Education Minister Extends Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan For 5 Yrs

A financial outlay of ₹2,94,283.04 crores has been approved for Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) 2.0 by the Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs. The authorised amount includes the Centre's share of ₹1,85,398.32 crore.

In an official statement, the Ministry of Education said that apart from extending the existing schemes for the next five years, the focus would also be on 'quality and inclusive' education. This would include connecting all the rural schools via the internet. The government has also decided to increase the incentives to ₹ 5,000 for specially-abled students. In addition to this, they would give a transport incentive of ₹ 6,000 annually to the students coming from problematic areas.

Will Align With The SDG-4

A national strategy is underway for dropout students, especially those belonging to the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) communities. The extension of the scheme is likely to benefit almost 1.16 million schools, 156 million students across the country and nearly 6 million teachers of government and government-aided schools from primary to senior secondary levels.

The Times of India quoted the Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, "The SSA 2.0 has given a new dimension by aligning with the Sustainable Development Goal for Education (SDG-4) and recommendation of National Education Policy (NEP-2020) that will ensure that all children have access to quality education with an equitable and inclusive classroom."

Inclusive Environment For Students

He further added that such an environment would cater to their diverse backgrounds, multilingual needs and different academic abilities. The Prime Minister chaired the Cabinet Committee and approved universal access, infrastructure development for better retention, foundational literacy, and numeracy, among others.

The new interventions will be incorporated based on the suggestions of NEP 2020. All the changes would be child-centric and would directly provide for the students through DBT mode based on an exclusive IT- platform. Apart from this, a sports grant of Rs 25,000 would be given to schools if at least two of their students could win a medal in the Khelo India Games at the National level.

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