Programme of non-formal Education
7.5.1 In order to strengthen the NFE Scheme the following strategies will be adopted:
- i) Provision of NFE centers will be based on the Micro planning exercise carried out for UEE, NFE centers will invariably cater to the needs of children, especially girls, who are not able to or who cannot attend the formal school.
- ii) The community will be involved in the setting-up, and supervision of all NFE centers.
iii) The NFE instructors will be identified with the help of the community. Special efforts will be made to appoint women instructors wherever possible.
- iv) Training of NFE personnel, especially instructors, will be given top priority. Adequate training and re-orientation will be provided.
- v) Training responsibility will be shared by the project, District level institutions like DIETs, DRUs, State level institutions like SCERT, and National institutes like NCERT and NIEPA.
- vi) Project administration will be strengthened for effective decentralization of management. Necessary administrative and management in-puts will be provided at the State and Districts levels.
vii) Arrangements will be made for testing of children in the NFE stream with reference to an equivalent stage in the formal system and specific instructions issued to facilitate lateral entry into the formal system for students of the NFE stream.
viii) Efforts will be made to link non-formal courses with the Open Schools.
- ix) The NFE programme will be linked with the scheme of public libraries, Jana Shiksha Nilayams, etc.
- x) In total literacy campaign districts follow-up programmes will be taken up for children in the age-group 9-14 to go beyond NLM literacy norms. This will form a part of the post literacy and continuing education programme of the district.
- xi) Vocational and technical courses of wide variety will be provided for children and youth who pass out of the Non-Formal stream. Shramik Vidyapeeth and Voluntary agencies will be involved in this process.
xii) Voluntary agencies will be encouraged to undertake projects of NFE, especially in areas where the formal school system is not able to meet the demands of UEE.
7.5.2 It is proposed that in the revised scheme, the following financial pattern will be followed:
- a) Assistance to State Governments for setting up and running non-formal centers (boys and girls) on 75:25 basis;
- b) Assistance to State governments for setting up and running non-formal education centers exclusively for girls on 90:10 basis;
- c) Assistance to voluntary agencies for setting up and running non-formal education centers on 100 per cent basis; and
- d) Assistance to academic institutions and voluntary agencies for taking up innovative projects and research and evaluation activities in the field of non-formal education on 10 per cent basis.
7.5.3 Pupil evaluation in NFE will be center-based and related to the MLL. For project evaluation techniques and methodologies will be evolved by the various institutions concerned in the implementation of NFE, i.e., NCERT, SCERT, DIET, DRU, etc. Monitoring of NFE will be center-based. Models already developed will be used for monitoring.