Cabinet Approves Rs. 5718 Crore World Bank Aided Project STARS
For Improving School Education
Posted On: 14 OCT 2020 4:47PM by PIB Delhi
The
Union Cabinet chaired
by the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi has approved the following:
·
Implementation
of the Strengthening Teaching-Learning and Results for States (STARS)
project with a total project cost of Rs 5718 crore with the financial support
of World Bank amounting to US $ 500 million (approximately Rs. 3700 crore).
·
STARS
project would be implemented as a new Centrally Sponsored Scheme under
Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education. (MOE)
·
Setting
up and support to the National Assessment Centre, PARAKH as an independent and
autonomous institution under Department of School Education and Literacy, MOE.
The project covers 6
States namely Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala
and Odisha. The identified States will be supported tor various interventions
for improving the quality of education. Besides this project, it is also envisaged
to implement a similar ADB funded project in 5 states namely Gujarat, Tamil
Nadu, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Assam. All states will partner with one other
state for sharing their experiences and best practices.
The
STARS project seeks to support the states in developing, implementing,
evaluating and improving interventions with direct linkages to improved
education outcomes and school to work transition strategies for improved labour
market outcomes. The overall focus and components of the STARS project are
aligned with the objectives of National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 of Quality
Based Learning Outcomes.
The
Project envisions improving the overall monitoring and measurement activities
in the Indian School Education System through interventions in selected states.
The project shifts focus from the provision of inputs and maintaining of
outputs to actual outcomes by linking the receipt and disbursement of funds to
these outcomes.
The
STARS Project has two major components:
1)
At the national level, the project envisages the following interventions which
will benefit all states and UTs:
·
To
strengthen MOE’s national data systems to capture robust and authentic data on
retention, transition and completion rates of students.
·
To
support MOE in improving states PGI scores by incentivizing states governance
reform agenda through SIG (State Incentive Grants).
·
To
support the strengthening of learning assessment systems.
·
To support MOE’s efforts to establish a National
Assessment Center (PARAKH). Among the tasks of such a center would be to
leverage the experiences of states selected for the operation by collecting,
curating and sharing these experiences with other states through online portals
(e.g. Shagun and DIKSHA), social and other media engagement, technical
workshops, state visits and conferences.
Further,
the STARS project includes a Contingency Emergency Response Component (CERC)
under the National Component which would enable it to be more responsive to any
natural, man-made and health disasters. It will help the government respond to
situations leading to loss of learning such as school closures/infrastructure
damage, inadequate facilities and use technology for facilitating remote
learning etc. The CERC component would facilitate the rapid
re-categorization of financing and the utilization of streamlined financing
request procedures.
2)
At the State level, the project envisages:
·
Strengthening
Early Childhood Education and Foundational Learning
·
Improving
Learning Assessment Systems
·
Strengthening
classroom instruction and remediation through teacher development and school
leadership
·
Governance
and Decentralized Management for Improved Service Delivery.
· Strengthening
Vocational education in schools through mainstreaming, career guidance and
counselling, internships and coverage of out of school children
The
STARS project also aims to focus on initiatives of PM e-Vidya, Foundational Literacy
and Numeracy Mission and National Curricular and Pedagogical Framework for
Early Childhood Care and Education as part of the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan.
Some
of the measurable outcomes of the project are Increase in students achieving
minimum proficiency in grade 3 language in selected states, Improvement in
secondary school completion rate, Improvement in governance index scores,
Strengthened learning assessment systems, Partnerships developed to facilitate
cross-learning between states, and improvement in the State level service
delivery such as Strengthening planning and management capacities for
decentralized management by training of BRCs and CRCs, Strengthened school
management by training of Head Teachers and Principals for improved education
service delivery.
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