Question

Mention any two steps taken by the lndian government to promote literacy in lndia.

Answer 1

There has been increasing attention to the expansion of education. A government launched scheme, Sarva Shiksa Abhiyan (SSA) has attracted increased resources and attention to the elementary sector. Enrolments in primary school have increased substantially. But recent research  on absenteeism, learning achievement, and the expansion of private 
schooling suggests that all is not entirely well with basic education in India. 

A Supreme Court judgement declared education to be a fundamental right for children upto 14 years of age.


 A pension scheme has been launched for contractual teachers and revival of 56 teachers training institutes has been undertaken, besides orientation and training programmes for teachers, in Bihar.

There is a  Centrally Sponsored Program of Nutritional Support to Primary Education or Mid Day Meal Scheme.

The government launched the National Literacy Mission for providing functional literacy to the non-literates between the age group of 15 and 35. 

The Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institutes of Management has been upgraded.


 These are initiatives taken by the government. But they only improve access to education. There is still the other thing called going to school in the first place.


Mr. Narendra modi travelled to a village in Gujrat to inspire parents and teachers to educate their children. He gave a clarion call to make efforts, as a society, to ensure that the children and particularly the girl child go to school. We need more of this. He also said he would be donating books from his personal library to the schools he visits to give impetus to reading among young children. 

A critical overview of higher education in India has brought out a number of issues. Chief among them are the deterioration in quality, the resource crunch leading to poor infrastructure and the serious problems of governance brought about by the influence of factors and forces extraneous to educational objectives.

The major problems of the Education Planning in India as far as analysts opinion are as under: 

high drop-out rateslow levels of learning achievementlow participation of girl studentsinadequate school infrastructureteacher absenteeism rate highlarge-scale teacher vacanciesinadequate teaching/learning materiallack of public involvement in provisioning of educational servicesvariation in the literacy rates for the Special Groups of citizensvariation in inter-state literacy rates
Of course, all of these have improved over time to varying extents, it is still the case that enrolment and particularly completion even of lower primary has not happened.

 In India, there are two main types of private schools, private aided schools, which do receive direct government support, and private unaided schools.
Teachers in private schools are chosen by the school and headmaster directly, not typically assigned by a larger body. Moreover, teachers in private schools can be dismissed for poor effort. This should be implemented in widely. Negligent teachers are a big cause of concern.

The teacher must: 
Know the goal, what it is the child is to learn.Know the subject matter to be taught.Have mastery of at least one effective technique for teaching the material.Be able to assess whether a student has mastered the material.Be motivated to assist the child’s learning.
India has come a long way and we have much more ground to cover still. I am optimistic.

Our domestic helper sends her two children to school who get free meal there. I think this is an awesome idea. She says they don't miss school if they can help it.  Isn't it lovely? Times will change. Slowly, but steadily.