Alternative Education at Elementary & Secondary Education

Alternative Education at Different Stages and Recommendations of Various Committies

Topic: Alternative Education at Elementary & Secondary Education

What is alternative education?

Alternative Education is designed to meet the needs of highly at-risk students who are not succeeding in the traditional setting. In alternative programs, students are provided with a variety of options that can lead to graduation and are supported by services for themselves and their immediate families that are essential to success. While each program is unique, they share characteristics identified in the research as common to successful alternative schools.

Aims of alternative education at elementary and secondary stage.

·         To Provide Education to Economically Deprived Classes of the Society

·         To Enable the Pupils to Learn While they Earn

·         To Meet the Needs of Late-Bloomers

·         To Meet the Inadequacies of Formal Education

·         To Provide Education to Economically Deprived Classes of the Society

Some general recommendations for alternative education at elementary and secondary education.

·          Maximum teacher/student ratio of 1:15

·          Small student base o Clearly stated mission and discipline code

·          Caring faculty with continual staff development

·         School staff having high expectations for student achievement

·         Learning program specific to the student’s expectations and learning style

·          Flexible school schedule with community involvement and support

·         Total commitment to have each student be a success 

After the independence several committees and commissions were constituted to analyse the problems and suggest the way forward

Recommendations of various committees on alternative education

This includes children with disabilities, who may need assistance or more time to complete their assigned tasks. It would be even better if, while planning for such activities, the teacher discusses them with all the children in the class, and ensures that each child is given an opportunity to contribute. When planning, therefore, teachers must pay special attention to ensuring the participation of all. This would become a marker of their effectiveness as teachers.

An alternative education program is often defined by the program’s characteristics, such as programs that focus on behaviour, interest, or functional level. Behavioural programming might be designed for students who need a structured setting to focus on more appropriate school behaviours to facilitate their learning and the learning of others. Programs designed around student interest might include an environmental program or vocational academies. Functional-level programs might include high school completion, academic, or skill remediation.

What types of students are served in alternative education programs? 

Alternative education programs could serve many types of students. However, virtually all Wisconsin alternative education programs focus on students who meet the statutory definition of being at-risk. The students’ characteristics range from truancy, delinquency, behavioural problems, alcoholic, family problems, and academic failure to expellable offenses. A typical list of selection criteria includes: 

›  Poor attendance

›  Failing grades (D/F)

›  Family crisis 

›  Referred to but did not qualify for special education services

›  Social/emotional/medical issues

›  Free/reduced lunch

›  Below-average performance on assessments

›  Discipline problems

›  Drug and alcohol issues 

›  Criminal behaviour 

›  Poor peer relationships

›  Rated “high” on teacher-generated at-risk profile

›  Retained or considered for retention  Significant deficiencies in credits

›  In the context of Universalization of Elementary Education (UEE), the need for tackling the problem of drop-outs and non-school going children is being increasingly recognised. In view of the difficulties in expanding facilities of formal education and the failure of the formal education to attract to its fold and keep it in a large number of children in the age group 6-14, the alternative strategy is expected to be provided by the non-formal approach in education.

The 86th Constitutional Amendment Act 2002 makes education a Fundamental Right for children in the age group of 6-14 years stating that “the State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of six to fourteen years in such manner as the State may, by law, determine”.

In 2001, there were 58.021 million out-of-school children. This number reduced to 13.42 million in 2005. The problems regarding education of these out-of-school children vary across the nation due to different causes, factors and diverse obstacles to overcome. Non-formal Education can thus help to overcome their problems. There is a heavy wastage or dropouts in different classes of due to inadequacy or irrelevance of curriculum or unsuitability of time and place of formal schooling. NFE has therefore been regarded as an alternative mode of providing elementary education for making it universal

›  According to a 2014 study by The National Centre for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance (NCEE), students in alternative programs are often there because of academic or emotional challenges. These may include poor attendance, suspension, expulsion, family stress, emotional difficulties, learning disabilities, poor grades, disruptive classroom behaviour or pregnancy.

›  alternative schools serve students who succeeded in traditional schools but are looking for a more creative learning environment.

›  An alternative high school is simply a school that doesn’t provide a completely traditional learning experience.

›  Alternative schools were first created to help “troubled” students who had behavioral problems that traditional public schools were ill-equipped to handle. However, today students attend alternative schools for a variety of reasons which are discussed in more detail below. In general, alternative high schools exist to give students who do not do well in a traditional academic environment an opportunity to succeed in high school and earn a high school diploma.

Features of an alternative school at elementary and secondary Education

›  Smaller Class Sizes: Smaller classes allow teachers to give students more individual attention and make it easier to tailor lessons to specific student needs.

›  More Flexible Schedules and Graduation Requirements: Some alternative high schools offer classes at night, which can be helpful for students with jobs or children. Others have flexible graduation requirements and give students more choice in the classes they must take (as opposed to one math class, one science class, one English class, etc. each semester). This can give students the opportunity to study a subject of particular interest to them.

›  Wider Variety of Teaching Methods: Alternative high schools often use numerous teaching methods that emphasize creativity and interaction. This can help students who struggle with sitting in a classroom and taking notes all day.

›  Non-Traditional Evaluation Methods: Some alternative schools don’t give out grades, instead they provide written evaluations. Others offer academic credit for work experiences or internships.

›  Address Social, Mental, and Emotional Needs of the Student: In addition to addressing academic needs, alternative schools often have additional resources, such as counseling and support groups, available for students.

Recommendations for Alternative Education in Kothari Commission, 1964-66

›  The Education Commission of 1964-66 set up by the Government of India, and popularly known as Kothari Commission recommended Alternative education on a large scale for out of school children and adults. The Commission put stress more on literacy, continuing education, correspondence courses etc. All these linked with adult education programmes.

›  The Kothari Commission has recommended the setting up of libraries  all over the country and the use of school libraries for the public benefit. Libraries play a crucial role in imparting knowledge and awareness.

Recommendations for Alternative Education in NPE1968

›  Emphasizes On the extension of the programs of literacy and  adult education.

›  open schooling

›  national system of education

›  Early childhood care and education

›  value education- education does not alienate the students from the family, community and life.

›  universalization of Elementary education.

›  Promotion of secondary education. open Learning should be given.

›  provides need based financing

Recommendations for Alternative Education in NPE1986

›  The national policies of 1968 and 1979 give

›  much emphasis on elementary education and adult education.         

›  National Policy in 1986 gives greater emphasis on NFE and Alternative education.                                                                                                    

›  A large and systematic programme of  Alternative  Education will be launched for school drop-outs, for children from habitations without schools, working children and girls of whole day schools.  Effective steps will be taken to provide a framework for the curriculum, but based on the needs of the learners and related to the local environment.

›  provides need based financing

Recommendations for Alternative Education in SSA 2000

›  Enrollment of all children in schools or alternative arrangements by 2003

›  Alternative schools serve students who succeeded in traditional schools but are looking for a more creative learning environment

›  Smaller Class Sizes

›  Address Social, Mental, and Emotional Needs of the Student

›  Non-Traditional Evaluation Methods

›  Wider Variety of Teaching Methods

›  More Flexible Schedules and Graduation Requirements

Recommendations for Alternative Education in NPE 2001

›  Equal access to education for women and girls.

›  Special measures will be taken to eliminate discrimination.

›  Universalize education.

›  Eradicate illiteracy.

›  Create a gender sensitive educational system.

›   Increase enrollment and retention rates of girls.

›  Improve the quality of education.

›  Development   of occupation/ vocation/ technical skills by women.

›  Reducing the gender gap in secondary and higher education.

Recommendations for Alternative Education in NPE 2016(Draft)

›  The NPE 2016(draft) seeks to address   both the unfinished agenda and targets of the earlier NPEs and the contemporary educational challenges.

›   The draft of national education policy 2016 was released recently by the MHRD and suggestions were invited on the same from the public domain.

›  The focus of the policy is to address gender discrimination, the creation of educational tribunals, and a common curriculum for science, mathematics and English.

›  Revision of no detention policy, promotion of Sanskrit, and bringing back class 10 board examinations are some of the key changes that the policy talks about.

›  Pre school education

›  Curriculum renewal and examination reforms

›  School education

›  Protection of rights of the child & adolescent education

›  Literacy and life long learning

›  Skills in education and employability

›  Use of ICT  in education

REFERENCES

http://learninglab.legacy.wbur.org/topics/alternative-schools-education-outside-the-traditional-system/

https://www.doe.in.gov/cte/alternative-education

http://www.tdsb.on.ca/High-School/Going-to-High-School/Alternative-Schools

http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/1746/Alternative-Schooling.html

Deficit financing(an assignment note for BA complimentary paper)

Deficit Financing

Introduction

Deficit financing is the budgetary situation where expenditure is higher than the revenue. It is a practice adopted for financing the excess expenditure with outside resources. The expenditure revenue gap is financed by either printing of currency or through borrowing.

Nowadays most governments both in the developed and developing world are having deficit budgets and these deficits are often financed through borrowing. Hence the fiscal deficit is the ideal indicator of deficit financing.
In India, the size of fiscal deficit is the leading deficit indicator in the budget. It is estimated to be 3.9 % of the GDP (2015-16 budget estimates). Deficit financing is very useful in developing countries like India because of revenue scarcity and development expenditure needs.

Meaning of Deficit Financing:

The National Planning Commission of India has defined deficit financing in the following way. The term ‘deficit financing’ is used to denote the direct addition to gross national expenditure through budget deficits, whether the deficits are on revenue or on capital account.

Objectives

i. To finance defence expenditures during war

ii. To lift the economy out of depression so that incomes, employment, invest­ment, etc., all rise

iii. To activate idle resources as well as divert resources from unproductive sectors to productive sectors with the objective of increasing national income and, hence, higher economic growth

iv. To raise capital formation by mobilizing forced savings made through deficit financing

v. To mobilize resources to finance massive plan expenditure

Content

The ‘Why’ of Deficit Financing:

There are some situations when deficit financing becomes absolutely essential. In other words, there are various purposes of deficit financing.

To finance war-cost during the Second World War, massive deficit financing was made. Being war expenditure, it was construed as an unproductive expenditure during 1939-45. However, Keynesian economists do not like to use deficit financing to meet defence expenditures during war period. It can be used for developmental purposes too.

Developing countries aim at achieving higher economic growth. A higher economic growth requires finances. But private sector is shy of making huge expenditure. Therefore, the responsibility of drawing financial resources to finance economic development rests on the government. Taxes are one of such instruments of raising resources.

Being poor, these countries fail to mobilize large resources through taxes. Thus, taxation has a narrow coverage due to mass poverty. A very little is saved by people because of poverty. In order to collect financial resources, government relies on profits of public sector enterprises. But these enterprises yield almost negative profit. Further, there is a limit to public borrowing.

In view of this, the easy as well as the short-cut method of marshalling resources is the deficit financing. Since the launching of the Five Year Plans in India, the government has been utilizing seriously this method of financing to obtain additional resources for plans. It occupies an important position in any programme of our planned economic development.

The ‘How’ of Deficit Financing:

A budget deficit arises when the estimated expenditure exceeds estimated revenue. Such deficit may be met by raising the rates of taxation or by the charging of higher prices for goods and public utility services. The deficit may also be met out of the accumulated cash balances of the government or by borrowing from the banking system.

Deficit financing in India is said to occur when the Union Government’s current budget deficit is covered by the withdrawal of cash balances of the government and by borrowing money from the Reserve Bank of India. When the government draws its cash balances, these become active and come into circulation.

Again, when the government borrows from the RBI, the latter gives loan by printing additional currency. Thus, in both cases, ‘new money’ comes into circulation. It is to be remembered here that government borrowing from the public by selling bonds is not to be considered as deficit financing.

Effects of Deficit Financing:

Deficit financing has several economic effects which are interrelated in many ways:

i. Deficit financing and inflation

ii. Deficit financing and capital formation and economic development

iii. Deficit financing and income distri­bution.

i. Deficit Financing and Inflation:

It is said that deficit financing is inherently inflationary. Since deficit financing raises aggregate expenditure and, hence, increases aggregate demand, the danger of inflation looms large. This is particularly true when deficit financing is made for the persecution of war.

It is the deficit financing that meets the liquidity requirements of these growing economies. Above all, a mild dose of inflation following deficit financing is conducive to the whole process of development. In other words, deficit financing is not anti- developmental provided the rate of price rise is slight.

However, the end result of deficit financing is inflation and economic instability. Though painless, it is very much inflation-prone compared to other sources of financing.

The impact of deficit financing on the price level in both developed and underdeveloped countries can be demonstrated in terms of the Fig. 12.3.

On the horizontal axis the volume of deficit financing and on the vertical axis price level is measured. In developed countries, a rise in deficit financing from OD₁ to OD₂ causes price level to rise towards full employment price OP₂.

But a smaller dose of deficit financing in developing countries leads to a rise in price level from OP₁ to OP₂. Thus, deficit financing and, hence, increased money supply is always associated with a high degree of inflation in developing countries like India.

One estimate suggests that a deficit budget covered by deficit financing of one per cent leads to a rise in the price level by approximately 1.75 per cent.

ii. Deficit Financing and Capital Formation and Economic Development:

The technique of deficit financing may be used to promote economic development in several ways. Nobody denies the role of deficit financing in garnering resources required for economic development, though the method is an inflationary one.

Economic development largely depends on capital formation. The basic source of capital formation is savings. But, LDCs are characterized by low saving-income ratio. In these low-saving countries, deficit finance- led inflation becomes an important source of capital accumulation.

During inflation, producers are largely benefited compared to the poor fixed-income earners. Saving propensities of the former are considerably higher. As a result, aggregate savings of the community becomes larger which can be used for capital formation to accelerate the level of economic development.

However, the multiplier effect of deficit financing in poor countries must be weaker even if these countries exhibit underemployment of resources.

In other words, national income does not rise enough due to deficit financing since these countries suffer from shortage of capital equipment and other complementary resources, lack of technical knowledge and entrepreneurship, lack of communications, market imperfections, etc.

Due to all these obstacles these countries suffer from deficiency in effective supply rather than deficiency in effective demand. This causes low productivity and low output. Thus, deficit financing becomes anti-developmental in the long run.

However, this conclusion is too hard to digest. It helps economic development, although not in a great way. It is true that deficit financing is self-defeating in nature as it tends to generate inflationary forces in the economy. But it must not be forgotten that it is self-destructive in nature since it has the potentiality of raising output level to counter the inflationary threat.

iii. Deficit Financing and Income Distribution:

It is said that deficit financing tends to widen income inequality. This is because of the fact that it creates excess purchasing power. But due to inelasticity in the supply of essential goods, excess purchasing power of the general public acts as an incentive to price rise. During inflation, it is said that rich becomes richer and the poor becomes poorer. Thus, social injustice becomes prominent.

However, all types of deficit expenditure, not necessarily tend to disturb existing social justice.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Deficit Financing:

The most easiest and the popular method of financing is the technique of deficit financing. That is why it is the most popular method of financing in developing countries.

Its popularity is due to the following reasons:

(a) Advantages:

Firstly, massive expansion in governmental activities has forced govern­ments to mobilize resources from different sources. As a source of finance, tax-revenue is highly inelastic in the poor countries. Above all, governments in these countries are rather hesitant to impose newer taxes for the fear of losing popularity. Similarly, public borrowing is also insufficient to meet the expenses of the state.

As deficit financing does not impinge any trouble either to the taxpayers or to the lenders who lend their surplus money to the government, this technique is most popular to meet developmental expenditure. Deficit financing does not take away any money from anyone’s pocket and yet provides massive resources.

Secondly, in India, deficit financing is associated with the creation of additional money by borrowing from the Reserve Bank of India. Interest payments to the RBI against this borrowing come back to the Government of India in the form of profit. Thus, this borrowing or printing of new currency is virtually a cost-free method. On the other hand, borrowing involves payment of interest cost to the lenders.

Thirdly, financial resources (required for financing economic plans) that a government can mobilize through deficit financing are certain and known beforehand. The financial strength of the government is determinable if deficit financing is made. As a result, the government finds this measure handy.

Fourthly, deficit financing has certain multiplier effects on the economy. This method encourages the government to utilize unemployed and underemployed resources. This results in more incomes and employ­ment in the economy.

Fifthly, deficit financing is an inflationary method of financing. However, the rise in prices must be a short run phenomenon. Above all, a mild dose of inflation is necessary for economic development. Thus, if inflation is kept within a reasonable level, deficit financing will promote economic development —thereby neutralizing the disadvantages of price rise.

Finally, during inflation, private investors go on investing more and more with the hope of earning additional profits. Seeing more profits, producers would be encouraged to reinvest their savings and accumulated profits. Such investment leads to an increase in income—thereby setting the process of economic development rolling.

(b) Disadvantages:

Disadvantages of deficit financing are equally important.

The evil effects of deficit financing are:

Firstly, it is a self-defeating method of financing as it always leads to inflationary rise in prices. Unless inflation is controlled, the benefits of deficit-induced inflation would not fructify. And, underdeveloped countries— being inflation-sensitive countries—get exposed to the dangers of inflation.

Secondly, deficit financing-led inflation helps producing classes and businessmen to flourish. But fixed-income earners suffer during inflation. This widens the distance between the two classes. In other words, income inequality increases.

Thirdly, another important drawback of deficit financing is that it distorts investment pattern. Higher profit motive induces investors to invest their resources in quick profit-yielding industries. Of course, investment in such industries is not desirable in the interest of a country’s economic development.

Fourthly, deficit financing may not yield good result in the creation of employment opportunities. Creation of additional employ­ment is usually hampered in backward countries due to lack of raw materials and machineries even if adequate finance is available.

Fifthly, as purchasing power of money declines consequent upon inflationary price rise, a country experiences flight of capital abroad for safe return—thereby leading to a scarcity of capital.

Finally, this inflationary method of financing leads to a larger volume of deficit in a country’s balance of payments. Following inflationary rise in prices, export declines while import bill rises, and resources get transferred from export industries to import- competing industries.

Conclusion

In spite of this, deficit financing is inevitable in LDCs. Much success of it depends on how anti-inflationary measures are employed to combat inflation. Most of the disadvantages of deficit financing can be minimized if inflation is kept within limit.

And to keep inflation within a reasonable and tolerable level, deficit financing must be kept within safe limit. Not only it is difficult to lay down any ‘safe limit’ but it is also difficult to avoid this technique of financing required for planned development. Still then, deficit financing is unavoidable.

It is an evil but a necessary one. Considering the needs of the economy, its use cannot be discouraged. But considering the effects of deficit financing on the economy, its use must be made limited. So, a compromise has to be made so that the benefits of deficit financing are reaped too.

References

·        https://www.indianeconomy.net

·        https://www.britannica.com