The Cabinet on Wednesday approved a World Bank supported 'STARS' project that will support states in terms of education, said Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar.
The World Bank Board of Executive Directors has approved a $500 million for Strengthening Teaching-Learning and Results for States Program (STARS). The purpose of this program is to improve the quality and governance of school education in six Indian states. About 250 million students aged between the age of 6 and 17 in 1.5 million schools, and over 10 million teachers in the country will benefit from this program.
The STARS program is built on a long partnership between India and the World Bank which was started in 1994. The main focus was strengthen public school education and to support the country’s goal of providing ‘Education for All’. Prior to STARS, the Bank had provided a total assistance of more than $3 billion towards this goal.
This project will be implemented as a new centrally-sponsored scheme under the Department of School Education & Literacy, Ministry of Education. The 6 states that are covered are Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala and Odisha.
The World Bank-supported programme is known as Strengthening Teaching-Learning and Results for States (STARS). The cost of this project is going to be Rs 5,718 crore with financial support of the World Bank amounting to $500 million, said the Centre.
“India recognizes the need to significantly improve its learning outcomes to fuel future growth and meet the demands of the labor market. STARS will support India’s response to this challenge by strengthening implementation at the local level, investing in teacher capacity and ensuring that no child of any background is left behind from the right to education,” said Junaid Ahmad, World Bank Country Director in India. “Investing more in the early years of education will equip children with the skills required to compete for the jobs of the future.”
The project seeks to support states as far as 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 goal will be to increase fundamental literacy and numeracy among children of 3 to 8 years of age among others. Javadekar said that the main idea behind the project is "learning outcomes".
India has been successful in reducing gender disparity in enrolment in primary education. However, a large number of children leave school nd start working as they reach secondary education level. Under STARS, the aim is that each state works towards stabilizing this downward trend and improve the completion rate for secondary education.
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“STARS will support the Government of India’s vision to provide greater flexibility to states for school education planning and budgeting. This will help states’ implement evidence-based planning to factor in the needs of the most deprived, strengthen accountability at all levels, and thereby adopt a holistic approach to improve education outcomes,” said Shabnam Sinha, Lead Education Specialist, and World Bank’s Task Team Leader for the project.
STARS will also help improve learning assessment systems; strengthen classroom instruction and remediation; facilitate school-to-work transition; and strengthen governance and decentralized management.