Art. 45 of the Constitution detects that the state shall to provide free and compul­sory education for all children up to the age of 14 years. The 93rd Amendment Act made education a Fundamental Right for children in age group of 6-14 years. The National Policy of Education en­visaged that free and compulsory education of satisfactory quality should be provided to all children unto the age of 14 years before the commence­ment of 21st century.

The issues primarily related to the primary education can be classified into three universal endeavor access, universal reten­tion and universal achievement. As a result of the efforts made by the government 94 per cent of the country’s rural population have primary school within one km.

This has resulted in in­creased enrolment Especially of girls and SCs/ STs, increased number of teachers, decreased dropout rates and improved levels of achieve­ments in the schools. The key elements relates to the improvement of primary education are:

i. Creating parental awareness and community mobilization;

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ii. Involvement of communities and PRI (72nd and 74th Constitutional Amendments);

iii. Economic incentives;

iv. Improvement in the content and process of schooling;

v. District Primary Education Programms initiative; and

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vi. National Programme of National support to Primary Education (Mid-Day means scheme)