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NOTES DEVELOPMENT OF EKLAVYA MODEL RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS IN THE TRIBAL AREAS OF GUJARAT.
While formulating the 9th Five Year Plan, Govt.
of India realized that unless the quality of education is substantially
improved in the tribal areas, some of the serious issues involved with
employability and subsequent performance of tribal youths cannot be addressed.
It was felt that as the tribal children suffer from various locational and
social disadvantages, they lack self confidence and exposure and this can only
be resolved by providing the best possible quality of education. The public
schools model was considered to be the best suited for improving the quality of
schooling and for raising the confidence level and character of tribal
children. Keeping in view these objectives, the Eklavya School Project was
launched in the year 1999-2000 and over the period, 10 such schools have been
sanctioned in Gujarat [list of these schools and their expected intake is given
in Attachment – 1]. Government of Gujarat has promoted an autonomous society
under the Tribal Development Department to implement this scheme and has also
agreed to provide required land to construct these schools.
2. Besides the Eklavya Schools, the Tribal Development Department is also directly managing over 40 model residential schools with the aim of improving the level of science teaching in tribal areas and is supporting a large number of NGOs in running residential Ashram Schools for tribal students. It is also managing a large number of hostels in major cities which provide accommodation to students pursuing higher education. The Eklavya Schools are positioned at the top of this pyramid and are meant to provide the best possible education to the meritorious tribal children and the quality of these schools are expected to be comparable to the best urban schools. 3. Some of the broad features of Eklavya Schools are – a. These schools are expected to have the best possible educational and extra curricular infrastructure. For this purpose, Govt. of India sanctioned non-recurring grant of Rs. 2.5 crore per school and recurring grant of Rs. 30 lakh per year to each Eklavya School. This grant was by and large utilized for construction of school building and the hostel. The State Government has subsequently arranged a corpus of Rs. 3 crore for creation of remaining facilities in these schools; b. These will be residential schools which will take care of all the requirements of the child without charging any fee. These requirements will include proper nutritious meals, clothes, shoes, books, pocket money, etc. The nature of expenses are also mentioned in the attached cost sheet for these schools; c. They will have better quality teachers and will pay higher salary to them so that they are motivated to join these schools which are located in remote areas; and d. They will provide proper co-curricular activities to every child so that each of these schools is known for some of these activities throughout the State. 4. The functioning of Eklavya school system was evaluated by NIEPA recently. The report high-lighted following lacuna in the implementation: a. No effort was made to induct high quality teachers or to improve the extra curricular facilities; b. These schools are, by and large, not better than other schools which are functioning in the tribal areas. In fact, the results of some of these schools are poorer than those of the other schools in the same locality; and c. The outcome of these schools has remained dismal and little efforts were made in improving the quality of these schools. In nutshell, they are being treated like any other school which is being run by the Government. 4. The Eklavya School Society in Gujarat has decided to take remedial measures to improve the quality of these schools and is also willing to raise additional resources for achieving the over all objectives of this Project. As the society is an autonomous organization, it is empowered to take all the desired actions for achieving its objectives. Some of the areas for intervention in the short term could be – a. Selection of good quality principals and teachers, finalizing their job chart and performance norms along with an attractive remuneration package. An advertisement to this effect was recently issued and principals and teachers are likely to be appointed soon; b. Organizing formal and informal training programmes for the teaching staff, so that they get a clear idea for running these schools and adopt the best practices from other good schools; c. Finalizing the teaching methodology and extra curricular system for individual schools. Discussions have been initiated with few experts for this purpose; and d. Identifying the infrastructural gaps, mobilization resources to meet these gaps and put into place a suitable system for their operation and maintenance. An architect has been engaged for this purpose, who has already visited few existing schools. 5. In order to implement the above short term action plan and to get best possible guidance, the Society has invited few reputed educationalists who can provide guidance, develop strategies for improving the infrastructure facilities, academic inputs, teaching methodology, extra curricular activities and exchange programmes for the students and teachers and implement the action plans. Alternatively, some reputed organisations can pick-up few schools for over all improvement within an agreed time frame. The society is willing to arrange visit of such experts to some of these schools and on the basis of such field visits, the experts can develop implementable terms of reference for activities which would be performed by them during the given time frame. 6. REQUIREMENT OF LAND FOR NEW SCHOOLS: In order to provide the required buildings for class rooms, administrative block, laboratories, hostel and mess and also to develop necessary outdoor sports infrastructure in these schools, the district administration will be requested to provide at least 20 acres of open land with road connectivity. As some of the existing schools do not have adequate land, efforts will be made to obtain the remaining land. 7. OWNERSHIP OF LAND & OTHER ASSETS: The land, building and all other infrastructure of the ten schools which have been funded under the Government of India scheme belongs to the Government of Gujarat and the Society is entrusted to manage these assets with the aim of providing highest quality education to the tribal children. The Society is empowered to offer the management of these schools to any expert organization and also to seek donation from any source. 8. CRITERIA FOR SELECTION OF STUDENTS: It is imperative that these schools nurture the best talent among ST children and for this purpose there must be an open and competition based selection. In order to ensure adequate representation to every ITDP are, seats on the basis of the population of the area can be ear-marked and admission tests can be held at the taluka level during the month of March for the next academic session. There can be separate merit list for boys and girls so that girls get adequate representation. Once the students are selected, they can be given a choice to opt for any Eklavya School. It is proposed to start such a merit based selection system from the 2007-08 academic session. 9. PREFERENCE TO DOUBLY DISADVANTAGED STUDENTS: The students from families from PTG, seasonal migrants, orphans, having any parent suffering from HIV-AIDS or having a handicapped parent can be extended 5% extra marks. There will be no reservation for children from such families. 10. REQUIREMENTS FOR ACADEMIC PERSONNEL: The teaching staff and principals are expected to be of very high caliber. Keeping in view this factor, the Society has decided to offer an attractive financial package to them along with performance based annual enhancement, free boarding & lodging within the school premises and free schooling to offsprings in the school. However, in order to ensure better performance, it has also been decided to induct such personnel on medium term contract only. They can be offered contracts up to five years at a stretch. Although a fixed remuneration is being offered to the teachers and Principal, these are comparable to those offered by the Central School to similar category of employees. 11. The academic qualifications of the teachers and principals will be- a. Principal: PG Degree, M. Ed and two years’ experience in a public school; b. Higher Secondary Teachers: PG Degree with 60% marks and B. Ed; and c. Upper Primary Teachers: Graduate degree with first class, B. Ed. 12. STATUS OF SECTIONS STARTED: Except in Kaprada and Bartad, where standard 10 will be started in 2007-08, all other six functioning schools have 6-10 standards. It is now aimed either to shift all standard 11 & 12 students to few schools so that the teaching costs are reduced or to start remaining classes by 2008-09. 13. RESULTS OF THE EKLAVYA SCHOOLS: As these schools did not have regular teachers and essential infrastructure was under development, the performance of individual schools in the Secondary examinations of 2006 was not satisfactory. The school-wise performance was as follows-
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