Importance of Primary Edcation in India

“Education is the movement from darkness to light”
Education is one of the fundamental necessities of man. It is also instrumental in meeting other needs. Primary education has been found to be positively related to agricultural extension and productivity on the farm. World Bank 19803 p. 15

Both public and private sector provides education with funding and control that comes from central, state and local level. The different articles of the constitution provides for education as a fundamental right. In India, most of the educational institutes are handled by the Union or the State Government.

Primary education is the basis on which depends the development of every individual in turn affecting the overall progress of the nation in terms of social, economic and political development. India has expanded literacy to more or less three fourths of the population and rate of attendance of primary education has drastically improved. The economic rise of India can be attributed to improved education system. Significant progress has been achieved in elementary education in India in the last fifty years. Education should, at the very least, equip every individual with skills that enable him/ her to participate meaningfully in social, political and economic processes, and to avail of opportunities to learn advanced skills throughout life. Elementary education covers the primary (6-11 years) and upper primary (11-14 years) age group. In most Indian states, this translates into the successful completion of prescribed educational requirements till Class VIII. The real objective is for every 14-year old to have learnt basic and foundation skills such as the ability to read and write with fluency, numeracy, comprehension, analysis, reasoning and various important social skills. Equally, elementary education should instil in children courage, confidence, curiosity, independence, resourcefulness, resilience, patience and understanding.

“The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, which was passed by the Indian parliament on 4 August 2009, describes the modalities of the provision of free and compulsory education for children between 6 and 14 in India under Article 21A of the Indian Constitution India became one of 135 countries to make education a fundamental right of every child when the act came into force on  April 01, 2010.”

 The Indian Government lays emphasis to primary education up to the age of fourteen years (referred to as Elementary Education in India) The Indian government has also banned child labour in order to ensure that the children do not enter unsafe working conditions. Due to social and economic disparity both free education and child labour are difficult to enforce. About eighty per cent of all recognised schools at the elementary stage are supported by government.

The primary system of education has been suffering due to shortage of different important resources, which includes problems like high pupil to teacher ratios, lack of adequate infrastructure and poor levels of teacher training.  Education has also been made free for children for 6 to 14 years of age or up to class VIII under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009.

The District Education Revitalisation Programme (DERP) is an effort in improving the quality of education provided by the Government launched in 1994 with an aim to universalise primary education in India by reforming and vitalising the existing primary education system. UNICEF and other international programmes have supported the DERP, which had opened 16,0000 new schools including 84,000 alternative education schools delivering alternative education to approximately 3.5 million children. Significant improvement in staffing and enrollment of girls has also been made as a part of this scheme.