Articles by Vimala Ramachandran

Increases in enrolment rates, attendance figures and midday meal distribution do not convey the true picture of the state of the education system in our country. Equally disturbing is the high dropout rate from primary to upper-primary levels, the blame for which lies partly with educators, especially teachers who in government schools and in more rural areas appear demotivated and disheartened.

While elementary education, its availability and distribution have shown an improvement in recent years, vast sections such as the poor, girls in rural areas, tribals and some among the scheduled castes remain out of its reach. The new government needs to review existing centrally-assisted programmes to ensure that region- and context-specific issues are highlighted, more particularly that such schemes are tailored to meet the varying needs of a vast and complex country.

This exploratory and illustrative study focuses on children, their family, larger community, the available education and health services in an effort to understand the causality and social processes that affect, partially or wholly, children's full participation in schooling. It explores the continuous and cumulative nature of social and economic exclusion that poor children face and the impact this has on their ability to complete primary schooling. Areas that could make a difference, the study suggests, are well-functioning schools with basic facilities and motivated teachers; an adequate pre-school education component within the ICDS programme; heightened public awareness of health and nutrition and equally importantly, strengthening of traditional community structures.

This article, based on a desk review of the District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) and qualitative micro studies in six states - Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Tamil Nadu - attempts to capture the impact of primary education programmes on the ground. Introducing the emergent concept of 'hierarchies of access' to describe the new segregation occurring in primary education, the article focuses on the micro studies documenting the tangible and intangible dimensions of gender and social equity that frame the implementation of DPEP at the village and panchayat level. On the basis of the findings of the desk review and the micro studies, the authors discuss ways to reverse the trend of segregation so as to make universal primary education a substantive reality.

The high profile colourful encounter between the visiting US president and articulate village women of Niala papers over the story of how a vibrant women's development programme in the state has been systematically destroyed.