Where are we today with respect to girls' education

through provision of special support services, setting of time targets, and effectivemonitoring.... (GOI 1986, 1992)The NPE / POA (1986) was followed by the Jomtien Declaration (1990), whichcontributed towards a significant increase in domestic and international investment inprimary education. Many new programmes were initiated during this period and thegovernment mobilised considerable domestic and external funds for primary education.As the decade progressed there was a realisation that primary education is not merelyabout formal access and literacy rates and that the central issue was “removal ofdisparities and to equalise educational opportunity by attending to the specific needs ofthose who have been denied equality so far” (NPE, 1986).The District Primary Education Project (DPEP) helped augment resources and madeprimary education an important priority of the Government of India (See tables 15 and 16on expenditure and outlay in annexure 1). 2 The programme was initiated as part of thelarger Social Safety Net Credit Adjustment Loan to India under the Structural AdjustmentProgramme of the World Bank in 1991. Taking its cue from the policy guidelines in NPE1986 and drawing upon the experience of a range of prior primary education programmes,the DPEP tried to “incorporate a gender perspective in all aspects of the planning andimplementation process” (GOI 1995). It recognised the importance of mainstreaminggender and making it an integral part of strategies to tackle problems of access, retentionand achievement levels and for reaching out to children from the most disadvantagedgroups/communities. The project sought to “to increase coverage of girls, improve theiracademic achievements and reduce gender disparities in respect to enrolment, retentionand learning achievements.” 3 DPEP adopted a two-pronged strategy to meet the gender andsocial equity goals:- Make the education system more responsive to the needs and constraints of girlsand children from disadvantaged communities, and- Create community demand for girls’ education and enabling conditions for greaterparticipation.The size of the DPEP intervention can be gauged by the fact that 86,850 new schools and83,500 Alternative Schools have been opened between 1994 and 2002 and 1 millionteachers and 3 million community members were trained. DPEP is now operational in273 Phase II and III Districts and even as it is being phased out in 42 Phase I Districts.Official commitment to universal education was further strengthened with the enactmentof the 93 rd Constitutional Amendment Bill (passed by the Lower House of Parliament on2 Discussing the spurt in elementary education spending in 1995/96, Sajita Bashir (2000a, p.12)points out that: After deducting the expenditure on these two programmes (DPEP and LokJumbish), real plan expenditure (domestic) for elementary education has grown at the rate of 22per cent p.a., compared to 27 per cent p.a. when external funds are included. Thus, the increasein domestic funding has been the main factor in raising Plan expenditure on elementaryeducation.3 DPEP, MHRD, GOI 2000.India Case Study Page 7 20 June 2003