Educational Outcomes: DPEP or `Catching Up`?

This paper evaluates the District Primary Education Programme interventions in two DPEP Phase I districts of Madhya Pradesh by using one of them as the control group. It aims to assess the progress made towards achieving the overall goals of DPEP, namely, providing access to primary education for out-of-school children and increasing the retention rate. It also assesses the extent to which gender disparities and differences between social groups such as scheduled castes and tribes and others have been reduced in respect of enrolment, dropout rates and learning achievement. In some instances, especially when outcomes across low and high literacy districts are studied, DPEP appears to have positively facilitated interventions in districts that started off with low female literacy rates. Also, interventions to facilitate access to schooling and to ensure social equity appear to have had an impact.