| 4. In which ways is the initiative creative and innovative?
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All the schools reopen in the month of June every year. The school enrollment as an event takes place at the beginning of reopening of the schools. Therefore survey of all eligible children to be enrolled is carried out in April every year. The information collected by the teachers is consolidated at CRC, BRC, district and state level.
In the last week of May, the Chief Minister of the state himself takes proactive action to organize Shala Praveshotsav & Kanya Kelavani Rathyatra, a mass campaign to encourage enrollment and reduce dropout rate in schools. The strategy involves detailed house-to-house survey of eligible children to be enrolled in the first standard, which is followed by a 3-day festival involving all the senior officer bearers and Government officers visiting each school in the state. Special orientation workshop for the participants is organized which is addressed by the Chief Minister. This program is conducted through SATCOM.
The program is attended by more than 3000 senior officers of the Government and various stakeholders like Ministers, Member of Parliament, Member of Legislative Assembly, Office bearers of the 3-tier Panchayat functionaries, Educationalists, State & National Awardee Teachers, Business communities, Industries and Non-Government organizations. The program is marked by community participation on large scale involving parents, village community, teachers association, women groups, co-operative societies etc.
The participants are supported through a well documented kit with the route of the visit, demographic information including literacy rate of respective villages, list of girls to be given Vidya Laxmi Bonds and other relevant details.
The officers reach to the particular district one day earlier and organize informal meetings chaired by collector with district and sub-district level functionaries. Then the officers go to the schools according to their pre-decided routes.
The Shala Praveshotsav & Kanya Kelavani Mahotsav begins in form of a procession of the newly enrolled children decorated with head gears and colorful clothes. The program precedes by the village & school sanitation campaign. The entire school is decorated with banners, posters, colorful paintings, exhibitions highlighting the significance of education. The streets and crossroads are decorated with arches, banners and flags etc. The procession is attended by school children, teachers, parents, village communities and visiting participants. The rally goes to each part of the village and eligible children join the rally itself. When the rally comes back to school the newly enrolled children are warmly welcomed by the officer, teachers and elder children. Newly enrolled children are given school bag, notebook, pen, pencil and sweets by the community for their welcome. The welcome ceremony is also organized at the school level in presence of the community members. The Vidya Laxmi bonds also are given during the ceremony and the event serves as a platform for creating awareness about all primary education schemes.
The participants give their feedback online through a special web portal. The feed-backs are scrutinized and action points are screened out. The concerned stakeholders are advised to take necessary follow up action. All villages and urban local bodies in the state are covered.
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| 5. Who implemented the initiative and what is the size of the population affected by this initiative?
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Chief Minister of the state has started Shala Praveshotsav & Kanya Kelavani Rathyatra to enhance girls’ education.
Mainly Department of Education, Directorate of Primary Education (DPE), Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Gujarat Council of Education Research & Training (GCERT) organizes the event.
Apart from the department officials, Ministers, Members of Parliament (MP), Members of Legislative Assembly (MLA), Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers, Indian Police Service (IPS) officers, Indian Forest Service (IFS) officers, District Collectors, District Development Officers (DDO), President & members of Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI), Municipal Corporation dignitaries (Mayor, Municipal Commissioner, Corporators & Corporation Officials), Non Government Organization partners, members of Community Based Organization, Educationalist, Awardee Teacher, Co-operative Society, Members of Lions Club & Rotary Club, Religious groups, Industrialists, Women Self help groups at village level, teachers unions, teachers & parents also participate in the event of Shala Praveshotsav & Kanya Kelavani Rathyatra.
The participation and joint efforts from all section of the society help the village community in sending their girls to schools.
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| 6. How was the strategy implemented and what resources were mobilized?
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All schools are provided Rs.500 as the token amount for organizing an event at the school level. However, the school level expenditure is far more than this amount. Therefore, the community itself generates funds and organizes the event. All children in the school are donated lunch by the community, children are also given school and uniforms by the community in some of villages. A sum of Rs. 0.2 million is provided to each District Office for this program by State Government.
Further, the Chief Minister of the state has started Mukhya Mantri Kanya Kelavani Nidhi (Chief Minister Girls Education Fund) to enhance girls’ education. The gift articles given to CM are sold through auction and the fund generated from that goes to Mukhya Mantri Kanya Kelavani Nidhi. The total amount deposited in the Mukhyamantri Kanya Kelavani Nidhi is around Rs. 750 millions.
The participants give their feedback online through a special web-portal.
The primary schools receive community donations worth Rs. 20 million every year has helped to improve all aspects of schooling and meet gaps.
Girls in villages having less than 35% female literacy are given Vidya Laxmi Bond of Rs. 2000. Also in urban areas girls from Below Poverty Line (BPL) family are also given Vidya Laxmi Bond of Rs. 2000
During Shala Praveshotsav & Kanya Kelavani program computers and other resources in the form of cash and donations are received from various communities. The same fund is being used for the development of school infrastructure, facilities to be provided to children etc.
Human Resources used for Shala Praveshotsav & Kanya Kelavani:
Apart from Department officials, Ministers, Members of Parliament (MP), Members of Legislative Assembly (MLA), Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers, Indian Police Service (IPS) officers, Indian Forest Service (IFS) officers, District Collectors, District Development Officers (DDO), President & members of Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI), Municipal Corporation dignitaries (Mayor, Municipal Commissioner, Corporators & Corporation Officials), District Education officers, District Primary officers, Cluster Resource Centre Co-ordinator, Block-Resource Centre Co-ordinators, Centre Co-ordinators, Assistant Education Inspectors, Other Department officials, Non Government Organization partners, members of Community Based Organization, Educationalist, Awardee Teacher, Co-operative Society, Members of Lions Club & Rotary Club, Religious groups, Industrialists, Women Self help groups at village level, school management committees, parents & teachers unions also participate to make it a successful event.
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| 7. Who were the stakeholders involved in the design of the initiative and in its implementation?
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This initiative has led to many concrete outputs which have contributed to the success of the initiative but the most important amongst them are as follows:
• Net Enrollment Ratio of Girls increased from 74.8% in 2003-04 to 98.97% in year 2012-13 (Source: DISE). Due to the various schemes launched to improve the facilities in the school there is a significant reduction in factors leading to non-enrollment like distance of school from house, lack of toilets in school, lack of funds etc. The net enrollment ratio has seen a huge leap in the last 9 years.
• Dropout rate of girls has decreased from 22.8% in year 2004-05 to 7.82% in year 2011-12 (Source: DISE). Some of the major reasons for dropouts used to be lack of girls toilets in schools and problems of commuting from house to schools. Both these issues were handled by increasing girls’ toilets in schools to 99.66% and providing bicycles to girls under Vidya Sadhana Yojana. Enrollment of Girls has grown significantly from 3.02 million in 2003-04 to 4.23 million in 2012-13, which shows an increase of overall 40.12%.
• The Dangs which is a totally Tribal District indicates the nature of transformation taking place in even backward areas of the State. The average Female literacy rate of the Dangs district in the year 2001 was 48.51% which has increased to 68.71% in the year 2011 showing an improvement of 20.24%.
• The primary schools are getting donations worth Rs. 20 million every year which has helped to improve all aspects of schooling like infrastructure, faculty etc.
• Increase in female literacy rate compared to male literacy rate as per census 2011. The overall improvement of all facets of school education has led to more females undergoing education leading to increased female literacy rate. Districts with female literacy rate lower than 35% has decreased from 32 blocks to 4 blocks (Amirgadh, Dhanpur, Chhota Udaipur, Kavant) in the period of 2001-2011. (Source: Census 2011)
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| 8. What were the most successful outputs and why was the initiative effective?
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The list of eligible children for enrollment is maintained at all levels i.e. school level to state level.
During the three-day event of Kanya Kelavani Rathyatra, enrollment is recorded and uploaded in the MIS of SSA.
After the three-day drive, the state is monitoring the progress till 31 August and left out children also are covered by the end of August every year.
Simultaneously, CRC-BRC Coordinators also visit the schools and follow up whether all eligible children are enrolled.
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) Gujarat has prepared Migration Monitoring Software (MMS) to trace out the intrastate & interstate migrant children with the help of Industrial Extension Bureau (iNDEXTb). Information regarding the intrastate migration is recorded and tracked by migration monitoring system. Special team has been appointed with the help of NGOs for the identification, online entry, enrollment and tracking of the Interstate Migration of children. This system has been appreciated at the National Level (17th Joint Review Mission of SSA).
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| 9. What were the main obstacles encountered and how were they overcome?
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In initial phase, certain communities were not ready to educate their girls. Therefore, specific community leaders were approached and oriented by the government. Some religious leaders also were approached in certain social groups to have better coverage in enrollment.
There are some communities who migrate every year for livelihood purpose. The school going children also migrate with their families therefore even after enrolment in school, the migrant children were not able to continue their education. Secondly, it was very difficult for the government to track these children. The state therefore came out with the IT-solution called Migration Monitoring System (MMS). The migrated children are recorded in the computerized program in which the name of child, parents and the whereabouts of the family is uploaded. All the CRC Coordinators continuously keep themselves updated on the reports of MMS. Accordingly, they try to find out the children and to bring them to school in the area where the family has been migrated.
Secondly, the MMS also has a provision that the child going from one village to another brings Migration Certificate from the mother school and this certificate is given to the school in the area in which the family has been migrated. If the child is attending schools other than mother school, the attendance also is carry forward in migration certificate so that when the child comes to the home village the attendance in other school also has been considered.
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