Indian Education Repository

The report is a review of the progress with respect to each of the Education For All (EFA) goals and the challenges that remain to be addressed. It observes the progress in enrolment at the pre-primary level and Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) overall due to Integrated Child Development Service (ICDS) Scheme which increased enrolment, especially among disadvantaged children, growth in the number of schools and progress toward universal retention. It highlights the many challenges that still need attention, i.e., (i) quality of ECCE, (ii) lower enrolment in upper primary and secondary/higher secondary education; (iii) higher drop-out rates in elementary and secondary education, especially among children belonging to socially and economically disadvantaged populations groups; (iv) lower level of student attendance rate at primary and upper primary stages of education in some of the educationally backward States; (v) lower level of participation in the education of children with special needs; (vi) unsatisfactory level of student learning; (vii) deficiencies relating to teacher quality and teaching-learning process; (viii) difficulty in sustaining the involvement of the volunteer teachers in adult education programmes and in creating sustainable demand for literacy; (ix) inadequate vocational education and training facilities; and (x) shortage of funding for some of the education sector development programme.