Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) is Government of India's flagship programme for achievement of Universalization of Elementary Education (UEE) in a time bound manner, as mandated by 86th amendment to the Constitution of India making free and compulsory Education to the Children of 6-14 years age group, a Fundamental Right.

 

Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) is Government of India's flagship programme for achievement of Universalization of Elementary Education (UEE) in a time bound manner, as mandated by 86th amendment to the Constitution of India making free and compulsory Education to the Children of 6-14 years age group, a Fundamental Right. Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Government of India (GoI) anchors the SSA Programme. The SSA has been operational since 2000-2001. With passage of the Right to Education (RTE) Act, 20091 changes are incorporated into SSA approach, strategy and also norms.

SSA is being implemented by the Central and State Governments funding and cover the entire country. Currently, through SSA around 192 million children of 1.1 million habitations are served. People participation is the base for success of SSA. The community participation & monitoring are encouraged by the scheme at each stage of implementation of the programme.

 

Category	Scheme
Title	Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Scheme
Subjcet	To provide useful and relevant, elementary education to all children in the 6 to 14 age group by 2010
Name of the Scheme	Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan
Location	All over India
Date of Launched	2001-2002
Official website	www.ssa.nic.in

 

WHAT IS SARVA SHIKSHA ABHIYAN?

a A programme with a clear time frame for universal elementary education.

b. A response to the demand for quality basic education all over the country.

c. An opportunity for promoting social justice through basic education.

d. An effort at effectively involving the Panchayati Raj Institutions, School Management Committees, Village and Urban Slum level Education Committees, Parents' Teachers' Associations, Mother Teacher Associations, Tribal Autonomous Councils and other grass root level structures in the management of elementary schools.

e. An expression of political will for universal elementary education across the country.

 f. A partnership between the Central, State and the local government.

g. An opportunity for States to develop their own vision of elementary education

 

 AIMS OF SARVA SHIKSHA ABHIYAN

 The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan is to provide useful and relevant elementary education for all children in the 6 to 14 age group by 2010. There is also another goal to bridge social, regional and gender gaps, with the active participation of the community in the management of schools.

Useful and relevant education signifies a quest for an education system that is not alienating and that draws on community solidarity. 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. This quest must also be a process of value based learning that allows children an opportunity to work for each other's well being rather than to permit mere selfish pursuits.

 Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan realizes the importance of Early Childhood Care and Education and looks at the 0-14 age as a continuum. All efforts to support pre-school learning in ICDS centres or special pre-school centres in non ICDS areas will be made to supplement the efforts being made by the Ministry of Women and Child Development.

 

MISSION STATEMENT OF SARVA SHIKSHA ABHIYAN

The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Mission strives to secure the right to quality basic education for all children in the 6-14 years age group. The goals of the SSA Mission are:

(a) Enrolment of all children in school, Education Guarantee Centre, Alternate school, ’ Back- to- School’ camp by 2005

(b) Retention of all children till the upper primary stage by 2010

 (c) Bridging of gender and social category gaps in enrolment, retention and learning

(d) Ensuring that there is significant enhancement in the learning achievement levels of children at the primary and upper primary stage.

Each State and district would set target dates by which the super goals of SSA would be achieved in their specific context, but not later than 2010.

National Norms would be developed for expected learning outcomes in certain essential skills. The progress towards enhancement in achievement levels on these norms would be assessed regularly on a sample basis at national level. In addition, States would evolve a mechanism for regular objective assessment of students’ learning levels.

 

BROAD STRATEGIES CENTRAL TO SSA PROGRAMM

 

Institutional Reforms - As part of the SSA, the Central and the State governments will undertake reforms in order to improve efficiency of the delivery system. The States will have to make an objective assessment of their prevalent education system including educational administration, achievement levels in schools, financial issues, decentralisation and community ownership, review of State Education Act, rationalization of teacher deployment and recruitment of teachers, monitoring and evaluation, status of education of girls, SC/ST and disadvantaged groups, policy regarding private schools and ECCE. Many States have already carried out several changes to improve the delivery system for elementary education.

 

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 schoolbased 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 NUEPA / 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. A notice board would be put up in every school for this purpose.

 

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, children of other disadvantaged groups and the children with special needs, in the educational process.,

 

 Pre-Project Phase - SSA will commence throughout the country with a wellplanned pre-project phase that provides for a large number of interventions for capacity development to improve the delivery and monitoring system. These include provision for household surveys, community-based micro-planning and school mapping, training of community leaders, school level activities, support for setting up information system, office equipment, diagnostic studies, etc.

 

Thrust on Quality - SSA lays a special thrust on making education at the elementary level useful and relevant for children by improving the curriculum, childcentered 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, focus on classroom process 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, with a holistic and 5 convergent approach. There will be a Perspective Plan that will give a framework of activities over a longer time frame to achieve UEE. There will also be an Annual Work Plan and Budget that will list the prioritized activities to be carried out in that year. The Perspective Plan will also be a dynamic document subject to constant improvement in the course of programme implementation.