A study on present status of Sarba Siksha Abhiyan Mission (SSA) among the tea tribes of Nazira subdivision under Sivasagar district, Assam, India

Education is the birth right of every child. Now every child has the right to demand free and compulsory primary education because the right to education Act has came in to force in the entire country from 1^st April, 2010. The framers of Indian constitution took a serious note on elementary education in the article no.45 which says-”The state shall endeavour to provide within a period of ten years from the commencement of the constitution free and compulsory education for all children until they complete the age of 14 years”. But this prescribed goal could not be achieved till now. Although in India primary education has been made compulsory by the government but there are some major problems which are arising in the path of implementing universalisation of elementary education. Govt. of India has launched various programmes to achieve the development of primary education. Sarba Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) is one of them which have been implemented by the government in India from the year 2001. Sarba Siksha Abhiyan Mission is a special programme which was prepared by the central Government for the universalisation of elementary education (UEE) in the entire country. It is a national flagship programme which seeks to provide quality elementary education to all children in the age group of 6–14. Among the different communities living in Assam, Tea garden communities are educationally lagging much behind. It is admitted that the literacy rate of these communities is lower than other communities of Assam. It has been also observed that the growth of primary education is very poor in the tea-garden of Assam. The tea garden communities have failed to respond satisfactorily to the various efforts of Government and non-Government agencies towards universalisation of elementary education. Different developmental scheme undertaken so far have been found ineffective to improve literacy in the tea garden of Assam. So if this matter is not studied in detail the solution of universalisation of primary education would remain a dream. The present study is concerned mainly with primary data. The present study is descriptive in nature. ‘Descriptive Survey Method’ has been adopted for the present study. The study covers all the lower primary schools of tea garden of Nazira subdivision under Sivasagar district. These impediments are poor infrastructural facility, illiteracy of the parents, lack of awareness of the parents, language problem in teaching etc.