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Primary Education Enhancement Programme (PEEP)

Delhi has approximately 1200 poor settlements housing between 30-50lakh persons, of which nearly 10lakh are children in the school going age group, needing immediate attention. Ensuring primary education to all children is the very basic investment needed for any nation to progress. In Delhi, it is estimated that over one third of children do not go to school, almost all being from the poor communities where lack of parental support makes it easier for children to stay away from schools.

National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) in collaboration with the Government of India, Government of Delhi, UNICEF and AUSAID is trying to address the challenge of education in the city through a major intervention programme, the Primary Education Enhancement Programme (PEEP). PEEP seeks to work with communities, with the aim of involving them in the education of their children, motivating them to send their children to school. Its overarching vision is to bring every child in the city into formal primary school by facilitating access, ensuring that each child is retained in school for minimum five-year schooling. It uses a range of participatory instruments to help understand community priorities and problems and build community structures that would be responsible for preparing concrete action plans which community themselves would strive to achieve. Such community organisation processes are expected to empower people and build self-reliance in the communities.

As part of the programme community organisation activities are underway in nearly 175 communities both directly facilitated by NIUA and through a network of NGOs. Information gathered from the communities through the use of Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) tools is being built into an information system to improve effectiveness of education planning processes and monitoring and evaluation of work in the communities.

NEED:

The Delhi government and the three local bodies in the city to promote education for all children have adopted several intervention strategies i.e. Each One Teach One, Education for All. Despite their efforts, the object of bringing in the large cohort of out of school children estimated at nearly 5lakh, seemed to be out of reach. Special efforts were needed to facilitate children from urban poor communities to get into the formal education system in the city. Merely providing schools could not solve problems of low enrolment and participation of poor children in schools. It needed understanding of the many reasons behind their not going to school and addressing these issues in a comprehensive manner.

CONCEPT AND PROCESSES

Community resource and household maps are prepared with the help of the community. Groups of 35-40 community members are gathered together who draw a map on the ground using the local material like twigs, brick powder, different types of seeds, stones, pebbles, leaves, paper etc. Each map contains information for about 300 households. Maps were them seamed together using a key map that contains major landmarks and community resources. Mapping helps communities to appreciate their strengths and resources, identify their problems and plan action based on their capacities. Community maps included detailed household information and flagged out homes with children out of school, dropouts, working children, women etc.

Several other PLA techniques are used to comprehend trends (trends analysis) and changes (time line) in the community, community profile with regard to religious, caste, state and occupational groups (seeds techniques), daily routines of working women, children etc. (daily routine diagrams) people’s choices (matrix ranking and seasonality) and problems and priorities (chapatis).

In the process of using PLA tools, interaction with the community increases and some leaders or enthusiastic people are identified from within the community to work with the programme as volunteers. Women were organised into neighbourhood groups (NHG), a collection of households living spatially close to each other ranging from 50 to 250. A community could have more than one neighbourhood group. Each NHG chooses a member to represent the group’s interest. Representatives from different NHGs are brought together as a Neighbourhood or Bastee committee (BC) responsible for discussing the problems and concerns of the whole bastee. Members of the NHG were members of the BC with the latter identifying a President and a Secretary or a few key leaders. Carved out of the Bastee Committee in the PEEP programme is the Bastee Education Committee (BEC), comprising of two or more members of the NHC who were to be responsible for enrolment, attendance, learning processes and linkages with schools. Key leaders of the bastee committees are trained at a cluster level with the help of resource persons with the objective of creating community associations at the cluster/ward level. For the first time women come in contact with leaders from other communities, shared experiences, and learnt of action taken in other areas. Eventually, these groups are encouraged to federate into a ward/district association for initiating a dialogue with the local body/state administration.

Although the programme is centred on education, if the groups wish to associate on any other issue, such as income generation or thrift and credit they are encouraged to do so. However, once people are identified to form these groups (NHC), facilitators of the PEEP programme ensure that the group is representative of the whole community, i.e. that the group has representation of all caste, religious, sate and economic groups. This is very important for ensuring decisions taken meet the needs of all the community. Over representation of one group leads to unsustainable communities and lack of ownership.

Once the groups begin to take shape, they need to find a focal point of action. They meet regularly to plan action to address their own needs. Based on their discussions, communities decide to set up Sahayak Shiksha Kendra (SSK), centres to support the learning needs of children in their community. SSKs have taken different shapes depending upon the needs of the community; a balwadi (pre school), tuition centre, vocational training centre or skill up-gradation centre. The community provides human and financial resources required for managing these centres. Fee is determined by the NHC and varies according to the economic level and age of the child. Community members identify space for the centre. SSK workers are trained in teaching pedagogy; depending upon whether they function as pre school workers or work with primary school going children with the help of NGOs specialised in such training. Linkages with the private sector are being explored to improve the infrastructure at these centres and to provide a range of opportunities such as computer aided learning etc.

Capacity building is the key to building community structures. Training strategies at NIUA are unbundled to provide continuous contact with field facilitators. Short training packages are interspersed with fieldwork programmes that enable facilitators to practice in the field. Facilitators are supported in the field by a team of supervisors and resource persons.

Special campaigns are organised during admission months to motivate children to go to school. Films (Meena prepared by UNICEF) are screened in the communities to create awareness about the need to educate children, particularly girls and to withdraw children from labour outside homes. Children whose education is being interrupted due to the large-scale demolitions/relocations are being tracked to their new sites and special strategies planned to ensure that children do not drop out of school.

In order to monitor the programme, PEEP is in the process of developing an Information system that is based on the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to enable effective monitoring of children’s education status in the communities and to improve education management. Local bodies in the city have also been involved in process. Quality of classroom processes is being improved by SCERT. Cluster Resource centres have been set up by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and the New Delhi Municipal Corporation in their schools to build capacities of teachers in joyful teaching methods. To upscale the community building strategy a network of city NGOs has been facilitated under PEEP.

IMPACT

Although the programme began in only two districts with high concentrations of poor, it has being gradually up-scaled to reach out to each and every bastee. Besides, it seeks to identify children in need of special attention such as children with disabilities, street children, children of prostitutes/AIDS patients, domestic workers etc. and address their needs with the assistance of specialised NGOs. Intervention strategies are based on identification of needs and priorities.

Bastee committees that have been formed have chosen to solve community problems other than those related to education. For example community association of Majboor Nagar in East Delhi was able to secure a toilet block, additional water taps, paved pathways with drains from the Slum Wing. Direct interaction with the concerned departments for their problems has instilled a sense of confidence among the poor women.

Planning with the communities and community associations has empowered women, who are now more aware of their problems and strengths and willing to solve their problems. Dependency on the government institutions is gradually being eroded as self-help strategies are beginning to emerge. Training programmes at the cluster level are facilitating exchange of ideas, motivating communities to seek and implement solutions to their own problems. As the programme gradually encompasses all the communities, it is expected that a powerful voice of people will be created that will help read their needs into city plans not only for education but in other sectors as well.