Primary education is the first stage of compulsory education. It is preceded by pre-school or nursery education and is followed by secondary education. In North America, this stage of education is usually known as elementary education and is generally followed by middle school.

In most countries, it is compulsory for children to receive primary education, though in many jurisdictions it is permissible for parents to provide it. The transition to secondary school or high school is somewhat arbitrary, but it generally occurs at about eleven or twelve years of age. Some educational systems have separate middle schools with the transition to the final stage of education taking place at around the age of fourteen.
The major goals of primary education are achieving basic literacy and numeracy amongst all pupils, as well as establishing foundations in science, mathematics, geography, history and other social sciences. The relative priority of various areas, and the methods used to teach them, are an area of considerable political debate.
Typically, primary education is provided in schools, where the child will stay in steadily advancing classes until they complete it and move on to high school/secondary school. Children are usually placed in classes with one teacher who will be primarily responsible for their education and welfare for that year. This teacher may be assisted to varying degrees by specialist teachers in certain subject area often music or physical education. The continuity with a single teacher and the opportunity to build up a close relationship with the class is a notable feature of the primary education system.
Traditionally, various forms of corporal punishment have been an integral part of early education. Recently this practice has come under attack, and in many cases been outlawed, especially in Western countries.

District Primary Education Program

The state specific basic education projects in Bihar (Bihar Education Project), Rajasthan (Lok Jumbish &Shiksha Karmi), Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Pradesh Primary Education Project), Uttar Pradesh (Uttar Pradesh Basic Shiksha Project) and the District Primary Education Programme are of recent origin.   The programme that was first introduced in 1994 in 42 districts spread over seven states is now under implementation in about 240 districts of fifteen states. The programme is structured in such a fashion so that it can provide additional inputs over and above the provisions made by the state governments for elementary education. 85% of the project cost is shared by the Government of India and the rest 15 % by the concerned project states. The Government of India share is resourced by external funding from IDA, European Community, Government of Netherlands, DFID (UK) and UNICEF.  Decentralized planning in a project mode, disaggregated target setting, community mobilization through Village Education Committees, participative planning process and autonomy to set targets, priorities and strategies are some of the salient features of DPEP. For guidance and supervision, state-specific autonomous bodies are created at the state level and at the district level, District Planning Teams were constituted. With the participation of the local community and others - both government and non-governmental agencies and individuals including the NGOs, district-specific plans were developed which are at different stages of implementation. The program however confines to only primary level but the Government of India at present is thinking seriously to upgrade it to the upper primary level initially in 42 phase one districts. Also under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, provisions are made to cover the entire elementary level.   Over the project period, more than 8,000 new formal schools are opened in the project districts and another 15,000 are in the pipeline. About 38,000 alternative schooling centers of different types have also been set-up and about 75,000 more are planned. In phase one districts about 2,709 school buildings are constructed and another 2,027 were in the progress. In addition, a large number of additional classrooms were also constructed, drinking water and toilet facilities in schools provided and repairs of school buildings undertaken. Majority of 0.85 million teachers under the DPEP has received in-service training more than once. Teachers in a school are given Rs. 500/- per annum as teacher grant, which help them to develop local-specific teaching aids. All primary schools under the project have been granted Rs. 2,000/- per annum as school grant. More than 3 million community members have been trained and given responsibilities in the affairs of education at the grassroots level. As mentioned above, a large number of Circle Resource Centers (CRC) and Block Resource Centers (BRC) have been created where training to teachers is imparted. Teachers discuss problems and other topics of common interest in CRCs meetings.  A growth of 6.2% per annum in primary enrolment has been noticed in 42 phase one (1995-98) districts with average GER at 99.7%. In the phase two districts (1995-97) also, an increase of 2.55% in enrolment has been noticed. Reducing the gender gap, which is one of the important objectives of DPEP is closing rapidly. Twenty-three of the 42 districts have the gender parity index in enrolment above 95%.  Index for social equity for Scheduled Caste children is more than 100 in all the phase one districts. Overall repetition rate has shown a decline in phase one district and come down to 5.2% in 1997 from 7.5% in 1995. The decline in dropout rates has been in the range of 4-20 per cent and most of the districts now have dropout rate in the range of 17-31%. It may be noted that utilization rate across districts remains very low. However, in a few project districts, enrolment in Grade I has started declining which is a major cause of concern. One of the possible explanations of this phenomenon is that children started diverting from government schools to unrecognized private schools. Or with the expansion of alternate schools, children of lower age group prefer alternate schools than the formal schools.