A study on academic achievement of Girls in KGBVs of the Gujarat state

Chaudhari Priti

The Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) scheme was launched by the Government of India in August, 2004 for setting up residential schools at upper primary level for girls belonging predominantly to the SC, ST, OBC and minorities in difficult areas. KGBVs can be opened in Educationally Backward Blocks (EBBs), previously defined on a composite criteria of blocks with a rural female literacy rate below the national average (46.13%: Census 2001) and gender gap in literacy higher than the national average (21.59%: Census 2001). Within these blocks, priority was given to areas with: concentration of tribal population and/or a large number of girls out of school; concentration of SC, ST, OBC and minority populations and/or a large number of girls out of school; areas with low female literacy; or areas with a large number of small, scattered habitations that do not qualify for a school. A study on academic achievement of girls education in KGBVs of Gujarat state revealed that the number of dropouts have decreased over a period of time but still all the never enrolled or dropouts have yet to be covered under this scheme. The hurdles to achieve this are superstitious beliefs, blind faith, evils of the society like child marriages, etc. It becomes very difficult to convince parents that education is good to their girls. The struggle is ongoing for them whether it was to enter KGBV or a life after the stay at KGBV. The average achievement of students in physical education was 65.71 %, Gujarati was 34.86 %, Hindi was 36.57 %, English was 43.57 %, Social studies 58.43 %, Science was 48.86 % and Mathematics was 33.88 %. Most of teachers working at KGBV did not feel that their future is bright there. It was due to low salary, job insecurity, staying away from family etc. The absence of subject teachers for teaching the entire subject creates inappropriate learning in that particular subject and burden for the other teacher also increases. The threat of losing the job is so high with the functionaries that they fail to share their problems in time to authorities and they do not report the inappropriate things happening which results in managing things/activities within the limited resources at the KGBV.

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Activity based science Education; A Research Endeavor

Amin Jyotsna A.

Seeing is believing but what you see depends upon how you look and how you look depends upon the scientific temper that you have. This probably could be the reason why the first prime minister of India, Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru wanted India to be more scientific. In these sixty four years of independence, India has achieved technological advancements and has been self reliant to a large extent but have we been scientific in our outlook, our thoughts and reasons? Have we been free of the shackles of caste and religion based politics? Is each Indian economically self sufficient? If not, we have failed to realize the dream of our first prime minister. Yes, a dream, a dream that could not be nurtured by the system of education in general and teachers in particular. Science is not about seeking the solutions but seeking the problems and understanding their origin and causes and the moment we see that a solution appears. Having perused the problem in science education through the research based empirical evidences the researcher has developed a program at secondary teacher education level for the course ‘Teaching of science’. It included various activities to enhance the content knowledge of science, understanding of pedagogy, qualities of a science teacher and understanding of the nature of science, science process skills and interest in teaching science resulting in the development of scientific inquiry and activity based science teaching in future.

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Enrolment and Dropout Rate of Primary Education in Millennium Decade in Andhra Pradesh State

Nagaraju M. T. V.

Andhra Pradesh has let down large numbers of its children by pushing them out of the system. We argue that these children do not drop out of school voluntarily, but are pushed out of schools. A variety of social, economic and cultural factors, as well as pedagogical practices, routines and administrative procedures are responsible for this. The Government increases the allocation of funds by the year to year to meet the challenge of the UEE and USE, as well as to provide educational facilities to the school going children and school education in the point of RTE ACT 2009, even though the issue of school dropout rate did not stop and gives a challenge to the school education department. There is a mismatch between the expectations of administrators and the system’s capacity to respond with equal seriousness, resulting in the children losing the battle to gain a formal education. These children then return to a routine of drudgery, exploitation and suffering, leaving their parents’ desire for freedom for their children unfulfilled. This paper focuses on the data of school educational statistics in Andhra Pradesh to understand the factors responsible for children being pushed out of schools. The paper focused some of the educational statistics namely the number of schools, enrolment, gross enrolment ratio, dropout etc. during the years 2001-02 to 2012-13 in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

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The study of social outcomes of older adult education in Taiwan

Lin Li-Hui

In order to assess the social outcomes of older adult education, this study is based on the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) which published a report entitled “Understanding the Social Outcomes of Learning (SOL)”10 which pays attention to the social outcome of learners receiving education and/or participating in learning activities and emphasizes to evaluate it by health and civic and social engagement (hereafter CSE). This study aims to investigate social outcomes of older adult learning (hereafter older adult SOL) through focusing on the impact toward health and CSE after the older adults received education and involved in learning activities. This study use questionnaire survey. Subjects were the senior learners from three categories of older adult educational institutes which are Evergreen Academy, Senior Learning Center and Senior Learning Academy. A total of 828 valid questionnaires were collected. Valid recovery rate is 92%. The exact copies of questionnaires retrieved from each category of older adult educational institutes are 290 copies from Senior Learning Center, 271 from Evergreen Academy and 267 from Senior Learning Academy. Four findings stand out: First, Family Relationship has the highest level of social outcomes while Social Contribution has the lowest. Second, the female participants have higher social outcomes than the males on health status and self efficiency. Third, the better social outcomes have been presented as the participants attended classes more frequently and kept more class hours. Fourth, Senior Learning Center presented the best social outcomes.

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