NEW DELHI, 4 Aug: The union cabinet on Wednesday approved continuation of the Samagra Shiksha scheme for school education for another five years.
Provision of training of master trainers for anganwadi workers, incinerator and sanitary pad vending machines in all girls’ hostels, addition of new subjects instead of stream in existing senior secondary schools, holistic progress card for each learner, and upgrade of all Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalyas upto Class 12 are among the initiatives in the revised scheme.
Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said the scheme would continue from 1 April, 2021 to 31 March, 2026.
Under the new Samagra Shiksha scheme, financial outlay of Rs 2,94,283.04 crores, which includes central share of Rs 1,85,398.32 crores, has been made to implement the scheme.
It will cover 1.16 million schools, over 156 million students and 5.7 million teachers of government and aided schools.
“In order to enhance the direct outreach of the scheme, all child-centric interventions will be provided directly to the students through the DBT mode on an IT-based platform over a period of time. The scheme will have effective convergence architecture with various ministries and developmental agencies of the Centre and state governments,” an official statement said.
“The expansion of vocational education will be done in convergence with the ministry of skill development and entrepreneurship and other ministries providing funding for skills. The existing infrastructure of schools and ITIs and polytechnics will be used to ensure optimum utilization of the facilities, not only for school going children but also for out-of-school children,” it added.
Provision of training of master trainers for training of anganwadi workers and in-service teacher training for ECCE teachers; provision of upto Rs 500 per child for teaching learning materials (TLM), indigenous toys and games, play-based activities per annum for pre-primary sections in government schools and strengthening of infrastructure of schools from pre-primary to senior secondary (earlier pre-primary was excluded) are among the various initiatives in the revised scheme.
“Specific training modules will be included under NISHTHA by NCERT to train secondary teachers and Primary teachers. Transport facility has been extended to secondary level at upto Rs 6,000 per annum. For out-of-school children at 16 to 19 years of age, support will be provided to SC, ST, disabled children, up to Rs 2,000 per child per grade to complete their secondary or senior secondary levels through NIOS/SOS,” the statement said.
“Financial support for State Commission for Protection of Child Rights at Rs 50 per elementary school in the state, for protection of child rights and safety; holistic, 360-degree, multi-dimensional report showing progress and uniqueness of each learner in the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains will be introduced in the form of holistic progress card (HPC),” it added.
Under the scheme, additional sports grant of up to Rs 25,000 will be given to schools in case at least two students of that school win a medal in Khelo India school games at the national level.
“Provision for bagless days, school complexes, internships with local artisans, curriculum and pedagogical reforms, etc, included. A new component about appointment of language teacher has been added in the scheme- components of training of teachers and bilingual books and teaching learning material added, besides support for salary of teachers.
“Training for three months for inculcating self-defence skills under Rani Laxmibai Atma Raksha Prashikshan and amount increased from Rs 3,000 to Rs 5,000 per month. Separate provision of stipend for CWSN girls at Rs 200 per month for 10 months, in addition to student component from pre-primary to senior secondary level,” it said.
Setting up of assessment cell preferably at SCERT to conduct various achievement surveys, develop test materials and item banks, training of various stakeholders and test administration, data collection analysis and report generation; provision of classroom-cum-workshop for vocational education in schools serving as hubs for other schools in the neighbourhood; provision of transport and assessment cost for schools serving as spokes has been made and provision of ICT labs, smart classrooms including support for digital boards, smart classrooms, virtual classrooms and DTH channels have been provided.
“Child tracking provision included for students of government and government-aided schools. Support for social audit covering 20 percent of schools per year, so that all schools are covered in a period of five years,” it said.
The Samagra Shiksha scheme is an integrated scheme for school education covering the entire gamut from pre-school to Class 12. The scheme has been aligned with the recommendations of the NEP 2020 to ensure that all children have access to quality education with an equitable and inclusive classroom environment which should take care of their diverse background, multilingual needs, different academic abilities and make them active participants in the learning process.
The major interventions, across all levels of school education, proposed under the scheme include universal access including infrastructure development and retention; foundational literacy and numeracy; gender and equity; inclusive education; quality and innovation; financial support for teacher salary; digital initiatives; RTE entitlements including uniforms, textbooks etc. (PTI)
