SHISHU SHIKSHA KARMASUCHI
 
                       For various reasons not all the children of our state get opportunity to go to the primary schools or many of them drop out after having registered there. The situation had to be rectified in order to achieve the cherished goal of universalisation of primary education. Demand for education also went up after Total Literacy Campaign was successfully launched in the State in the early nineties. But the demand of the situation could not be fully and effectively met with formal primary education systems. At the same time, it was almost impossible to open primary schools at every nook and corner of the State wherever there were some children not having access to the school.

Therefore, the Government of West Bengal decided to introduce an alternative elementary education system in West Bengal, which could reach any corner of the state, cater to the special needs of the children, less costly, but qualitatively comparable with the formal education system. In 1997-98 the Education department, Government of West Bengal, took up such a programme and planned to set up about 1000 Child Education Centres, with the help of Panchayati Raj bodies. Subsequently the programme was transferred to the Department of Panchayats and Rural Development, Government of West Bengal.

The Panchayat and Rural Development Department took up the programme as Shisu Shiksha Karmasuchi, and decided to set up the Shishu Shiksha Kendras (ssk), wherever there were at least twenty children not having access to any existing primary school or require some special dispensation, which are not available in the formal primary schools. Other essential features of the Karmasuchi are:
 
  • Shisu Shiksha Kendras are opened at the initiative of the community and are owned and managed by them.

  • Funds are provided by the State Government and Panchayats act as facilitators only.

  • It is a demand driven programme; Kendras can be opened in school-less villages / village with schools which have inadequate infrastructures [in terms of space and / or teachers etc.]

  • Curriculum and syllabus as prescribed by the West Bengal Board of Primary Education
    Textbooks as prescribed for the formal primary schools.

  • Classroom transaction on the principles ofJoyful Learning
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