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The World Bank has approved a new project worth $500 million to improve learning outcome and governance of government schools in six Indian states. The project, named STARS (Strengthening Teaching-Learning and Results for States Program), will be implemented through the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan, the flagship central scheme, in partnership with Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha and Rajasthan.
More About STARS Program
- India has, over the years, made significant strides in improving access to education across the country, however, learning outcomes across age groups remain below par.
- STARS will support India’s renewed focus on addressing the learning outcome challenge and help students better prepare for the jobs of the future, through a series of reform initiatives.
- The STARS program builds on the long partnership between India and the World Bank, since 1994 and prior to STARS, the Bank had provided a total assistance of more than $3 billion towards this goal.
- The program will support individualized, needs-based training for teachers that will give them an opportunity to have a say in shaping training programs and making them relevant to their teaching needs.
- Among other things, the World Bank initiative will focus directly on the delivery of education services at the state, district and sub district levels by providing customized local-level solutions towards school improvement.
- STARS will help improve learning assessment systems, strengthen classroom instruction, and remediation, facilitate school-to-work transition, and strengthen governance and decentralized management.
- In line with the Sustainable Development Goal for education (SDG 4), the program will help produce better data on learning levels by improving the National Achievement Survey (NAS).
- The $500 million loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), has a final maturity of 14.5 years including a grace period of five years.
Source: Livemint
