School complexes: Then in 1964-66 and now in 2019

Pages: 64-66
Ruchi Payal (National Institute of Education Planning and Administration (NIEPA), Delhi)

This article is analyzing the importance of the availability of adequate resources in the education sector. The New Education Policy in order to tackle problems of multiple- grade teaching, single teacher teaching all the subjects, inadequate resources, problem of governance and management, lack of proper attention, has offered ‘School Complexes’. The aim was to make a cluster of one secondary school with all the other grades that are within the radii of five to ten miles, so that they can function as a whole, utilizing each-others resources. It will not require physical relocation of schools but an administrative integration, with each school as a semi-autonomous unit. Although the idea emerged in the Kothari Commission report and experimented with these complexes in various states. The article critically analyzes the results of the earlier school complexes, and what more the New Education Policy offers in the school’s complexes than the earlier policies, possible challenges that might come while realizing it and also the scopes of the changes it is capable to bring in rural India.