In a move to provide infrastructure to the government schools same as that of the private institutes, the central government is planning to merge the two of its major school education schemes -- Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA).
DNA had earlier reported that the Ministry of Human Resource Development is working on a plan to merge SSA and RMSA to create a single more effective policy for school education. While SSA caters to Classes 1 to 8, RMSA caters to only classes 9 and 10, due to their slightly different mandates, the schemes are being merged.
The merger is also being done because of a large number of primary (1 to 8) schools in the country as compared to upper primary (1 to 10), which skews up the attention given to upper primary classes. Stand-alone primary and upper primary schools constitute respectively around 55 percent and 10 percent of the total schools in the country.
With this plan, the government wants to make quality education accessible for all by the year 2030. "Pooling together all resources including that of SSA and RMSA at national and state level and clear commitment to school education during the next seven years will make the goal achievable," an expert committee formed to review the possibilities of the merger said
The committee also recommended a number of measures which have been agreed upon by the ministry. The report suggested that "need-based planning" should be done for schools which will be more cost-effective in terms of teachers salary, residential schools will be established, transport facilities would be made available to girls upto secondary. "There should be a single strategic district and state plan covering grades 1 to 10/12 where schools rather than any given level of school education become the unit of planning," it further added.
"The benefits of merging the two schemes will reflect in the strengthening of existing school in terms of civil works, hardware support, major repairs and residential quarters for teachers. Need-based composite residential schools may be established, this will be economic, efficient and effective," the report said.
"Given the structure of school education in India, characterised by a large proportion of stand-alone small primary (55%) and upper primary schools (10%) there is a need to go for a paradigm shift in the approach for strategic management of school education in the country," the committee suggested.
MAKING IT EASY
- Committee recommended measures which have been agreed upon by the ministry.
- The report suggested that “need-based planning” should be done for schools which will be more cost-effectiveprimary classes.
