The Samagra Shiksha scheme

The Samagra Shiksha scheme

Subject: Government Schemes

Context: The Centre plans to pay students their Right to Education (RTE) entitlements in the form of cash transfers as part of a revamp and extension of its flagship school education scheme that was approved by the Cabinet on Wednesday.

Concept:

• The Samagra Shiksha scheme, which has been extended till March 2026, will have a financial outlay of ₹2.94 lakh crore, including a Central share of ₹1.85 lakh crore, and several new initiatives on early childhood education, foundational literacy, and numeracy and language education.
• The Union Budget, 2018-19, has proposed to treat school education holistically without segmentation from pre-nursery to Class 12.
• Samagra Shiksha – an overarching programme for the school education sector extending from pre-school to class 12 has been, therefore, prepared with the broader goal of improving school effectiveness measured in terms of equal opportunities for schooling and equitable learning outcomes.
• It subsumes the three schemes of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) and Teacher Education (TE).
  This sector-wide development programme/scheme would also help harmonise the implementation mechanisms and transaction costs at all levels,
• The fund sharing pattern for the scheme between Centre and States is at present in the ratio of 90:10 for the 8 North-Eastern States and 3 Himalayan States viz. Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand and 60:40 for all other States and Union Territories with Legislature.
• It is 100% centrally sponsored for Union Territories without Legislature.
• The main emphasis of the Scheme is on improving quality of school education by focussing on the two T’s – Teacher and Technology.
• The strategy for all interventions under the Scheme would be to enhance the Learning Outcomes at all levels of schooling.
• Support ‘Operation Digital Board’ in all secondary schools over a period of 5 years, which will revolutionize education- easy to understand, technology based learning classrooms will become flipped classrooms
• Preference to Educationally Backward Blocks (EBBs), LWE affected districts, Special Focus Districts (SFDs), Border areas and the 117 aspirational districts identified by Niti Aayog
• Self-defence training for girls from upper primary to senior secondary stage
• Allocation for uniforms, textbooks under the RTE Act, Allocation for Children with Special Needs (CwSN) increased
• This single scheme will enable the SCERT to become the nodal agency for conduct and monitoring of all in-service training programmes to make it need-focused and dynamic.
• The Scheme will be implemented as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme by the Department through a single State Implementation Society (SIS) at the State/UT level. At the National level, there would be a Governing Council headed by Minister of Human Resource Development and a Project Approval Board (PAB) headed by Secretary, Department of School Education and Literacy.
• The Governing Council will be empowered to modify financial and programmatic norms and approve the detailed guidelines for implementation within the overall Framework of the scheme