City Report and Action Plan

Chennai

Mr. Shiv Das Meena
Joint Commissioner (Education), Education, Revenue and Finance,
Corporation of Chennai,
India

CITY REPORT

Education System

Education comes under the concurrent list of subjects in the Constitution, with the central government playing a lead role in case of higher and professional education while the state plays a lead role in school education. Through out the country by and large, uniform school education system follows a pattern of 5-3-4, i.e. 5 years of primary education, 3 years of upper primary and 4 years of high & higher secondary school education.

This administrative and policy framework is guided by concerns such as:

• The national resolve to provide free and compulsory education of satisfactory quality to all children up to the age of 14 years
• Making elementary education a fundamental right (Article 21A of the Constitution) and enforcing it through necessary statutory measures

Current States and Challenges

Literacy Rate:
The overall literacy rate, as per 2001 census is 85.3, (male- 90.0 & female- 80.4) in Chennai.

Access Rate:
Easy accessibility of schools is a pre requisite for achieving the eventual goal of universalization of primary education. Cities are able to achieve universal access (100 percent school access rate) that means in every locality including slums schools are available and easily accessible to every citizen irrespective of caste, creed, religion or sex. There are 1425 schools for primary and upper primary in Chennai city, 400 of these are run by government bodies, 361 are government-aided schools run by private bodies and 664 are unaided private schools.

Infrastructure:
Though all the schools in Chennai city are concrete or masonry buildings, many schools need additional class rooms and toilet facilities. There is also a need to provide infrastructure for sports.

Teachers' availability:
There are 9,223 teachers (440 males and 8,783 females) for primary level of which 3,674 are working in government/government-aided schools. In upper primary, the number of teachers is 7,383 (849 males and 6,534 females) of which 3,554 are working in government/government aided schools. Overall teacher/pupil ratio is 1:34.

Gross Enrollment Rate (GER)¹ in Chennai city is currently 102 at primary level and 104 at upper primary level.

Net Enrollment Ratio (NER) is 98 for primary as well as for upper primary. However NER for Scheduled Caste category is only 95 for primary and 93 for upper primary, which indicates social disparity.

Completion Rate (CR), Retention Rate (RR) and Dropout Rate (DR): GER and NER indicates the enrollment trend, whereas CR, RR and DR are important indicators of internal efficiency². The following table indicates the CR, RR and DR for 2004-2005.

Transition rate³ (TR) from V to VI for all is 97 whereas for children from scheduled caste category it is only 94. To achieve the goal of universal primary education the TR from grade V to VI has to be 100 i.e. all the children who are passing grade V to be enrolled in grade VI.

1) Reference years 2004-2005

2) Out of the total children of a cohort enrolled in a certain grade a large section completes it, whereas some are retained in the same grade and some children drop out of the school. These three indicators help in explaining to what extent children are completing a particular grade, retained or drop out of a certain grade. The sum total of these three indicators is always 100. Higher completion rate means efficient education system where fewer children are retained in the same grade or drop out. In ideal situation CR will be 100, whereas RR and DR will be zero.

3) TR is a very important indicator to see the extent of children pursuing further studies after completing a particular level.

ACTION PLAN

Goals and Objectives

Universalization of primary education in terms of not only the quantity but quality also.

The broader objectives of the city in the field of primary education is:

• To achieve enrollment of all school-age children (100 percent enrollment)
• To retain all the children enrolled to the completion of eighth standards in schools (upper primary)
• To bring dropout rates down to zero
• To focus on quality of education so as to achieve minimum level of learning competencies among children
• To decentralize educational management through effective community participation

The quantitative goals are defined as below:

• Chennai city's goal is to achieve universal primary education by 2007, well ahead of the target set by the MDGs i.e. 2010
• To bring down the dropout rate to 4 by 2005-06 and to achieve 'Nil' Dropout Rate 2006-2007 for primary
• To bring down the dropout rate to 2 by 2005-06 and to achieve 'Nil' Dropout Rate 2006-2007 for upper primary
• To achieve CR of 95 by 2005-2006 and 100 by 2006-2007 in case of primary level
• To achieve CR of 96 by 2005-2006 and 100 by 2006-2007 in case of upper primary
• To achieve NER of 100 by 2006-07, both for primary and upper primary
• The aim of the CMC is to achieve the TR of 100 for transition from grade V to VI by 2006-07
• To achieve 100 percent achievement level by 2006-07

Strategies to Achieve the above Goals

1. Infrastructure

• The quality of infrastructural facilities, equipment and support services, also has a significant impact on enrollment and retention. In this context, the main challenge is to (i) provide a classroom for every section of primary and upper primary schools (ii) a separate room for the headmaster in upper primary schools, (iii) playground facilities, and (iv) clean toilets. All efforts will be made to pool resources from schemes such as MLACDS and MPLADS besides corporation's internal generation.
• Optimum utilization of infrastructure by reorganization of existing schools will be done to address the problem of class room shortage.

2. Incentives

Free noon meals, free supply of uniform, free text books etc. already exist.

3. Enrollment and retention

1. Enrollment drive and retention drive through positive coordination between various organs of the education system such as Block Resource Teachers of Serva Shisksha Abhiyan (Education For All), teachers, Non Government Organizations, community, Literacy Campaign volunteers etc.
2. Child friendly class rooms
   • Use of self learning material
   • Activity based flash cards
   • Low level black boards
   • Democratic class rooms - Freedom to move, to speak and to express
3. Promote extra curricular activities such as sports, music, excursion trips etc.

4. Strategies for Quality Improvement

1. Teacher training
   • Emphasis on class room transaction/ process to make the learning more interesting
   • Periodic reorientation training programs
   • Training on use of self learning material
   • Training on Activity Based Learning which will also help the teachers to address the issue of multi-level and multi-grade
   • Focus on participation - democratic class rooms
   • Institutional management and leadership training, especially to Head Masters
2. Sharing of best practices
3. Strengthening Activity Based Learning
4. Use of self learning material
5. Special classes for slow learners
6. Public Private Partnership
   • Strengthening of partnership with Intel's Teach India Project and IBM's Kid Smart Project
   • Persue collaboration with other private players especially in IT sector such as Sathyam Foundation, TCS, WIPRO, INFOSYS etc.

5. Special Attention to Girls' Education

1. Supplementary learning materials, such as dictionary, atlas, geometry box etc. to girl students
2. Vocational skills training
3. Special classes are conducted for slow learners among girl students. Under innovative program, special coaching is given to girl students in English Grammar and Spoken English, after school hours

6. Community Participation

Community participation is essential to ensure universalization of primary education.

• Evolving a community-based monitoring system with full transparency
• Making community mobilization through intensive micro-planning and school mapping mandatory
• Ensuring community participation in asset creation and management
• Ensuring parental participation through class room observation
• To invite important people from the community to talk to children
• To organize school meals/fares

7. Strategy for drop-outs and out of school children

1. Alternate education centres for out of school and dropout children. Bridge courses will be organized in these centres to main stream these children in formal schools.
2. Strengthening of the Mobile School or "School on Wheels" system will be taken up to focus on the moving children and working children such as Sundal Children on marina beach.
3. To run residential special schools for the street children.
4. To enroll child laborers (working children) in the special schools under National Child Labor Project (NCLP) and to give incentive to these children to compensate for loss of income.
5. Strict enforcement of the provisions of the Child Labor (Prohibition and Prevention) Act".
6. Close coordination between BRTs, school teachers, NGOs involved and NCLP.

8. Strategy for children with special needs

To hire specially trained teachers for the children with special needs. It will be done through NGOs in the beginning.

9. Strategy for early childhood care and education (ECCE)

1. Strengthening of 1,145 ICDS centres with a focus on early childhood education and pre-school education
2. Integration of these centres with the nearest primary school

10. Continuing Education Program or Literacy Campaign

1. To use the 330 centres (30 Nodal Continuing Education Centers and 300 Continuing Education Centres) as a composite information windows and teaching learning centers for Non-Literates / Neo Literates, Library and Reading Room, Venue for Special discussion.
2. To strengthen these centres as centres for community mobilization and advocacy to ensure enrollment and retention of children in schools.

11. Monitoring and evaluation

Minimum standards to be set for schools:

1. Continuous monitoring of
   • class room process
   • teachers' attendance
   • students' attendance
2. Evaluation of Activity Based Learning methodology and mid-course correction.
3. Monitoring of main streaming of out of school children and their attendance in school.

Detailed Activity Plan for Enrollment Drive and Strategy for Out of School Children

Out of the many activities proposed, a detailed action plan has been presented here for enrollment drive and for action directed to address the problem of out of school children.

A) Detailed action plan for enrollment drive (proposed)

1. Formation of school catchment area team

• Man Power: BRTs, teachers, literacy campaign volunteers, NGOs and volunteers from the community.
• Time frame: Dec 2005-Jan 2006
• Responsibility to constitute teams and monitoring:
  1. City level - Education Officer, Additional District Program Officer of SSA and Project Coordinator, Literacy campaign
  2. Zone level - Education Supervisor, Central Resource Centre of SSA and DPC, Literacy campaign

2. Orientation to team members

• Time frame: Feb-March 2006
• Central Resource Centres will be responsible for conducting orientation program. ADPC, SSA to be overall responsible at city level.

3. Advocacy

• Through print and electronic media, advocacy meetings at Continuing Education Centres (CECs) and house to house contact
• Time frame:
  Phase I - March-April 2006
  Phase II - May-June 2006
• Responsibility:
  1. Public relations department of corporation
  2. ADPC, SSA
  3. PC, Arivoli Iyakkam (Literacy campaign)

4. Identification of target group (5-6 years)

• House to house survey
• Time frame: Feb - March 2006
• Responsibility: teams

5. Actual Drive

• Door to door campaign
• Time frame: May-June 2006
• Responsibility: Actual task to be accomplished by teams

Monitoring to be done by Education Officer at city level and Central Resource Centre of SSA and Education Supervisor jointly at Zonal level.

6. Monitoring

• Time frame: Continuous, Dec 2005 - June 2006
• Responsibility: Education Officer and ADPC, SSA at city level and Central Resource Centre of SSA and Education Supervisor jointly at Zonal level.

B) Detailed action plan for drop outs (proposed)

1. Formation of survey teams and orientation

• Man Power: Teachers, BRTs and Literacy campaign volunteers
• Time frame: Dec 2005
• Responsibility to constitute teams and monitoring:
  1. City level - Education Officer, Additional District Program Officer of SSA and Project Coordinator, Literacy campaign
  2. Zone level - Central Resource Centre of SSA and DPC, Literacy campaign

2. Conduct of survey

• House to house survey
• Time frame: Dec 2005
• Responsibility: teams

3. Identification of NGOs

• Time frame: Dec 2005
• Responsibility: Central Resource Centres of SSA

4. Advocacy

Through print and electronic media, advocacy meetings at Continuing education centres (CECs) and house to house contact.

• Time frame: Dec 2005 - July 2006
• Responsibility:
  1. Public relations department of corporation
  2. Education Officer and ADPC, SSA

5. Opening of alternate education centres

• Time frame: Jan 2006
• Responsibility: NGOs

6. Conduct of bridge courses

• Time frame: Jan 2005 - June 2006
• Responsibility: NGOs
• Monitoring: CRCs and BRTs

7. Enrollment of the children from these centres to formal schools

• Time frame: July 2006
• Responsibility: NGOs and BRTs

8. Monitoring

• Time frame:
  Phase I: Jan 2005- July 2006
  Phase II: July 2006-April 2007; focus on retention
• Responsibility: Education Officer and ADPC, SSA at city level and Central Resource Centre of SSA, BRTs and Education Supervisor jointly at Zonal level.