NATIONAL EDUCATION POLICY

• The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has approved the school education programme Samagra Shiksha Scheme 2.0 till the 2025-26 financial year.
• It has been upgraded to align it with the Sustainable Development Goal for Education and the new National Education Policy launched in 2020.

Important points:

• It is an integrated scheme for school education covering the entire gamut from pre-school to class XII.
• It aims to deliver inclusive, equitable, and affordable school education.
• It subsumes the three Schemes of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) and Teacher Education (TE).
• The scheme covers 1.16 million schools, over 156 million students and 5.7 million Teachers of Govt. and Aided schools (from pre-primary to senior secondary level).
• It is being implemented as a centrally sponsored scheme. It involves a 60:40 split in funding between the Centre and most States. It was launched by the Ministry of Education in 2018.

Samagra Shiksha Scheme 2.0:

• 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.
• This DBT would include RTE (Right to Education) entitlements such as textbooks, uniforms and transport allowance.

NEP Recommendations:

• It has a new component for appointment of language teachers, which includes salaries, and training costs as well as bilingual books and teaching learning material as recommended in NEP.
• It will now include funding to support pre-primary sections at government schools, i.e. for teaching and learning materials, indigenous toys and games and play-based activities.
• Master trainers for pre-primary teachers and anganwadi workers will be supported under the scheme.

SOURCE: THE HINDU,THE ECONOMIC TIMES,MINT