Cabinet approves continuation of Samagra Shiksha Scheme till 2026; Teacher to be trained under NISHTHA

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has given its approval for the continuation of the revised Samagra Shiksha Scheme for a period of five years (2021-26) with a total financial outlay of Rs 2,94,283.04 crore.

The government has created provisions for providing financial support up to 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. The CCEA has approved a total financial outlay of Rs.2,94,283.04 crore which includes Central share of Rs.1,85,398.32 crore.
Under the scheme, NIPUN Bharat, 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 III and not later than grade V has been launched under the scheme with the provision ofRs 500 per child per annum, Rs 150 per teacher for teacher manuals and resources, Rs 10-20 lakh per district for assessment.

Specific training modules will be created under National Initiative for School Heads' and Teachers' Holistic Advancement (NISHTHA) to train secondary and primary teachers.

The Samagra Shiksha 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).
The CCEA has also approved financial support for out of school children at 16 to 19 years of age belonging to SC, ST, disabled children, up to Rs 2000 per child per grade to complete their secondary/senior secondary levels through NIOS/SOS.

The Samagra Shiksha scheme is an integrated scheme for school education covering the entire gamut from pre-school to class XII, in accordance with Sustainable Development Goal for Education (SDG-4). The scheme not only provides support for the implementation of the RTE Act but has also been aligned with the recommendations of NEP 2020 to ensure that all children have access to quality education with an equitable and inclusive classroom environment.

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.
The scheme will have an effective convergence architecture with various Ministries/ developmental agencies of the Centre and State Governments. The expansion of vocational education will be done in convergence with the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship and other Ministries providing funding for Skills.

In the Union Budget 2018-19 Government announced that school education would be treated holistically and without segmentation from pre-primary to class XII. It is, in this context, that the Department launched the Integrated Scheme for School Education, Samagra Shiksha in 2018 by subsuming the erstwhile Centrally Sponsored Schemes of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) and Teacher Education (TE).

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