Micro-Level Educational Planning and Management. Case Studies from India Satya Bhushan and Others.

In the Fifth Five Year Plan, the Indian Planning Commission recommended "democratic decentralization" to help remove disparities at the local level. Priorities were to be adult literacy and universal elementary education, with emphasis on adopting a multilevel approach to educational planning. The idea was to provide action plans at the substate levels that would consider different areas' uniqueness and involve popular representatives in the process. This volume contains three case studies illustrating different aspects of decentralized administration and plan implementation. Faced with the problems of meeting local needs, lack of infrastructure, and uneven population spread, Jammu and Kashmir sought to introduce a system allowing wider consultation concerning planning and implementation processes. This study critiques the balance of administrative responsibilities at central, state, district, and block (local) levels after the establishment of district and block development boards in the mid-1970s. The second case study describes decentralized planning in Maharashtra State since 1962, which has experienced improvements in funding, female primary school enrollments, community involvement, and interdepartmental cooperation. A third case study covers both formal and informal education in a cluster of 20 villages in Punhana, a backward block in Haryana State. The studies confirm that no single model exists for effectively implementing educational planning and management at the district or micro level. A supplementary, annotated bibliography of 50 references is appended. (MLH)

Microfiche. [Washington D.C.]: ERIC Clearinghouse microfiches : positive.