EDUCATION

            "Just as the whole universe is contained in the shelf, so is India contained in the villages. We must empower the villages through education".  

- Mahatma Gandhi

          Education is the most critical element in empowering people with skills and knowledge and giving them access to productive employment in the future. The link between education and the ability of the poor to transform their lives for the better is well established. Access to education can also provide better access to health and sanitation, gender equity, livelihood opportunities and can act as powerful agent of social change.

            The literacy is still less than 70% and while the “Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan” has expanded access to primary schools in terms of enrolments, it is yet to provide quality education. Looking ahead, we need to move as rapidly as possible towards universalization of secondary education, which is essential requirement for a knowledge driven world.

            Our Constitution has recognized the importance of education and is committed to make available free and compulsory education to all children between the ages 6 and 14 years. The Census data of 2001 reveals that 65% of the Indians are literate and almost every child has access to primary school within 1 km of his/her habitation. Although, this is a significant achievement, there is a wide disparity in the literacy rate of different states and between male and female literacy. As far as elementary education is concerned, even though access has increased, a large number of children drop out of schools within a year or two, which also raises questions on the quality of education in the schools.

            There has been considerable progress in enrolment and nearly 100% enrolment of 6 to 14 years of age has been achieved by the end of March 2006. Enrolment is however, only the first step. The children must also complete eight years of useful and relevant school education which remains a problem since the drop-out rate in primary schools in the country is high, as a whole it was around 31% in 2003-04. For some states, it was much higher. This has to be reduced sharply, if not eliminated altogether, for both genders of all social groups.

The management of schools is also to move from a very highly centralized system to a more decentralized system based on local school management committees of parents and other educationally inclined people in the neighbourhood accountable to the local self-government.

            One of the main tasks before “Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan” is to make school more attractive, interesting and joyful place. The goal for all schools in India should be to have physical infrastructure and quality and level of teaching equivalent to Kendriya Vidyalayas.

            High drop out rates is result of a combination of factors. A school that is far away, one that does not function regularly, a teacher that is engaged in non-teaching work or is just not there, a method of teaching that fails to hold attention of the child and fear of teacher are factors that contribute heavily to drop-out. Often the need for children of poorer families and work also drives children to become workers. However, work of many societies (Utthan is one of them) around the country in the rural and urban areas has shown that child workers can be mainstreamed into education through camps that hook them on to good education after withdrawing them from work. In extreme cases, well run residential schools in regions of extreme poverty succeed in keeping the children from living on the streets or railway platforms of joining the work force prematurely.

            The most difficult task is to ensure good quality of institution and the position in this respect is disturbing. A recent study found that 38% of the children who have completed 4 years of schooling cannot read a small paragraph with short sentences meant to be read by student of Class-II. About 55% of such children cannot divide a 3-digit number by a 1-digit number. These are indicators how bad things might be in the learning of other school subjects. We have to pay special attention to these problems. Several states have started experimenting with efforts to raise the basic skills in a campaign mode. Their experiences should be evaluated. Creating a set of national testing standards and preferably a chain of institutions that test to evaluate children according to set norms will help in the direction of improvement of learning as clear goals will be set.

 Secondary Education

            As we ready ourselves for the knowledge economy, we cannot be only satisfied with the universalisation of primary education. A person with mere 8 years of schooling will be as disadvantaged in the knowledge economy dominated by ICT as an illiterate person is in the modern industry and services. We should therefore, aim at the progressive rise in the minimum level of education towards high level or Class- X^th.

            The needed expansion of secondary education will require not only public but also private efforts. At present, private aided and unaided schools account for 58% of the total number of secondary schools. The striking feature is that their proportion is actually increasing at a faster pace than public funded schools, mainly because the State Government have nearly stopped increasing funding of public secondary schools and aided schools.

            Extension of secondary education in rural areas poses a special challenge since secondary schools cannot be set up in every village. They must serve a cluster of villages. There is a strong case for combining upper primary and secondary school established in sufficient numbers.  

Technical/Vocational Education and Skill Development 

          With rapid expansion of information technology, schools will focus on vocations in the tertiary sector, requiring limited infrastructure, in areas such as IT, insurance, banking, tourism and retail trade. Industrial Training Institutes should provide relevant training for meeting the needs of industry as available jobs.  

Higher Education

            The emphasis we had put on quality higher education decades ago, by setting up IITs and other premier educational institutions, has paid us rich dividends. However, expansion of such institutes has slackened in the past two decades, and there are clear signs of an emerging shortage of the high quality skills that are needed in the knowledge intensive industries. To ensure a continuous and growing supply of quality manpower, we need large investments in public sector institutions of higher learning, combined with fundamental reforms of the curriculum and also service conditions to attract high quality faculty. The scope by expanding capacity through private sector initiatives in high learning must be fully exploited. Unless this is done on an urgent basis, we will fail to attain global standards.

            At present only 8% of the relevant age group go to university, whereas in many developing countries, the figure is between 20 to 25%. There is clearly a need to undertake major expansion.

Launching of Literacy and Adult Education Campaign by Utthan

          Since 1995 Utthan launched literacy and adult education campaign in 15 districts of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. In each village, identified people (men and women) were persuaded to become literate in specially organized camps. In ten years period nearly one million people were made literate by Utthan.  

Mainstreaming of the drop-out Children by  Utthan

          Due to Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, there has been considerable progress in enrolment but drop-out is very high in areas dominated by schedule caste and schedule tribes. Utthan organized camps for special coaching of such students and then mainstreaming them in the next class for regular study. In two years period we organized special coaching for about 500 students.  

Vishnu Bhagwan Public School (VBPS)

            There was an urgent need of a model school for Koshambi district in Kaurihar block of Allahabad district for providing quality education. Utthan has started VBPS at Kotwa village. This school has been recognized by the Central Board of Secondary Education. At present the school is imparting education from nursery to 10th class and soon will be opening 11th and 12th classes. The school is a model one in following respect:-

·     Faculty members are well trained and qualified.

·     The school has an attractive campus with greenery around it.

·     It is an attractive, interesting and joyful place for learning and education.

·     Good arrangement has been made for computer education.

·     There is a dispensary and yoga centre for the preventive and curative health care of the students.

·     We develop the personality of students through competition, cultural activities, Independence Day celebration and annual sports.

·     Gender sensitivity and health education is imparted to all students.

·     All attempts are being made for complete child's development.

·     To give every child a good start in life we have started the programme of "Child Nurture - Starting Right".  

Utthan has established following colleges in backward area of Uttar Pradesh:-

1.            Shambhunath Institute of Engineering & Technology:-

·     Institute has skilled and dedicated faculty members to teach and guide the students.

·     The institute has sylvan surroundings with green patches, attractive lawns, sport fields and magnificent buildings. Its campus is attractive, interesting and joyful place for engineering students with pollution free environment.

·     The main building has computer centre with more than 250 computers and all necessary software, well supplied library, well designed and furnished laboratories and round the clock connectivity to information super highway.

·     It has all necessary facilities including hostels, residential houses for faculty members, well equipped seminar and conference halls.

·     The institute has excellent transport facility for faculty, staff and students and is connected to all the nodal points of the city Allahabad.

·     Institute has uninterrupted power and clean and safe drinking water supply.

·     We produce and consume biodiesel from jatropha and are self-sufficient in energy security in the campus.

·     Institute has a dispensary, medicinal plants garden and yoga centre for preventive and curative health care of all members.

·     Excellent infrastructure and coaching arrangement for playing outdoor and indoor games.

·     At present it is imparting education in following branches of engineering :-

§      Information Technology

§      Computer Science

§      Electrical Engineering

§      Electronics and Communication

§      Mechanical Engineering

2.          College of Pharmacy :-

            It was established in 2006 with following facilities:-

·     The institute has well-experienced, skilled and dedicated faculty to teach and guide the students.

·     The college building has been newly constructed with spacious classrooms and well-equipped labs.

·     It has well supplied library having a large number of books, journals and research papers.

·     It has a computer centre with latest software and round the clock internet facility.

3.          College of Management:-

            From the year 2007 in July we shall be starting a College of Management with MBA degree Programme.