Educational Development is a fundamental requirement for all
sorts of development such as social and economic development. In
our Indian context education controls all developmental aspects of
the Man and the Society. It is a matter of great concern that after
50 years of our proclamation to achieve free and compulsory
education for all the citizens up to the age of 14, we have not
been able to provide education to a large number of children. The
framers of the Constitution, while deciding the date of achieving
the goal by 1960, might have thought that if the schools are
provided within walking distance of each village, it will lead to
the universal enrolment and retention. This was based, in my
opinion, on a western education paradigm, based on "trickle-down"
development paradigm. It did not succeed for the obvious reasons,
because it did not satisfy the educational needs of the people
living in rural India - Bharat. The elementary education has been
bifurcated into two stages - primary and upper primary - with the
result that a large number of drop out occur at the first stage
i.e. primary. Efforts are continued to provide schooling to this
age group (6-11) of children rather vigorously. In the present
situation, when education is being seen as ''fundamental right of
the child'', it is absolutely necessary, that we should explore
alternative channels to cover all children up to the age of 14
years besides the formal schooling.
In the formal schools, the number of children effectively
enrolled and retained upto the upper primary stage is about 1/3rd
of the total population (about 210 million) of school goers. If we
want to cover the out of school children of this age group (2/3 of
this population) only through formal education, we will require at
least double the number of existing primary/elementary schools that
is on the ground today. It will mean that the financial outlay of
this particular sector will have to be trebled apart from the
non-recurring cost of opening new elementary schools. It is,
therefore, necessary for us to look for alternative modes of
schooling.
Open Schooling is a viable alternative. It provides opportunity
for continuing and developmental education to learners of all ages
particularly (i) the children who are out of schools - dropouts and
non starters (ii) the adult population who are either illiterates
or are coming out of the total literacy campaign (TLC) or post
literacy campaign (PLC) of the National Literacy Mission (NLM).
Open Schooling uses Distance Education Mode (DEM). DEM is one of
the potential areas particularly at the upper primary level when
the child/ adult has acquired the skill of reading, writing and
comprehension.
Need of the hour is to explore the potentialities of Distance
Education Mode in Basic Education.
National Open School has initiated to this process by conducting
the study on "Reaching the Unreached - Use of Distance Education
Mode in Basic Education" and organising a National Workshop to
discuss the conclusions of study besides other initiatives that
have been taken up. Ways and means need to be explored by all of us
for using distance education mode at the basic education level. The
UNESCO has joined hands in promoting the cause of Open Schooling at
the elementary level and I record my deepest appreciation for the
same.
The workshop has been a collective endeavour. Thought,
initiative and hard labour of many have gone into it to make it a
success. I am thankful to all concerned without whose help it would
have not been possible to organise the workshop and bring it to a
successful conclusion.
I take this opportunity to express my appreciation, to all my
colleagues, particularly Dr. S.S. Sangal and Dr. H.L. Sharma who
remained involved in this task throughout.
Looking forward to all concerned with great expectation to chalk
out new paths of using Distance Education Mode (DEM) in Basic
Education.
Place : New Delhi (N.K)