Ministry of Education, Department of Economic Affairs (DEA), and World Bank have agreed on the financial support worth Rs. 5718 crore towards the implementation of the strengthening technical-learning and result for state (STARS) project. The total cost of the STARS project is Rs. 5718 crore with the financial support of the World Bank amounting to $500 million approximately Rs. 3700 crore and the rest will be contributed as state share from the participating states, over a period of five years.
STARS is primarily in the form of a result-based financing instrument called Program for Result (PforR). This will ensure major reforms at the state-level through a set of disbursement-inked indicators (DLIs).
As per the official notification released by Ministry, “STARS project will be an instrument in the implementation of various recommendations of National Education Policy 2020 that is strengthening early childhood education and foundation learning. Improving learning assessment system, ICT-enabled approaches in education, teachers development and vocational education etc.”
This agreement will improve the education system and monitor all the activities in the Indian education system that will further smooth the learning patterns.
Earlier, Union Cabinet had approved the proposal of STARS project. The project will cover six states including Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, and Kerala. It is said that all the identified or selected states will be supported for various interventions for improving the quality of education.
STARS will draw on the existing learning pattern under Samagra Shiksha. At the state level project will be implemented through the integrated State Implementation Society (SIS) for Samagra Shiksha.
“A state Incentive Grants (SIG) will be designed to encourage states to meet desired project outcomes. The SIG matrix has been aligned with the intermediate outcome indicators as per the requirement of the PforR instruments. An independent verification agency (IVA) will keep eye on each result before disbursement of funds.”
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