Tenth Five Year Plan

The main objectives of the 10th five-year plan regarding education are universalisation of elementary education, improvement in quality and access to education, expansion in higher education, and promotion of research and development. The 10th five-year plan also focused on improving the GDP rate to 8% p.a, providing qualitative employment and reducing the poverty to under 5% In this article, we will take a look at how well India has fared in achieving these objectives over the past ten years.

What is the Tenth Five Year Plan?

The Planning Commission was set up by the Government of India to promote economic and social development within the country. The commission is headed by the Prime Minister of India and comprises members from different fields, who are appointed by the Prime Minister. The main objective of the Tenth Five Year Plan regarding education and also to promote ‘inclusive growth, which means reducing poverty and ensuring equitable development.

The Objectives of the 10th Five Year Plan

The Tenth Five Year Plan of India (2002-2007) was an economic development plan formulated by the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The plan’s salient features were to promote inclusive growth and equitable development. However, the main objectives of the 10th five-year plan with regarding the plan to reduce poverty by half, create employment for  80 million people and achieve an annual GDP growth rate of at least 8.7 per cent by the end of the tenth five-year plan. The plan’s target was to increase the literacy rate from 65 per cent in 2001 to 75 per cent by 2007.

The Objectives of the 10th Five Year Plan regarding Education

The role of education is one of the important factors to reduce poverty and illiteracy in the rural areas of India. The education sector was given top priority in the formulation of the tenth five-year plan. The objective of the tenth five-year plan is “to provide access to quality education to all sections of the society and to increase literacy rate to 75% by the end of the plan period” The target set for the education sector was very ambitious. The other objectives of the tenth five-year plan were to promote equity and inclusion in education, improve the quality of education, strengthen the educational infrastructure and promote research and development.

The strategy adopted in the Tenth Five Year plan for education and literacy was to adopt the Universalization of Elementary Education (UEE). It was the first time in the history of India that such a large scale program was launched to provide free and compulsory education to all children in the age group of six to fourteen years. The other strategy was to improve the quality of education by introducing the concept of Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE). The CCE was implemented in all schools affiliated with CBSE.

The other important strategy adopted in the 10th five-year plan for education and literacy was The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA). The SSA is a program for the Universalization of Elementary Education. The SSA was launched in 2001. The objective of SSA is to provide free and compulsory education to all children in the age group of six to fourteen years. The SSA has been very successful in achieving its objective of providing free and compulsory education to all children.

The other strategy was The Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA).  The RMSA is a program for the Universalization of Secondary Education. The RMSA was launched in 2009.

The Achievements of the Tenth Five Year Plan

The Tenth Five Year was an eventful one and saw many changes in India’s socio-economic landscape. The country achieved an average annual growth rate of over 7 per cent per year.

The 10th five-year plan attained high quality in employment generation, especially in the labour force area. As per the report, it is confirmed that the plan employed almost 50 million people in the year 2000- 2005.

The agriculture sector also witnessed a growth of around 3.97 per cent per year which is a commendable achievement.

The other notable achievements of the Tenth Five Year Plan include the incredible growth in mining and quarrying. The plan achieved 4.30 per cent of growth in the first three years of the 10th five-year plan.

Apart from this, the plan attained growth in other sectors such as industry, service sectors, transport and communication sectors.

Conclusion

The Tenth Five Year Plan was a period of great change and progress for India, with many positive outcomes achieved in the field of education and literacy. The objectives set out at the beginning of the Plan were largely met, and India is now a much more literate and educated nation as a result. The strategies employed during the Plan were largely effective, and it is hoped that the progress made in education and literacy will continue into India’s future. In this article, we dealt with the objectives of the 10th five-year plan regarding education, achievement of the 10th five-year plan in India and the strategies adopted in the 10th plan for education and literacy.