School Education Reform Project

The Union Cabinet has approved school education reform project.

This project is partially funded by the World Bank and is named as STARS.
The agenda of the project is to govern the school education, improve data and assessment systems at the national level. Improve teaching and learning outcomes in 6 states, early childhood and vocational education.
The project includes an emergency response component.
This helps the government respond to disaster situations which leads to loss of education and closure of schools.

TheSTARS project is known as the Strengthening Teaching-Learning and Results for Stars.
The total project cost is of Rs 5,718 crore, partially supported by World Bank amounting to about Rs 3,700 crore ($500 million).
STARS will be a Centrally Sponsored Scheme and the Department of School Education and Literacy will be the implementing agency.
The establishment ofPARAKH as a National Assessment Centre is the major component of the project.
PARAKH includes Performance, Assessment, Review and Analysis of Knowledge for Holistic Development.
PARAKH is an autonomous institution under the Union Education Ministry which is included in the National Education Policy 2020.
This institution will set norms for student assessment and evaluation for all school boards.
At the State level, the project seeks to improve education outcomes and school-to-work strategies.
The project will cover Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Odisha.
TheAsian Development Bank will cover Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Assam and Jharkhand.
The vision of the project is to monitor and measure activities in the Indian School Education System.
The STARS project includes a Contingency Emergency Response Component (CERC) alerting disasters. This will help in the re-categorization of financing and the utilization of streamlined financing request procedures.

The STARS project has two major components- national level and state level.
- At National Level:
  - At the national level, the project will support all states and UTs.
  - To strengthen MOEs national data systems which include capturing robust and authentic data on transition, retention and completion rates of the students.
  - To support MOEs in improving the PGI scores.
  - To strengthen the learning assessment systems.
- At the State Level:
  - To strengthen Early Childhood Education.
  - Strengthening classroom instructions and improving learning assessment systems.
  - To improve service delivery, management of Governance and Decentralization.
  - Strengthening Vocational Education.
The project focuses on initiatives under the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan like the PM e-Vidya, Foundational Literacy and Numeracy Mission and National Curricular and Pedagogical Framework.

To increase minimum proficiency in grade 3 language in selected states.
Improvement in secondary school completion rate.
Improvement in governance index scores.
To strengthen learning assessment systems.
Partnership between states to facilitate cross-learning.
Improvement in state level service delivery.
Training of BRCs and CRCs for decentralized management.
Strengthening management by training Head Teachers and Principals for improved education delivery.