Erudition Impartiality





'Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory.'
  Article 26, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948

Education For All (EFA) is a global movement led by UNESCO (United Nation Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), aiming to meet the learning needs of all children, youth and adults by 2015.
Education For All
With regard to the learning society, as I mentioned earlier, optimistically, people from all walks of life should be able to have equal access to education according to their needs and potentials. All sort of boundaries, be their gender, age, socio-economic status, physical or mental disabilities have to be eliminated. To achieve this, we have to distinctively promote continuing and lifelong education, the form of education which is responsive to individual needs and preferences. With educational facilities and a variety of educational programs available, people can make use of the learning centre as a place to acquire technical skills or knowledge adaptive to their work and daily life activities
Education For Life Sukavich Rangsitpol Minister for Education, Education for Life: Thailand' most important Challenge, A paper presented at the Foreign Correspondents Club
EFA was adopted by The Dakar Framework in April 2000 at the World Education Forum in Senegal, Africa, with the goal in mind that all children would receive primary education by 2015.Not all children receive the education they need or want, therefore this goal was put in place to help those children.
UNESCO has been mandated to lead the movement and coordinate the international efforts to reach Education for All. Governments, development agencies, civil society, non-government organizations and the media are but some of the partners working toward reaching these goals.
The EFA goals also contribute to the global pursuit of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), especially MDG 2 on universal primary education and MDG 3 on gender equality in education, by 2015.
The Fast Track Initiative was set up to implement the EFA movement, aiming at "accelerating progress towards quality universal primary education".
UNESCO also produces the annual Education for All Global Monitoring Report.

UNESCO

UNESCO works with others around the world to reach a mutual understanding for everyone to work well together. UNESCO coordinates international cooperation which allows access to education, grow and live in a diverse community, learn from advancements in technology, and freedom of expression. This cooperation allows UNESCO to work with others to create opportunities for children and other citizens around the world. Goals are created to provide all children with an elementary education, which is important to some families. Educational programs are also created through the cooperation.
Audrey Azoulay was elected as the Director-General on November 15, 2017 for a four-year term. Azoulay has priorities in place and one of the highest ones is education. Working with others will allow the education programs to spread globally. Azoulay is working hard to make sure all these goals and cooperation are kept in line to help better the present and future for children and other citizens.She believes that these issues faced by countries cannot be met by one country alone, therefore working with different countries will make it more possible to solve these issues and meet goals



Partnerships

Partnerships is what helps UNESCO fix global challenges. These partnerships are managed very carefully to reassure that the goals set in place are met. UNESCO works in different ways with their partnerships such as collaboration, volunteers, advocacy, and consultations. By having these different ways of working with others, UNESCO is able to have many partnerships and have them globally.[11] UNESCO's partners range from individuals to institutions all around the world. Some of them are governments, Private Sector companies, Goodwill Ambassadors, media organizations, corporate and philanthropic foundations, parliamentarians, the wider UN family, other intergovernmental organizations, specialized networks in UNESCO, and NGOs.
UNESCO offers many entry levels for partnerships, which are organizations that have leadership and goals/priorities set in place to achieve. Some examples of those are education, natural sciences, oceans, social and human sciences, culture, communication and information, priority Africa, and crisis and transition. Education is the top priority for UNESCO and they are working with EFA to create better education for all children and adults. The problem that comes from this is that every country is different and that reflects achieving these education goals. Countries differ in quality of education due to economics and culture. This is where is great need to strengthen in finances, resources, and technology. Technology is booming in this time and that has an effect on how much education students have access to globally. Therefore, those areas need to be strengthen to ensure that education is top priority going into the future.

World Education Forum (Dakar, Senegal, 2000)

In 2000, ten years later, the international community met again at the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal, an event which drew 1100 participants. The forum took stock of the fact that many countries were far from having reached the goals established at the World Conference on Education for All in 1990. The participants agreed on the Dakar Framework for Action which re-affirmed their commitment to achieving Education for All by the year 2015, and identified six key measurable education goals which aim to meet the learning needs of all children, youth and adults by 2015. In addition, the forum reaffirmed UNESCO’s role as the lead organization with the overall responsibility of coordinating other agencies and organizations in the attempts to achieve these goals. The six goals established in The Dakar Framework for Action, Education for All: Meeting Our Collective Commitments are:
  • Goal 1: Expand early childhood care and education
  • Goal 2: Provide free and compulsory primary education for all
  • Goal 3: Promote learning and life skills for young people and adults
  • Goal 4: Increase adult literacy by 50 percent
  • Goal 5: Achieve gender parity by 2005, gender equality by 2015
  • Goal 6: Improve the quality of education


180 countries signed up to make these goals happen, committing to putting legal frameworks, policies and finance in place so that everyone, no matter what their circumstances, could have an education - one that is available, accessible, acceptable and adaptable. The richest countries pledged to help make Education for All a reality by committing to principles of international cooperation towards those countries with fewer financial resources.

Commitment towards the right to education was also reflected in the UN Millennium Development Goals, set in 2000 with a deadline for achievement by 2015. There are eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), of which two focus on education:

Ensure that all boys and girls complete primary schooling by 2015

Eliminate gender disparities in primary education by 2005 and at all levels by 2015
Times Prime
                                                       
Progress has been painfully slow. In the period immediately after the setting of both the MDGs and the six EFA goals, investments were made by governments committed to achieving these goals. Education budgets, both foreign and domestic, increased, enabling the abolition of tuition fees for primary school in several countries and the development of improved national education plans. However, as we move closer to the 2015 deadline, progress has slowed.
  • Despite an average of 8.9% of domestic budget going to education in low income countries - rising to an average of over 10% in sub-Saharan Africa - States are still falling behind.
  • Enrollment in primary school may have increased since 2000, but this has slowed towards the end of the 2000-2010 period; worse, completion rates remain low, with 10 million children dropping out of primary school every year in sub-Saharan Africa alone.
  • Millions of children who do complete primary school do so with lower than expected levels of reading, writing and numeracy due to the poor quality of education they receive when they are in school - where pupil-teacher ratios can be as high as 100:1 in the very poorest areas.
  • Women and girls remain at a huge disadvantage: although gender parity in primary enrollment is within reach, girls are stil less likely to progress to secondary education - in the vast majority of African countries, this chance is less than 50% - and women make up almost two-thirds of the 796 million adults without basic skills.
  • Another 1.8 million teachers are needed to achieve universal primary education by 2015 - with 1 million of these needed in sub-Saharan Africa.
The Global Campaign for Education is stepping up the pressure on States to make significant efforts to realise these goals for the millions of adults and children who are denied their right to education.
These goals set by the EFA were not able to be met by all. Some countries were unable to meet these goals due to conflict in the area.Conflicts can cause destruction and prevent children from even going to school or learning from home.There was a fear that certain countries would not be able to gain access to certain technology and support to meet these goals. Technology is a problem that countries run into with trying to improve education for children and even adults. As technology advances it is becoming a bigger key component in some schools. Depending on some areas technology is the central focus point to help students learn. In other areas that may not be the case. If technology keeps advancing that may have different affects on countries. Some may not be able to keep up with the advances and other may be able to keep up. This all goes back to financial stability and economics in each country. One of UNESCO's partners, World Bank worked with the countries that were most likely not going to meet the goals by the deadline (2015). World Bank provided these countries with support and in return they would get certain policy reforms.This allows countries to receive support to help achieve the educational goals. This can be helpful for countries that are less fortunate in financial and economic stability. Some of these countries that struggled were in East Africa: Kenya and Tanzania. When all the countries in East Africa had declared independence, then education became the priority for all. The problem became that those countries struggled with educational on literacy challenges.

Recent UNESCO Update

The UNESCO revealed in its 2017 Global Education Monitoring Report that around 264 million youngsters do not attend school. An additional $39 billion is needed annually to enhance the quality of schools worldwide. This will provide 2.2 billion children globally equal access to learning. At present, only 83 percent of students who attend school are able to finish elementary education and a low of 45 percent of kids 15 up to 17 years old complete the secondary level. UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova stated in an official statement that "Education is a shared responsibility between us all: governments, schools, teachers, parents and private actors." Accountability describes how mentors teach, students learn, and bureaucracies take action. The World Bank said in 2017 that millions of learners from different parts of the world in underdeveloped and developing nations are confronted with problems of lost opportunities and low wages since primary as well as secondary schools fail in educating these students properly


India has made significant progress towards the goal of Education for All during the past few years. Keeping in view the pace of progress achieved till 2000, several programmes have been formulated and implemented since 2001 to advance the goal of Education for All. These policies and programmes have been implemented through the collaborative efforts of Government of India and the State/UT Governments, and through district level decentralized management structures, involving local bodies.


India is the largest democracy in the world with a population of 1.21 billion (Census of India, 2011). India’s population increased from 1.028 billion (532.2 million males and 496.5 million females) in 2001 to 1.21 billion (623.7 million males and 586.5 million females) in 2011, the decadal absolute growth of population being 181.46 million (91.50 million males and 89.95 million females). Decadal growth rate of population during 2001-2011 was 17.64 per cent (17.19 per cent for males and 18.12 per cent for females) compared to 21.54 per cent during 1991-2001. The population growth rate has decelerated from 1.97 per cent per annum between 1991 and 2001, to 1.64 per cent per annum between 2001 and 2011. The deceleration reflects a decline in the Total Fertility Rate (TFR), which is estimated to have fallen to 2.6 per cent and is expected to decline to 2.3 per cent in the first half of the present decade. Some States have reached, or are close to reaching, the replacement level of fertility. Fertility levels in the other states are also falling, but still remain much higher than the replacement level. A significant fact is that for the first time, the child population in the age group 0-6 years has come down during 2001-2011 due to a declining trend in Total Fertility Rate.


India is a vast country comprising 29 States and seven Union Territories (UTs) with diverse sociocultural contexts and widely varying geographical and climatic conditions. Under a federal structure, the Centre and the States share the responsibilities for the planning and implementation of national development programmes. There are well defined constitutional provisions and mechanisms for sharing of resources and responsibilities between the Centre and the States. The Constitution was amended in 1976 to change education from a State subject to a concurrent one which implies that the responsibility for development of education is shared by the Central and State Governments. As envisaged in the National Policy on Education-1986 (revised in 1992), development of education is pursued as a ‘meaningful partnership between the Centre and the States’. While the Planning Commission of the Government of India prepares the Five-Year National Development Plans in consultation with all the States/UTs and other stakeholders, the National Development Council, with representation of Chief Ministers of all States/UTs, ensures the national character and focus in the entire process of planning and the formulation of programmes. Besides, State/UT Governments also plan and implement programmes of education development keeping in view State/UT-specific situations and needs.


Overall development policy directions and priorities The developmental programmes in India are guided by the Five-Year National Development Plans. The XIIth FYP (2012-17) envisions: ‘Faster, Sustainable, and More Inclusive Growth’. One of the developmental priorities is to bring the economy back to rapid growth while ensuring that the growth is both inclusive and sustainable. The XIIth Plan is guided by a vision of India moving forward in a way that would ensure a broad-based improvement in living standards of all sections of the people through a growth process which is faster than in the past, more inclusive and also more environmentally sustainable. The main thrust of the XIIth Plan is to accelerate growth in agriculture, achieve a much faster growth in manufacturing to provide employment to the country’s young and increasingly educated population, address the challenge of managing the infrastructure sectors to ensure that these sectors expand sufficiently to support growth and to face up to the enormous challenges posed by urbanization. Another priority task is to ensure that growth the benefits of growth reach all segments of the society, including the disadvantaged groups such as the Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), other backward classes (OBCs), Minorities and other disadvantaged groups in the society.


Constitutional provisions The original Article 45 in the Directive Principles of State Policy in the Indian Constitution had mandated the State to endeavour to provide free and compulsory education to all children until they complete the age of fourteen years within a period of ten years from the commencement of the Constitution. The national resolve to achieve universal elementary education gained further momentum with the adoption of the Constitution (Eighty-sixth Amendment) Act, 2002 which inserted Article 21-A in the Constitution of India to provide free and compulsory education for all children in the age group of six to fourteen years as a Fundamental Right in such a manner as the State may, by law, determine. The Constitution (Eighty-sixth Amendment) Act, 2002 also enjoins the State “to provide early childhood care and education to all children until they complete the age of six years”. Article 46 of the Indian Constitution enjoins that “the State shall promote, with special care, the education and economic interests of the weaker sections of the people, and, in particular of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, and shall protect them from social injustice and all forms of social exploitation”. Similarly, Article 30[1] provides for the rights of the minorities to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice.


The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, which represents the consequential legislation envisaged under Article 21-A in the constitution of India, came into force in the country on 1 April 2010. The RTE Act, 2009 provides for the following:


  • Entitles every child of the age of six to fourteen years with the right to free and compulsory education in a neighbourhood school till completion of elementary education; It clarifies that ‘compulsory education’ means obligation of the appropriate government to provide free elementary education and ensure compulsory admission, attendance and completion of elementary education by every child in the six to fourteen age group. ‘Free’ means that no child shall be liable to pay any kind of fee or charges or expenses which may prevent him or her from pursuing and completing elementary education;
  • Makes provisions for a non-admitted child to be admitted to an age-appropriate class;
  • Specifies the duties and responsibilities of appropriate Governments, local authority and parents in providing free and compulsory education, and sharing of financial and other responsibilities between the Central and State Governments;
  • Lays down the norms and standards relating inter alia to Pupil Teacher Ratios (PTRs), building and infrastructure, school working days and teacher working hours;
  • Rational deployment of teachers by ensuring that the specified Pupil-Teacher Ratio is maintained for each school, rather than just as an average of the State or District or Block, thus ensuring that there is no urban-rural imbalances in teacher postings. It also provides for prohibition of deployment of teachers for non-educational work, other than decennial census, elections to local authority, state legislatures and parliament, and disaster relief;
  • Appointment of appropriately trained teachers i.e. teachers with the requisite entry level and academic qualifications;
  • Prohibits (a) physical punishment and mental harassment; (b) screening procedures for admission of children; (c) capitation fees; (d) private tuition by teachers; and (e) running of schools without recognition;
  • Requires the appropriate government and every local authority to “ensure that the child belonging to weaker sections and the child belonging to disadvantaged groups are not discriminated against and prevented from pursuing and completing elementary education on any grounds”;
  • Development of curriculum in consonance with the values enshrined in the Constitution, and which would ensure the all-round development of the child, building on the child’s knowledge, potentiality and talent and making the child free of fear, trauma and anxiety through a system of child-friendly and child-centred learning;
  • Protection and monitoring of the child’s right to free and compulsory education and redressal of grievances by the National and State Commissions for Protection of Child Rights which shall have the powers of a civil court; and
  • A private unaided school, not receiving any kind of aid or grants to meet its expenses from the appropriate Government or the local authority, shall admit in Class I, to the extent of at least 25 per cent of the strength of that Class, children belonging to weaker sections and disadvantaged groups in the neighbourhood and provide free and compulsory education to them.


Strategic approaches The approach to education development is based on the following four mutually supporting strategic priorities, often referred to as four Es.


  • Expansion: The strategy is focused on making educational facilities and learning opportunities available for and accessible to all children, young people and adults. Expansion involves establishing educational facilities in under-served or un-served locations in order to ensure that all children, young people and adults, especially those children in rural and remote areas, have access to education as well as to relevant vocational education and training programmes.
  • Equity and inclusion: The focus of equity/inclusion is on bridging the gender and social category gaps in participation in education. It recognises the right of every individual to education without discrimination on any grounds and according priority to education of the excluded, vulnerable, under-served and other disadvantaged groups. The main thrust is to ensure that educational opportunities are available for and accessible to all segments of the society. The approaches include special initiatives for enhancing access to quality education for disadvantaged and weaker sections of the community such as the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, other backward classes, children belonging to Muslim community and differently-abled children. The focus on equity and inclusion also envisages approaches that would help meet the learning needs of diverse groups of pupils and provide opportunities for all learners to become successful in their learning experiences.
  • Excellence: Achieving excellence by improving the quality and relevance of education and enabling all children and young people to achieve expected/specified learning outcomes remains a key goal of education sector development programmes in India. The core elements of the strategy for achieving excellence include: (i) strengthening the quality of teaching–learning processes through comprehensive concerted large scale efforts with simultaneous attention to how these processes translate into better outcomes; (ii) enhancing the motivation, capacity and accountability of teachers for improving learning outcomes at all levels; (iii) improving governance of educational institutions through institutional focus on quality, based on principles of autonomy, accountability and performance, along with measures for re-defining the recruitment criteria, eligibility of teachers and merit-based processes of recruitment in these institutions; (iv) encouraging innovations and diversity of approaches in matters of curricula, pedagogies and community engagements in order to respond to the diversity of learner groups, and (v) strengthening the monitoring and accountability mechanisms.
  • Employability: High priority is accorded to the task of enhancing employability of the products of the education system. Specific measures for enhancing employability include renewed focus on vocational education and making secondary education more job-relevant through skills training within the schools, equipping secondary schools with teachers/trainers who have technical skills and with facilities that are required to impart technical and vocational skills. Vocational education at the secondary stage is redesigned to promote diversification of educational opportunities so as to enhance individual employability, and reduce the mismatch between demand and supply of skilled manpower.



Key programmatic interventions for universalisation of elementary education Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA): The principal programme for universalisation of primary education is the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), a Centrally-sponsored scheme being implemented in partnership with State/UT Governments. The programme has been in operation since 2000-01. The overall goals of the SSA are: (i) all children in schools; (ii) bridge all gender and social category gaps at primary and upper primary stages of education (iii) universal retention; and (iv) elementary education of satisfactory quality. The SSA is the primary vehicle for implementing the aims and objectives of the RTE.


National Programme of Mid-Day Meal in Schools (NP-MDMS): With a view to enhancing enrolment, retention and attendance and simultaneously improving nutritional levels among primary school children, the National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education was launched in August 1995. During 2008-09, the Scheme was extended to cover children in upper primary classes and the Scheme was renamed as ‘National Programme of Mid-Day Meal in Schools’. The programme aims at (i) improving the nutritional status of children in Classes I-VIII, (ii) encouraging poor children, belonging to disadvantaged sections, to attend schools more regularly and help them concentrate on classroom activities, and (iii) providing nutritional support


to children at elementary stage of education in drought-affected areas during summer vacation. The National Programme of Mid-Day Meal in Schools is now covering all children studying in Classes I-VIII in Government, Government-aided and Local Body schools, National Child Labour Projects schools, and Madrasas and Maqtabs supported under SSA.


Key programmatic interventions for imparting learning and life skills for young people and adults Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA): The centrally-sponsored scheme ‘Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA)’ was launched in March 2009 with the objective of making secondary education of good quality available, accessible and affordable to all young persons in the age group 14-15 years. The scheme envisages enhancing enrolment in Classes IX-X by providing a secondary school within a reasonable distance of every habitation to enable universal access to secondary education by 2017 and universal retention by 2020; improving the quality of education through making all schools conform to prescribed norms; and removing gender, socio-economic and disability barriers.


Scheme of vocationalisation of secondary education: The scheme of vocational education was launched in 1988. The main objectives of the scheme were to provide diversification of educational opportunities so as to enhance individual employability, and reduce the mismatch between demand and supply of skilled manpower. Vocational education was introduced as a distinct stream intended to prepare students for identified occupations spanning several areas of activities. The scheme of vocationalisation of education was revised in 2011. The revised scheme seeks to increase access of students to vocational education and employable skills.


National Skill Development Mission: In order to create a pool of skilled personnel in adequate numbers in line with the employment requirements in various sectors of the economy, with particular emphasis on the 20 high growth and high employment sectors, the Government had set up in 2007 a Skill Development Mission comprising an agglomeration of programmes and appropriate structures aimed at enhancing training opportunities for new entrants to the labour force. The Mission seeks to train 500 million skilled personnel by 2022. The Mission encompasses the efforts of several ministries of the Central Government, State Governments and the private sector. The Skill Development Mission envisages inter alia large scale expansion of the existing public sector skill development infrastructure and its utilisation, greater involvement of private sector in skills training with effective public private-partnership, and the establishment of a National Skills Qualification Framework.

Programmes offered under Saakshar Bharat Mission: The programmes under Saakshar Bharat which support the efforts designed to meet the learning needs of out-of-school adolescents and youth include Functional Literacy, Basic Education Programme, Vocational Skill Development Programme and Continuing Education Programme.



The main development challenges that have a strong bearing on socio-economic development in the country include (i) the deceleration in the GDP growth during the past three years, which has hampered progress in expanding the income and employment opportunities and generating the resources needed for financing development programmes and (ii) the insufficient progress achieved towards inclusiveness and ensuring that the benefits of growth reach the disadvantaged groups.


https://clnk.in/kqTAhttps://clnk.in/kqTA



National Policy Directions in Socio-Economic Development

The policy directions that guide the national development process in the short term relate to the task of reversing the deceleration in growth as quickly as possible by reviving investment in different sectors of development. From a medium-term perspective, the policy initiatives seek to bring the economy back to rapid growth while ensuring that the growth is both inclusive and sustainable. Rapid GDP growth is considered essential for generating the required income and employment opportunities as well as the resources needed for financing infrastructure development and social sector programmes relating to education, health, poverty reduction etc.. The policy initiatives for ensuring rapid economic growth are directed at ensuring accelerated growth in agriculture, achieving a much faster growth in manufacturing to provide employment to the country’s young and increasingly educated population, and addressing the challenge of expanding and managing the infrastructure sectors to ensure that these sectors expand sufficiently to support growth and face up to the enormous challenges posed by urbanization.

The policy directions for ensuring inclusive growth aim at ensuring an adequate flow of benefits to the poor and most marginalized, leading to poverty reduction, narrowing the gap between the general population and the disadvantaged groups such as the SCs, STs, OBCs, Minorities, the differently-abled and other marginalized groups; closing gender gaps; improving inter and intra-regional equality; reducing income inequality; promoting empowerment of people and their participation in development processes that have a bearing on their lives; implementing attractive employment programmes; and stronger efforts at health, education and skill development among the disadvantaged groups, and improving the effectiveness of programmes directly aimed at the poor.

The policy direction for promoting inclusive growth also aims at making focused efforts to create adequate livelihood and attractive employment opportunities that are needed for improving living standards for the bulk of the population.



Implications for Future Education Development

The XIIth FYP recognizes the importance of the development of capabilities that are needed to achieve the objective of faster, more inclusive and sustainable growth. The emphasis is on the development of human capabilities, institutional capabilities and the development of infrastructure. The development of human capabilities is accorded high priority since these capabilities are considered as important instrumentalities that help raise the productive capacity of the economy and since proper development of human capabilities also help ensure that the growth is more inclusive by enabling the disadvantaged sections of the society access the opportunities provided by the growth process.

One of the key implications of the XIIth FYP goal of faster, more inclusive and sustainable growth for education development in the country is the need to create sufficient education and skill development opportunities for the younger population which would enable them to seek appropriate employment/ livelihood opportunities that are needed for improving their living standards. India has a younger population in comparison to advanced economies as well as in relation to the large developing countries. The labour force in India is expected to increase by 32 per cent over the next 20 years, India’s young age structure offers a potential demographic dividend for growth. This ‘demographic dividend’ is expected to add to India’s growth potential, provided appropriate programmes are formulated and implemented to enable the younger population to achieve higher levels of education and skill development. Enhancing the extent and quality of education and skill development among the younger population and entrants to the workforce emerges as a priority task in this context.

The policy directions for enabling the younger population achieve higher levels of education and skill development include addressing the residual access and equity gaps in elementary education, facilitating upward mobility of students from elementary to secondary/senior secondary education and senior secondary to higher education, improving quality of elementary/secondary/higher education, with a strong focus on learning outcomes, vocationalizing education and expanding skill development opportunities, and building a system that supports continuing education and life-long learning.


Vision of Education Towards and Beyond 2015

The education development endeavours in India envisions education of equitable quality for all to harness the nation’s human potential and the realization of India’s human resource potential to its fullest, with equity and excellence. Some of the policy and programmatic interventions required for the fulfillment of this vision include the following:

Ensuring universal access to quality ECCE services: The RTE Act 2009 states that “with a view to prepare children above the age of three years for elementary education and to provide early childhood care and education for all children until they complete the age of six years, the appropriate Government may make necessary arrangement for providing free pre-school education for such children”. The XIIth FYP (2012 - 2017) envisages acceleration of efforts aimed at enhancing opportunities for preschool education. In view of the crucial role of ECCE in building strong foundations for learning and development and its role in improving the performance of children in primary schools, the approach to improving access to and quality of ECCE services would focus on maintaining effective synergy with the ICDS through location of Anganwadi centres in or in close proximity to primary school compound and synchronization of the activities of the Anganwadi centres with the primary schools.

Addressing the residual access and equity gaps in elementary education: The approach to addressing the residual access and equity gaps in elementary education will involves facilitating enrolment of outof-school children, ensuring regular attendance of children enrolled in schools and tackling the problem of dropping out before completing the full cycle of elementary schooling, with special focus on girls and socially and economically disadvantaged groups. Key strategies include the following:

  • Better targeting of out-of-school children through effective process of identification of these children, including an assessment of their current ability relating to reading, doing simple arithmetic and comprehension etc., enrolment of these children in regular schooling system, and introduction of accelerated learning strategies to mainstream these children into age-appropriate class.
  • Provision of residential schools to reach out to children from vulnerable sections of society including children in areas of civil strife, children of migrating populations, children belonging to SC and ST;
  • Providing residential facilities with special focus on ST children through conversion of at least five per cent of existing government elementary schools in all Educationally Backward Blocks (EBBs) with more than 50 per cent tribal population into Residential School Complexes (RSCs) having pre-school (non-residential), primary and upper primary sections.
  • Special interventions for promoting education of SC children, including process-based interventions such as curricular review to include discussion on caste-based discrimination in textual material, residential schools run with assistance from the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment (MSJ&E), convergence on pre-matric scholarships and incentives provided by MSJ&E, and special efforts to ensure learning gains and completion of elementary cycle of education by children and continuation of education beyond elementary education.
  • Promoting education of children with special needs (CWSN) through their identification and, placement in general schools, school readiness programmes, provision of aids and appliances, development and production of Braille books and construction of ramps and disabled-friendly toilets, and, through partnership with NGOs and competent private entities, designing curricula and implementation of the programme.
  • Improving girls’ education through the development of gender-sensitive curricula, pedagogical practices, teacher training and assessment of learning outcomes; making schools inclusive and safe; strengthening and expansion of KGBVs in Educationally Backward Blocks (EBBs), training of members of School Management Committees (SMCs) on gender and equity issues, and increased and more targeted investments for girls’ education.
  • Enhanced focus on educationally backward minorities by changing the unit of earmarking, targeting and monitoring of interventions for Muslim children from District to Block, and making specific activities of minority institutions, supported under the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) schemes, a part of the larger district plan prepared for minorities.
  • Focused efforts in urban areas for enhancing access to elementary education by children of urban poor families.

Without trained teachers, the right to education is an empty shell
Message for World Teachers' Day Every Year

Every year on October 5th, the Education community and vested partners celebrate World Teachers’ Day. The annual theme selected best describes the current situation teachers are in. This year the focus is on quality, with the theme "The right to education means the right to a qualified teacher".
  
Put teachers at the heart of the right to education
More than 60 years after the adoption of the joint Recommendation concerning the status of teachers by ILO and UNESCO, and 3 years after the adoption of Sustainable Development Goal 4, "Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all", now more than ever, it is imperative to remind education stakeholders that a right remains empty rhetoric as long as the conditions of its implementation and its full realisation are not ensured.

Talking about education is meaningless if teachers are not at the centre of the requirements of this right; quality education, means first and foremost, qualified teachers.
Progress of goal 4 in 2018
More than half of children and adolescents worldwide are not meeting minimum proficiency standards in reading and mathematics. Refocused efforts are needed to improve the quality of education. Disparities in education along the lines of gender, urban-rural location and other dimensions still run deep, and more investments in education infrastructure are required, particularly in LDCs.
  • At the global level, the participation rate in early childhood and primary education was 70 per cent in 2016, up from 63 per cent in 2010. The lowest rates are found in sub-Saharan Africa (41 per cent) and Northern Africa and Western Asia (52 per cent).
  • An estimated 617 million children and adolescents of primary and lower secondary school age worldwide—58 per cent of that age group—are not achieving minimum proficiency in reading and mathematics.
  • In 2016, an estimated 85 per cent of primary school teachers worldwide were trained; the proportion was only 71 per cent for Southern Asia and 61 per cent for sub-Saharan Africa
  • In 2016, only 34 per cent of primary schools in LDCs had electricity and less than 40 per cent were equipped with basic handwashing facilities.
Rights from the Start: Early Childhood Care and Education    
Every child has the right to education, and these rights start from birth.
Every year, over 200 million children under the age of five in low- and middle-income countries will not attain their development potential due to poverty, nutritional deficiencies and inadequate care and learning opportunities. Most of these children live in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. 
Due to this poor start in life, if they get the chance to go to school, they are likely to underachieve. Subsequently, they will perpetuate the cycle of poverty, with low income jobs as adults, likely to have children themselves at a very early age, and provide poor health care, nutrition and stimulation to another generation. 
By ignoring the right to education, millions more children will be condemned to the same fate.
The Global Campaign for Education is calling on world leaders to keep their promises and ensure early childhood care and education for every child – right from the start.

Literacy For All



Today, nearly one in six people around the world cannot read or write. 

The world is in the grip of a crisis that has devastating impact on personal autonomy, economic security, job opportunities, levels of health, and the quality of democracy. This crisis is not in the headlines, is not new, and is not being tackled with the trillions that are dedicated to bank bailouts or to military spending. It is the fact around the world, almost one in six people over the age of 15 cannot read and write.

The impact is not evenly felt. Almost two thirds of non-literate people are women and globally, almost one in five women cannot read. In some countries, more than four out of five women cannot read and write. This is both a sign and a cause of women’s continuing marginalisation and poverty. There is also a regional dimension – just over two thirds of non-literate people in the world are in Asia and the Pacific. And these factors can overlap: barely half of adult women in south and west Asia can read or write.





There are significant inequalities in access to secondary education as far as income, gender, social group and geography are concerned. The capacity of the secondary schooling system needs to be significantly expanded across India.

For instance, only 16% of India’s education budget is spent on secondary education compared to 62% for primary education (K. Biswal, 2011; Secondary education in India: Development policies, programmes and challenges). The gross enrolment rate (GER) for combined secondary and senior secondary stages (Classes IX–XII) was nearly 50% in 2009-10. Besides, not a single Indian University figures in the top 200 of the QS World University rankings 2013.
To accelerate the educational quotient of India, Reliance Foundation's educational programs address the need of the hour and fosters the youth by providing open access to quality education using a multi-pronged approach:
  • Providing access to quality education through a network of schools
  • Offering Dhirubhai Ambani Scholarships to the meritorious students
  • Planning to set up a world class university
  • Supporting like-minded partners.
     

Reliance Foundation Education For All

About Education for All

The Education for All initiative (EFA) was launched in 2010 with the objective of providing access to quality education in India. Through a partnership with several NGOs, Reliance Foundation and Mumbai Indians have positively impacted the lives of 200,000 of underprivileged children during the last few years.
Mrs. Nita Ambani spearheads the Education for All initiative. The Mumbai Indians team is actively engaged in the initiative and has exhibited their ardent support for the cause. The EFA programme supports various initiatives that work with underprivileged children, promote girl-child education and impart life skills to the differently abled. In 2017, the programme supported twelve partner NGOs: Aarambh, Akanksha, Aseema, Deepalya, Meljol, Milaan, Mumbai Mobile Crèches, One Billion Literates Foundation, Sakhi, Slum Soccer, Ummeed, and Yuwa.

Education for All Match

Every year, since the inception nearly 18,000 children from different NGOs across Maharashtra watch an IPL match live at the Wankhede stadium, Mumbai. This initiative taken under the EFA programme provides these underprivileged children with a life-time experience. The children enjoy a day at the stadium with lots of goodies, food and drinks. Dressed in Mumbai Indians T-shirts and caps, the children cheer for their favourite team at the stadium.

Bringing the joy of Christmas

Since 2012, Reliance Foundation has been organising Christmas Parties for underprivileged children. Children are invited to the Hamley's store to enjoy an entire day playing games, doing exciting activities and singing and dancing to the tunes of 'Jingle Bells' with Santa Claus. The children get Christmas gifts from Santa and leave the store with an experience that they remember throughout the year. The toys, the Christmas tree, Santa- the experience is a dream come true for these children! Reliance Foundation strives to make their dreams come true so that they can welcome the New Year with lots of hope and excitement.

EFA Partner NGOs




Aarambh
Aarambh is a community-based organisation working with thousands of children of migrant workers, who live in the slums and shanties of Navi Mumbai. Aarambh’s work focuses on the areas of education, health care and skill development. The Aarambh chapter of the EFA programme covers 4,500 children from five slum communities in Navi Mumbai. The children are enrolled in regular schools and provide all the paraphernalia of formal education, including uniforms, school bags, shoes and books. At the schools, they also enjoy the experience of digital learning.
Under the EFA programme, Aarambh’s education centres have also been equipped with children’s’ libraries.

Akanksha
The Akanksha Foundation is a non-profit organization that works primarily in the field of education, addressing non-formal education through Akanksha centers and formal education through Akanksha schools. Its target group is students from low- income communities who live in slums across Mumbai and Pune.
EFA supports the D.N. Nagar Mumbai Public School in Mumbai that has grades up till 7 reaching out to over 300 children from nearby communities.

Aseema
Aseema is a non-governmental organisation committed to equipping children from marginalised communities with high quality, value-based education that will unlock their limitless potential. Aseema provides holistic education to 4,000 children through three municipal schools in Mumbai and its education centre for tribal children in Igatpuri.
Under EFA’s support, Aseema runs a Pre-Primary Centre Municipal School (SMS) catering to children from 2.5 to 6 years. It follows the Montessori Approach of educating children to develop their fullest potential.

Deepalaya
Deepalaya is committed to working on issues affecting the urban and rural poor, with a special focus on women and children. In addition to interventions in areas such as education, disability, health, institutional care, and women’s empowerment, Deepalaya runs community libraries that are free and open to all. Volunteers and members of the library are trained in primary teaching methodologies such as the Read Aloud technique, delivering dozens of read-aloud sessions weekly to hundreds of young members associated with the NGO. In the two years since it opened its two community libraries, Deepalaya has enrolled nearly 2,000 children and adults, and issues over 1,000 books every week.
With support from EFA, Deepalaya is opening its third community library in, New Delhi. The library will serve children and adults in the area through the circulation of books, by providing a Reading Room, and by introducing children to the magic of reading and thinking through dozens of weekly read aloud.

MelJol
MelJol is a Mumbai-based NGO working to protect child rights, while focussing on providing social and financial education to children. MelJol believes that it is critical for children to understand their rights. It reaches out to underprivileged children in municipal schools, zilla parishad schools and tribal schools across the country and uses the tools of social and financial education to provide children necessary opportunities to contribute responsibly to their environment. Over the decades, MelJol has reached out to more than 10 lakh children across 11 states in India, with the Aflatoun project reaching 116 countries through its network partners.
Through the EFA initiative MelJol will reach out to over 12,000 underprivileged children in Himachal Pradesh.

Milaan
Milaan, aims to create inclusive spaces to educate, enable, and empower children and young people, to explore their potential and become change-makers in their own lives and in the communities they come from. Milaan runs educational and leadership building programs with children especially adolescent girls from low-income communities in order to create an equal world of opportunity.
Through the EFA initiative’s support for its Girl Icon Fellowship Programme, Milaan will provide comprehensive leadership education to 200 adolescent girls by nurturing 10 Girl Icon Fellows with knowledge, skills and resources. The Girl Icon Fellows will subsequently assume the role of community leaders, and act as advocates for the rights of young girls to education, safety and health.
Mumbai Mobile Creches
Mumbai Mobile Crèches (MMC) was founded with the belief that every child has the fundamental right to security, education, healthcare and protection. To make this vision a reality, MMC has been managing day care centres at construction sites in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Thane, since 1972. With the aim of facilitating the holistic development of children of all ages, MMC runs crèches for children under the age of three, preschools for children in the 3-5 age group, and conducts after-school support classes for students already enrolled in municipal schools. It encourages and assists children’s social, cognitive, and emotional development and provides the educational and linguistic skills necessary for them to subsequently integrate in municipal schools, and succeed in their future pursuits. MMC has reached out to over 1,00,000 children, and managed over 270 centres.
The EFA programme supports costs incurred by MMC to secure educational materials and pay remunerations to the teachers manning its day-care centres.

One Billion Literates Foundation
One Billion Literates Foundation (OBLF) strives for equality in education, by teaching rural children the English language and the basics of technology through a fun, activity-based curriculum. OBLF trains and employs rural women to impart the above-mentioned skills, thereby empowering them and giving them financial and intellectual independence.
With the support of the EFA programme, OBLF will extend its School Adoption Programme to more rural government primary schools in the approaching academic year, touching the lives of many more rural children and women in Anekal Taluk in Bangalore district, Karnataka.

Sakhi
This project emerged from Aarti Naik’s experiences of working with girls living in slums. A number of Girls’ Learning Centres set up under this initiative provide a safe and quality learning space to young girls, where they have access to a community-based basic education programme designed to impart literacy, numeracy, and life skills. The major focus of every Girls’ Learning Centre is to ensure that each girl goes to school confidently, already equipped with the basics.
EFA supports Sakhi’s Girls’ Learning Centre to enhance the quality of education.

Slum Soccer
Slum Soccer is a FIFA-awarded organisation that uses the power of football to affect change in the lives of underprivileged children and youth. Through specially designed curricula and activities, Slum Soccer engages with and mobilises its participants to strive for learning and fitness.
Under the EFA partnership, Slum Soccer will work on Edu-Kick focusing on the promotion of primary education for the children from the underprivileged section of society who struggle not only to attend school but are hampered due to poor pedagogy, leading to dropouts and disengagement with education.

Ummeed
Ummeed helps children with developmental disabilities and children at risk of disability to attain their full potential and secure inclusion in society. In its 16th year of operations, Ummeed now reaches out to around 30,000 children with disabilities. Today, Ummeed provides specialised care for most developmental disabilities and has moved into areas of training, research and advocacy.
EFA supports Ummeed’s Early Intervention program, a pre-school program, which works with children with disabilities such as autism, cerebral palsy, global developmental delays etc. and their parents to build the abilities of these children to become school ready and join a normal or special school in the next academic year.

Yuwa
India is a registered trust that empowers girls through team sports (football) and education. In Jharkhand. Yuwa’s mission is to empower girls to take charge of their own futures,  and         actively resist social problems such as child marriage and human trafficking............................
EFA supports the Yuwa School in Ranchi, Jharkhand. The school is an innovative, low-cost English-medium school for girls from disadvantaged communities living in the villages of Ranchi.








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