The Cabinet on August 4 approved the school education programme Samagra Shiksha Scheme 2.0. The scheme runs from April 1, 2021 to March 31, 2026. It has been given a financial outlay of Rs 2.94 lakh crore for this period.
The scheme covers 1.16 million schools, over 156 million students and 5.7 million teachers of government and aided schools from pre-primary to senior secondary level.
Under the scheme, there is a 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.
Making the announcement, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said the scheme will provide access to quality education with an equitable and inclusive classroom environment.
Samagra Shiksha is an overarching programme for the school education sector extending from pre-school to class 12. It has been 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).
Since the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 implementation is underway, the Samagra Shiksha 2.0 scheme will also follow new routes.
The cabinet committee of economic affairs (CCEA) said that in order to enhance the direct outreach of the scheme, all child centric interventions will be provided directly to the students through DBT mode on an IT based platform over a period of time.
Further, 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.
A new scheme called NIPUN Bharat has launched. This is a National Mission on Foundational Literacy and Numeracy to ensure that every child achieves the desired learning competencies in reading, writing and numeracy at the end of grade 3 and not later than grade 5.
Here, there is a provision of TLM upto Rs 500 per child per annum, Rs 150 per teacher for teacher manuals and resources and Rs 10-20 lakh per district for assessment.
For out of school children at 16 to 19 years of age, the scheme will provide Rs 2,000 per child per child for SC, ST and disabled children. This is to complete their secondary/senior secondary levels through NIOS/SOS.
There will also be a Holistic Progress Card that will have a multi-dimensional report showing progress/ uniqueness of each learner in the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains.
To boost sports, there is an additional grant of upto Rs 25,000 to schools in case atleast two students of that school win a medal in Khelo India school games at the National level.
At the school level, there will be provision for ‘Bagless days’, school complexes, internships with local artisans among others.
A new component 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.
When it comes to three-month training for inculcating self-defence skills under ‘Rani Laxmibai Atma Raksha Prashikshan’, the amount has been increased from Rs 3,000 to Rs 5,000 per month.
CCEA said that to enhance the direct outreach of the scheme, all child centric interventions will be provided directly to the students through DBT mode on an IT based platform over a period of time.
