management of the programme and its follow up, obligatory. Besides, the guidelines also called for steps to make Village Education Committees (VECs) responsible for the functioning of the programme and the head teachers ? for the overall supervision of it, among others, keeping the financial responsibility aside for the DPEP.
The DPEP model will be followed by the SSA while implementing its bridge course programme. The SSA survey done to assess the status of the children in the State provided the SSA mission with the required information for evolving its strategy. This has also helped the mission in preparing a perspective plan upto 2010 for implementation of its programmes towards the goal of Universal Elementary Education (UEE) in tandem with the community. The Union Government has already approved the State?s SSA plan. The plan is worth Rs 202.63 crore. The plan also envisages construction of new school buildings and repair of the existing ones with provisions of toilet and drinking water facilities. Of the total 37,430 schools in the State, 475 have no building, 23,685 are without toilet, while 2,921 of them have toilets but these are non-functional.
In the State, there are 12,259 schools, which do not have drinking water facilities. Tube well is the source of drinking water for 17,375 of the State?s schools, while 3,216 schools depend on ring wells and 3,071 on the water supplied by Government and autonomous bodies and others to get their required amount of water. Under the DPEP, which ended last year in the State, altogether 754 additional class rooms or cluster resource centres were constructed, 1,803 school buildings were repaired, six school buildings and hostels were built, 1,367 toilets were constructed and drinking water facilities were provided to 1,107 schools, the SSA sources said.
Similar construction activities under the SSA will start from February next to provide infrastructural support to State?s elementary education. But, the sources said, what is of utmost importance is the participation of the community in implementing the programmes. ?Only if the parents are motivated and have a sense of ownership towards the schools would they send their children to schools. A motivated community would be genuinely involved in the functioning of the school and would also contribute through various means.
?Such an aware and highly motivated community would help in the monitoring of the school functioning and ensure enrollment and regular attendance of their children?, the sources said, adding, the Abhiyan is to provide useful and relevant elementary education for all children in the six to fourteen years age group, by 2010. Its goal is also to bridge social, regional and gender gaps, said the sources. Besides the School Management Committees and Village and Panchayat-level Education Committees, formed to ensure community participation, self-help groups (SHGs) are also organised through the State Institute for Rural Development (SIRD) all over the State with the same purpose. SSA mission does not have the provision to fund the SHGs. Educational inputs are provided to SIRD by the SSA mission for the purpose of training the SHGs.
Under the SSA mission, all the directorates of Elementary Education, State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) and the directorate of Secondary Education are now operating for Universal Elementary Education. The Directors of Elementary Education and SCERT are designated as Associate Mission Directors for the purpose of implementation of the SSA mission, the sources said.