Though our government has reaffirmed many times its  commitment to free and compulsory primary education, coverage of children with special needs, eradication of illiteracy, vocationalisation, women’s education, and special focus on the education of socially disadvantaged sections through Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA, yet the reality at ground level seems to be dismal if one goes by the media reports and independent studies.

The SSA programme, only on paper recognises the needs for improving the performance of school system through a community owned approach and ensuring quality elementary education in a mission mode to all children in 6 – 14 year age group by 2010. It also seeks to bridge gender and social gaps.

Furthermore, to signify the national priority, SSA mission has been with the Prime Minister as the Chairperson and Union Minister of Human Resource Development as the Vice – Chairperson. States have also established Implementation Societies for UEE under the Chairmanship of their respective Chief Minister / Education Minister.

Contrary to all these provision, the recent newspaper reports on the performance of SSA indicate that the quality of government schools has not increased despite heavy investments in the programmes through the World Bank loans.

The strategies central to SSA programme are as follows: (a) habitation as the unit of planning; (b) accountability to community; (c) community-based monitoring with full transparency; (d) community ownership; (e) girls’ education; (f) improving mainstream educational administration; (g) institutional reforms; (h) institutional capacity building; (i) focus on special groups; (j) pre-project phase; (k) thrust on quality; (l) role of teachers; (m) district elementary education plans; and (n) sustainable financing.

 The strategies conceived by the SSA programme designers are good but their operationalisation and implementation continue to be poor since at the state levels, the directors of SSA hardly stay with the programme nor they take its implementation seriously.