Govt to roll out revised Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan

New Delhi: In a major decision aimed at improving the standard of education in government schools, the Centre has approved a proposal to formulate an integrated scheme on school education by subsuming Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) and teacher education, which will run from April 1, 2018 to March 31, 2020.

The proposal has been approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, which is chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Explaining about the scheme, Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar said, "The vision of the scheme is to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education from nursery to senior secondary stage in accordance with the sustainable development goal for education."

"The main emphasis of the integrated scheme is on improving quality of school education by focussing on the two T's - Teacher and Technology," the minister said, adding that the scheme would also cover Kasturba Balika Vidyalaya.

The integrated plan would act as one-stop solution for students studying in government schools as most of the schools would now have classes from Class 1 to Class 12, including Kasturba Balika Vidyalayas.

The proposal was made by Department of School Education. "An estimated allocation of Rs 75,000 crore over the period has been approved which is a 20 per cent increase over the current allocations," the minister said.

The Credit Guarantee Fund Scheme for Education Loans provides the guarantee for the education loan disbursed by banks without seeking any collateral security and third-party guarantee, for a maximum loan amount of Rs 7.5 lakh per student.

Under the CSIS Scheme, which was launch in April 2009, full interest subsidy is provided for education loans taken from scheduled banks for all the professional/technical courses in the country.

Students with annual gross parental income up to Rs 4.5 lakh are eligible for the scheme and the loans are disbursed without any collateral security and third-party guarantee.