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Abstract
This paper discusses decentralisation of and community participation in, elementary education of Kerala. Decentralisation is the political process of sharing power on the part of the state with local level structures and community participation refers to assumption of power or responsibility on the part of the people at the local level. In the process of decentralisation in education, all state schools in Kerala are brought under the power of the local self-governments. Involvement of civil society in education in Kerala is a form of both decentralisation and community participation. There has been large scale involvement of civil society in establishing and administering schools in Kerala. School level community participation is the involvement of the immediate stakeholders of the education service in running their schools; the most important school level structure for this in Kerala is the parent teacher association. Implementation of the central act of 2009 on free and compulsory education has its implication for the prospects of community participation in education in Kerala. In order to benefit from the act, Kerala has to judiciously adapt its provisions to suit Kerala 's context of the structure and achievement of elementary education.
INTRODUCTION
India has made the constitutional commitment to universalisation of elementary education or schooling of all children in the age group of 6-14 years. The initial article under the directive principles of the Constitution on universalisation of elementary education was amended in 2002 to make elementary education a fundamental right.1 In accordance with the provision under this amendment, the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (RTE) has been enacted by the central government in order to make elementary education necessarily and really available to every child in the country (Government of India 2009). With regard to the strategy in implementation, the major programmes for universalisation of elementary education in the country have relied on various forms of community participation.
Success of the efforts in elementary education is often assessed in terms of enrolment of children of the school going age in school. At times retention rate is also used in assessing the achievement of elementary education. But the real success in schooling is to be assessed in terms of the acquisition of knowledge, skills, values and attitudes...