Study of tent schools (SSA)

Abstract

Sarva Siksha Abhiyan is a program set up by the Ministry of Human Resource Development for the universalization of elementary education. One of the initiatives of the SSA is the setting up of tent schools. Tent schools are set up in order to cater to the needs of the children of migrating people, construction workers in general. These workers keep migrating in search of work and take their families along, in the process, their children most of the times are deprived of education. The idea of providing education to the children by taking the schools to their doorstep is one of the most important steps towards the universalization of elementary education. The study of tent schools was started with the intention to find out whether or not the purpose to set up these schools has been served or not. Generally, we all tend to find the reasons behind the failures of organizations, but this time we also concentrated on the reasons for success. We concentrated more on the factors that are making the extremely good ones into what they are. Over the past few weeks, we have made visits to around 10 tent schools in and around bangalore, talked to headmasters, teachers, parents, children, in brief, most of the stakeholders and made our own assessment. There are certain tent schools which are extremely good and many among the rest are good themselves. During our study, we did not come across any school which did not seem to serve the purpose, to mainstream the children of the poor into the schools. But talking to lot of people involved, we made some very important observations and hence could come up with some suggestions that may further assist in giving education to every single child, the entire purpose of the program Sarva Siksha Abhiyan .