Indian Education Repository

The Tapas Majumdar Committee estimated the total magnitude of funds required in addition to the prevailing magnitude of public expenditure of Elementary Education (EE) over a period of ten years (1998-99 to 2007-08) for universalising EE by 2007-08. It also suggested a plan in which this additional public spending could’ve phased over a period of ten years. The Committee estimated that the additional expenditure for achieving Universal Elementary Education (UEE), based on the norm of two classrooms, two teachers per school and reaching gradually to 30:1 Pupil-Teacher-Ratio by the tenth year and calculating teachers’ salary at the rate revised after the Fifth Central Pay Commission would be Rs 1,36,922 crore over the 10 years from 1998 to 2008. It recommended that even children belonging to the poorest sections of society must receive an education that was comparable in quality with the best and added that there should never be a national scheme of recruitment of para teachers, and that true community participation in the affairs of the school must be aggressively facilitated.