The World Bank and Ministry of Education, Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) have signed an agreement together for the implementation of the Strengthening Teaching-Learning and Results for States (STARS) project in terms of financial support. Both the bodies have agreed for a financial support of 5718 Crore Rupees of which the world bank has agreed to provide support for 3700 Crore Rupees. The rest of the amount will be contributed by the participating states in a span of 5 Years.
The following six states were approved by the union cabinet for implementation of the STARS project are namely Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, and Odisha.
The STARS project will continue its functioning under the Samagra Shiksha program and will operate in various states through the State Implementation Society (SIS) for Samagra Shiksha.
The main aim of the whole project is to improve the overall monitoring and measurement activities in the Indian school education system by intervention, especially in the six mentioned states.
The education systems will be under close monitoring of the world bank. States will have to be active throughout and strive to meet the desired targets. Since it's a Program for Results (PforR) based model the results will be verified by an external agency before disbursement of funds.
Initiating the STARS project is an important step towards the implementation and support of many recommendations in the New Education Policy 2020 which aims at improving the learning assessment system, ICT-enabled approaches in education, teacher development, vocational education, and strengthening early childhood education and foundational learning.
By Shirin Tarachandani
Leave a comment