Cabinet approves STARS programme under NEP | Fusion - WeRIndia

The Union Cabinet yesterday approved Strengthening Teaching Learning and Results for States (STARS) project under the New Education Policy (NEP) 2020.

The STARS program is intended to strengthen India’s educational system. The main intention of this programme is to improve the learning outcomes of school children.

World Bank supports the programme with a fund of $500 million.

It improves the quality and governance of school education in six states of the country. The six states are Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Odisha.

The estimated project cost is ₹5,718 crores. While the World Bank provides financial support to the extent of around ₹3,700 crores, the remaining ₹2,000 crores will be contributed by the state governments.

Around 250 million school children of 6 to 17 years and 10 million teachers will benefit from the STARS program. The programme will also help 1.5 million schools.

Both the Department of School Education & Literacy and the Ministry of Education will jointly implement the programme.

STARS programme provides customized local-level solutions to improve educational outcomes at all levels like state, district and sub-district.

The objective of the programme is to improve essential numerical skills and fundamental literacy among children between 3 and 8 years.

It also helps teachers manage the transformation for achieving better learning outcomes. Teachers will be given training for this.

Schools will be revolutionized under the programme. The programme facilitates the engagement of parents with different strategies.

It also offers academic support system, administrative & academic monitoring, and classroom designs to improve early education.

A separate evaluation institute will be established to improve board examinations.

Thus, the programme will improve the cognitive and language skills of children to meet future demands.

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