Hunar: Vocational education at minority Muslim girl’s doorstep
By: Er. Prabhat Kishore
Background
‘HUNAR’ as a concept evolved under the active guidance of Chief Minister of Bihar Nitish Kumar. Under National Programme for Education of Girls at Elementary Level (NPEGEL) of Sarva Siksha Abhiyan ‘Hunar’ programme was inaugurated at S.K. Memorial Hall, Patna on 2nd July, 2008 and on 3rd July, 2008 Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh inaugurated this Programme at Delhi.
HUNAR is a collaborative project of the Government of Bihar and the Union Human Resource Development Ministry. It is an innovative and powerful project focusing on Minority Muslim Girls which will have far reaching ramification in terms of creation of decentralized educational delivery mechanism.
This Programme is totally community based. It encourages network of educational institutions (Madarasa, Maktabs and Centers run by socio-religious organizations of the Muslim Community) in the minority community neighbourhood, which allows easy access to these young girls both in terms of geographical and socio-religious context, which is acceptable to their families and community. This kind of decentralized delivery mechanism at this vast scale has not been attempted till now. Girl’s education statistics particularly among Muslim girls in Bihar is very low and Hunar Programme is a intervention which in the long term would encourage Muslim girls to join the educational main stream.
To implement Hunar, Bihar Education Project Council (BEPC) has entered into an agreement with the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS), an apex nodal body for distance education in the country. The agreement provided for free of cost skill training to about 13768 girls across Bihar, who are either studying in different schools or have dropped out.
The seven trades (along with course code), which have been identified by BEPC for skill training, include 251-Jute Production, 256-Bakery & Confectionary, 401-404-Gram Sakhi (for health care service), 439-441-Early Childhood Care and Education, 442-444-Basic Rural Technology, 612-Beauty Culture, and 705-706-Cutting and Tailoring.
This scheme is implemented through three Nodal Agencies in Bihar i.e. Imarat Sharia Educational and Welfare Trust, Edara-e-Sharia and Rahmani Foundation. These 3 are old established socio-religious organizations of Minority Muslim Community that run schools, Maktabs, Hospitals etc.
They have a deep penetration in minority dominant areas of the stated and enjoy the trust of the community. Under this scheme NIOS in consultation with BEPC has made special provisions for parameters related to infrastructure, fee as well as for number of students at study centers (designated as AVIs), run by these nodal agencies. These special provisions were made to facilitate easier accreditation of AVIs for this programme.
Hence accreditation for traditional educationally backward institutions especially Madarsas and Maktabs was easier. It is envisaged that the skill training of the girls will help them in their future areas of work. NIOS provides free course material including Urdu text books under this programme which is useful for most of girls who come from families living under abject poverty.
The BEPC is utilizing for this purpose the funds of Government of India (Under SSA through NPEGEL), and those provided by the State Government of Bihar. This initiative will vastly improve Muslim girl’s access to the school level education being provided by aforesaid eventual accredited centers and would encourage their parents to ensure their enrolment in government schools.
Objective of Hunar Programme
- To mainstream Minority Muslim girls education aged 10 year and above in the formal education structure.
- To promote/motivate girls enrolment in School.
- To promote retention in school through the incentive of free vocational training programme.
- To attract the dropouts and bring them back to mainstream education.
- To strengthen girls economically and otherwise by vocational training.
Course Fee and Duration
The course fee and training duration of the selected trades are as :- 251-Jute Production (Rs 2000/-, 6 month), 256-Bakery & Confectionary (Rs 1200/-, 6 month), 401-404-Gram Sakhi (Rs 3500/-, 1 Year), 439-441-Early Childhood Care and Education (Rs 3000/-, 1 Year), 442-444- Diploma in Basic Rural Technology (Rs 3000/-, 6 month), 612-Beauty Culture (Rs 1000/-, 6 Month), and 705-706-Cutting and Tailoring (Rs 2000/-, 6 month).
The process followed in implementing ‘Hunar’ is summarized below.
Stage I: Conception Phase
Bihar Education Project Council (BEPC) after due deliberation identified NIOS as the best suited agency to collaborate with for project Hunar. It was envisaged that free of cost skill training/up gradation will be provided to young Muslim girls (10-14 years), who are already enrolled in formal schools of Bihar or have dropped out. Subsequently in consultation with the community representatives the beneficiary group was extended to cover (11-16 years) girls by BEPC. The entire cost of training incurred by NIOS (in terms of fee and other expenses) was to be reimbursed to it by BEPC.
Based upon the outcomes of this Pilot Project, its scope would be further enhanced to cover other most deprived sections, in addition to minority Muslim girls, in the next academic session. After the agreement with NIOS, BEPC published an advertisement in local newspapers of Bihar in the month of February/March 2008 about this project and invited applications from the target group for “7” selected trades. In response, approximately 15000 applications were received by BEPC. These applications/admission forms were processed by Bihar Education Project Council and subsequently handed over to NIOS found that approximately 13768 applications met the criteria and were as par the norms laid down by as an approximate amount for funding of this project over Academic year 2008-09, for the identified 13768 girls.
Stage-II: Preparatory Stage
Implementation strategy was jointly worked out by BEPC and NIOS during this stage. It was envisaged that suitably located and equipped Educationalinstitutions in Bihar like Madarasas and Maktabs in theneighbourhood or vicinity of these young Muslim girls would be identified and granted accreditation as AVIs of NIOS based on the relaxed revised norms of NIOS. This was a unique and novel implementation strategy which has not been undertaken till now elsewhere. It involved a series of meetings with the community’s religious cum educational leaders for enlisting their active support and collaboration for this project at various levels.
The Process for collaboration was as follows
- Collaboration of Government of Bihar and Bihar Education Project Council (BEPC) with NIOS,
- Collaboration with community leaders, educationists and other activists from Civil Society Organization belonging to Muslim community in Bihar for ensuring that the project takes a feasible and concrete shape.
For this purpose BEPC based on its earlier experience suggested to NIOS was able to identify amongst others, “ 3 ” nodal agencies which are leading socio-religious and educational institutions for Muslim community in Bihar viz., Imarat Sharia, Edara-e-Sharia and Rahmani Foundation. These prominent socio-religious, organizations of Muslim community are responsible for running large number of units organizations involved in socio-religious, medicare& educational activities at village, Block and District level in Bihar and neighbour states. These are mostly in the form of Madarsas and Maktabs controlled & affiliated by these umbrella organizations. They have very high degree of community acceptance and reach both in geographical and social terms.
Since it was for the first time that a central Government Organization (apex vocational training body- NIOS) was making an attempt to create this network at grass root level, hence there was no prior existing data or baseline information which could be used for the purpose of creation of community based educational network to be used as delivery mechanism for an educational intervention by Government of India and Government of Bihar.
A tripartite arrangement was arrived at between NIOS Nodal Organizations (Imarat Sharia, Edara-e-Sharia and Rahmani Foundation) and Madarsas and Maktabs affiliated and controlled by these nodal organizations, thereby creating an elaborate and complex network of educational institutions at grass root level to act as delivery mechanism for this project. Other remarkable feature of this delivery mechanism is that it comprises socio-religious/educational institutions run and controlled by community in local neighbourhood or vicinity without the participation of government or its institutions at any level. Since, this was a complex task involving collaboration at grass root level, it required series of meetings and interactive sessions to identify and enlist the support of prominent socio-religious leaders and institutions for this project, which was process oriented and involved people across all levels.
Stage-III: Implementation Stage
Comprises of following actions taken by BEPC/NIOS and the nodal organization to implement the project:
- NIOS and BEPC in collaboration with Nodal Organizations mentioned above have been able to identify 298 no. of Madarsas, Maktabs and centers in all 37 districts of Bihar, which are affiliated/controlled by these organizations and may be used for the purpose of implementation of the project Hunar, subject to their satisfying changed norms of NIOS.
- BEPC and NIOS entered into a MOU identifying their respective roles and functions as well as the role and functions of the 3 nodal organizations for Hunar Programme.
- After a rigorous exercise all 13768 Girls from 97 Educationally Backward Blocks in 37 district of Bihar have been attached to various Madarsas and Maktabs controlled by these ‘3’ Nodal agencies and are nearing completion of their training.
- NIOS is in the process of granting accreditation to these Madarsas and Maktabs which will make them strong bodies.
- Out of 298 centres, 138 centres having 6967 girls were controlled by Imarat-e-Sharia, 88 centres with 3053 girls by Edara-e-Sharia and 72 centres with 3748 girls by Rahmani Foundation)
Certification
NIOS in collaboration with Bihar Education Project Council (BEPC) has successfully completed Project Hunar Phase I in Bihar for the academic year 2008-09 by conducting final theory and practical examination for 13768 girls enrolled under Hunar Project from 13th to 15th June 2009 (44 in Jute Production, 72 in Bakery & Confectionary, 1053 in Gram Sakhi, 151 in ECCE, 123 in Basic Rural Technology, 231 in Beauty Culture, and 12094 in Cutting and Tailoring). Out of these 11255 girls appeared in the examination (Exam-1) and 9232 passed. Special examination (Exam-2) of those girls who failed or could not appeared were held on 24 Dec 2009, in which 2113 girls passed. Thus overall, 11345 girls were passed in Hunar-I project and provided certificates.
Aujar (Tools/Equipment Provision) Scheme
The Hon’ble Chief Minister of Bihar had announced that he would like to give a grant of Rs. 2500 from the state fund for equipment kits related to the Skill training to the girls who successfully pass out from the Hunar Programme. A total of Rs 2,83,62,500/- was released to 3 minority institutions for 11345 Hunar pass out girls. This will ensure sustainability to the programme.
(The author is a technocrat based in Patna, Bihar)
