Organization : National University of Educational Planning and Administration
Service Name : Secondary Education Management Information System (SEMIS)
University Location : Delhi
Website : http://www.semisonline.net/Default.aspx
SEMIS :
Mass basic education has been given a priority in the country right from the time of independence.
Related : Department of Higher Education Delhi Student Loan Under Higher Education & Skill Development Guarantee Scheme : www.statusin.in/21657.html
However, mass education may not be complete without democratizing access to and ensuring quality of secondary education. The developmental effects of education generally take effect fully at the secondary level. Active participation in the global knowledge economy, therefore, requires that a significant proportion of the labor force in India be educated at least up to the secondary level.
Not only that secondary education acts as a highway to tertiary education but also opens up the windows to the world of work. Its impact on reducing the incidences of HIV/AIDS is found to be significant. Secondary education is critical for the development of the young people during their adolescence, the most rapid phase of their physical, mental and emotional growth. At the secondary level, values and attitudes formed at elementary education are more firmly ingrained alongside the acquisition of knowledge and skills.
While the recent growth performance of India has generated much optimism,the accompanying indicators of educational achievement do not seem to be very encouraging. Although, India has been witnessing tremendous progress in elementary education since the early 1990s, and has also emerged as an important player in the worldwide information technology, it’s secondary and higher secondary education continue to remain underdeveloped and neglected.
The States generally decide on their own secondary education system and the related policies within a national framework. The reform initiatives of the States largely shape the development pattern of secondary and higher secondary education in the country. While there is substantial variation across States, the country’s public spending on secondary education is about 1.2% of the GDP. Given the limited public resources, the private sector has largely influenced the pace of growth of secondary education during the last two decades.
Participation rate in secondary education is far below that of elementary education sub-sector partly because of the low efficiency of the later and inadequate access and low quality of secondary schooling provisions. While the number of secondary and higher 1secondary schools in the country increased from 7,416 in 1950-51 to 1, 52,049 in 2004- 05 and the total enrolment has gone up from 1.5 million in 1950-51 to 37 million in 2004- 05, the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER), which shows total enrolment in secondary stage (IX-XII) as a percentage of the total population in the relevant age-group was only 39.91% in 2004-05. The GER for Classes IX-X (14-15 years) was 51.55%, and for Classes XI-XII (16-17 years), it was 27.82% as on 30th September 2004 (MHRD, 2007).
In fact, according to the Seventh All India Educational Survey (NCERT, 2002), there were only one-fifth as many secondary schools (those with grade 10 classes) as the number of primary schools. It is likely that secondary school enrolment is low partly because of lack of supply of schooling provisions, including inadequate provisions in the existing schools. Besides, low participation rates, gender, regional and social divides are most prominent at secondary level. The basic enabling conditions to make effective teaching and learning happen are absent in most of the government and aided secondary and higher secondary schools leading to serious concerns for raising and maintaining standards.
Despite supply constraints, the demand for secondary school places is likely to rise substantially in the coming years due to the increase in the turnover of graduates at the elementary level as a consequence of implementation of several basic education development programmes, including the SSA, and also partly because of the increasing private returns to secondary education.
The implementation of the externally funded reform programmes in the primary education sector in the 1990s, and subsequently, the ‘Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) have led to a high transition rate of about 85% from class VIII to IX, i.e. from elementary to secondary level, and it is expected that it would further increase in the coming years.
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Professor & Head
Department of Educational Management Information System (EMIS)
National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA)
17-B, Sri Aurobindo Marg, New Delhi – 110016 (INDIA)
E-mail: arunmehta [AT] nuepa.org
Telephone : 91-11-26544-887, 91-11-26544-883, 91-11-26544-828
Fax : 91-11-2685-3041 & 91-11-2686-5180
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Please Note that Information presented on this site is obtained from the School Head Master/Head Teacher through the District and State level SSA Authorities. Please report discrepancy in data, if any presented in this website and actual situation in school to us. To Report discrepancy in data please email arunmehta [AT] nuepa.org