Community Participation In Elementary Education

Preface

This book is an attempt to examine “Community Participation in Elementary Education” and more specifically to identify the factors that aid or impede the participation of School Management Committees (SMCs)”. It is hence thought it should contain recommendations on ways to enhance the amount and quality of participation in Education. This book will serve many purposes to those who work in the area of educational policy and specific programmes. This is presented with a firm conviction that the participation of parents of school-going children has a major role to play in the realization of the right to education.

Over the past few decades, several efforts have been made by the Government of India to democratize education in the country’s rural communities by ensuring that parents and local communities play a central role in the functioning of their school systems. The Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act of 2009 (RTE), the efforts to improve school infrastructure and teacher-pupil ratio, and the policy for enhanced roles and responsibilities for SMCs had the potential to transform public education in rural India.

Sensing the need for further strengthening of community participation in the school education system, the author made an attempt to carry the work in urban, rural and tribal areas of Adilabad District. The first chapter in the book discusses the context of the research. The second chapter examines the published research on the research issue to identify the research gaps. While the third chapter is on Educational Scenario in India; Policies and Programmes for universalization of education prior to independence and post-independence, the fourth chapter provides the backdrop of the research setting. The subsequent chapters (Chapters V-IX) of the book are devoted to the core objectives of the study. In these chapters, the issues relating to community participation in education were dealt with from different perspectives and viewpoints.