EDUCATION LEVEL OF SLUM IN INDIA

Various surveys of slum areas show that only over half the children are in school. It also showsthat a high over-age and dropout ratio exists among slum children. Over-age is often the outcomeof late admission to school. Late admission is caused both by demand side i.e. migration fromrural areas to slums and by supply side i.e. lack of school capacity for all children, a short periodof admission, requirement of birth certificate etc. Economic problems are one of the mainreasons why children do not attend school.However various educational schemes have been applied by government to increase the literacyrate. Some of them are as follows:

Operation Blackboard

The Operation Blackboard scheme, started in 1987-88, which aimed at improving the classroom  environment by providing infrastructural facilities, additional teachers and teaching-learning material to primary schools and by provision of a third teacher to schools where enrolment exceeded 100, has been extended to upper primary schools.

Restructuring and Reorganization of Teacher Education

The scheme of Restructuring and Reorganization of Teacher Education, started in 1987, aims tostrengthen the institutional base of teacher training by taking up special programs for training of teachers in specified areas and other non-institutional training programs.

District Primary Education Program (DPEP)

The District Primary Education Program (DPEP), launched in 1994, is assisted by the WorldBank, European Commission, and Department for International Development (DFID) of theUnited Kingdom, the Netherlands and

the United Nations International Children’s Emergency

Fund (UNICEF).

Shiksha Karmi Project and Lok Jumbish Project in Rajasthan

Two externally-aided projects for basic education are the Shiksha Karmi and Lok Jumbish projects in Rajasthan. Both are innovative projects aimed at the universalization of elementaryeducation together with a qualitative improvement in remote and socially backward villages witha primary focus on gender.