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Education(AMERICAN INDIA FOUNDATION)

Education is one of the most important drivers of India's social and economic development. Higher levels of literacy lead to greater economic output, higher employment levels, better health, better social structures, and higher marks along a number of other development indicators. More specifically, the impact of educating girls and women has been shown to result in rapid improvements in family planning, nutrition, health, and income and is seen as one of the best tools for promoting social and economic development.

The 1986 National Policy on Education (NPE) first emphasized universalization of elementary education (UEE) as a national priority. Yet, despite a huge expansion in India’s formal education system in the last few decades, there are still roughly 50-60 million children out of school in the age group 6-14 years, or nearly 25 percent of total child population in the elementary age group. The key challenges to achieving UEE are:

Access: The reasons for children being out-of-school are to do with lack of physical access as well as social access. In several parts of the country, especially in small, remote habitations, children still do not have access to schooling facilities and thus remain out of school. Seasonal migration of families in search of work for several months every year is another reason which deprives children the chance to go to school. In addition, a sizeable proportion of children live in villages and habitations where formal schools exist, but due to social reasons such as caste and gender they are either not allowed to go to school, or not given the proper treatment in school.

Retention: This is an issue of serious concern. According to statistics 53% of children drop out of school before completing the elementary level, or grade VIII. This high drop out is due to poor functioning of schools, for example, dilapidated school buildings, overcrowded classrooms, irregular attendance of teachers and children, lack of teaching learning materials, ineffective teaching, unintelligible language used by the teachers and the discriminatory attitude of teachers towards children of the marginalized sections of society.

Quality: Many studies have shown that children who do complete primary schooling attain abysmal learning levels. A majority of grade V children are estimated to be at a level no higher than grade II or III. The causes stem from the poorly functioning educational system which are transmitted down to the schools.

AIF views improving the quality of education as a cross-cutting theme in its education grant making. In the absence of a quality education, children do not learn and frequently drop out of school. This is reflected in the fact that a significant portion of children who are out of school have attended school at some point. Grants involve a continuous improvement of quality of the education that is delivered, both in NGO-administered schools and in associated government schools.