Samagra Shiksha - An Integrated Scheme for School Education

It was announced in Budget 2018-19 as an Integrated Scheme for School Education- aimed at ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education from pre-school to senior secondary classes.

Major Objectives of the Scheme

• Provision of quality education and enhancing learning outcomes of students;
• Bridging social and gender gaps in school education;
• Ensuring equity and inclusion at all levels of school education;
• Ensuring minimum standards in schooling provisions;
• Promoting vocationalisation of education;
• Support States in implementation of Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009; and Strengthening and up-gradation of SCERTs/State Institutes of Education and DIETs as nodal agencies for teacher training.

Note: It subsumes Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan and Centrally Sponsored Scheme on Teacher Education.

Performance Analysis and Emerging Issues

• In Financial Year 2020-21, till October 2020, only 40 per cent of the allocations had been released to states.
• States had spent only 26 per cent of their total approved budgets during the first seven months in 2020.
• In 2020-21, 31,050 crore has been allocated for the scheme. This is 20 per cent lower than the Budget estimate of the previous year. There are wide disparities in the utilisation of funds by states.
• During the first seven months of 2020, 17 large states had spent less than one-third of their approved budgets.