Lok Sampark Abhiyan
 
Lok Sampark Abhiyan was the means devised for a people centred data collection on the status of primary schooling. The emergence of panchayat leadership as key actors in the area of primary education was sought to be utilised by the Rajiv Gandhi Shiksha Mission which implements the DPEP in 34 districts of the state to undertake a door-to-door survey to record information on children attending school. 
 
What was different between the Lok Sampark Abhiyan and the usual departmental system of data collection was the methodology of Lok Sampark Abhiyan. The effort was to develop a method of collecting information that was free from threat and fear and so perhaps more authentic. One way of doing this was to widen the responsibility of information gathering from just the teacher to a local group inclusive of local panchayat representatives and literacy activists. Second, the base of information was made wider than that of school statistics. It covered the entire village to report on all its children of 5-14 years. Third, the primary objective in surveying children was presented as not one of statistics collection or updating but to lead a motivational campaign for encouraging greater participation in schools. The collection of data was therefore not a passive accounting of numbers, but an active persuasion of parents to send children to the nearest school. 
 
The survey being undertaken by panchayat representatives was intended to consolidate community management of the primary education system in the state. The survey was carried out from June 1996 onwards in 19 DPEP districts and was extended to 15 more DPEP districts in December 1996. Though there are 61 districts in Madhya Pradesh the DPEP was limited to 34 of them and hence this campaign covered only these. The Lok Sampark Abhiyan was, simply put, the first participatory data collection on primary education in the state and unprecedented in terms of scale even in the country.
 
Outcomes of the Lok Sampark Abhiyan
   
· For the first time creation of a database of names of children unenrolled in primary schools in 34 districts on MP. A database has been created of all children and their schooling status as well.
   
· Coalition building for primary education at local level: The participatory nature of data collection transformed itself into a motivational campaign for enrollment undertaken jointly by panchayat leadership, TLC volunteers and teachers may have resulted in forging a local coalition for primary education on a sustained basis.
   
· Decentralising educational planning of DPEP in 34 districts: Assessing the gaps in educational facilities at the village level and the creation of panchayat level education plan which were in turn aggregated into block level plans and subsequently into district plans
   
· Revising prior formulations on access: Prior formulations on access were exposed and it was revealed that access within a Km of habitation had not been achieved. Also, that general prescriptions overlooked specific habitation patterns of indigenous groups within the state.
   
· Provoking policy reform: The methodology of Lok Sampark Abhiyan resulted in articulation of community demand for primary education and the results of the Lok Sampark Abhiyan, which pointed to the limitations of access served to provoke policy reform. The state govt. responded to the situation by pioneering the education guarantee scheme.