Cabinet approves Rs 5,718 crore World Bank project to improve school education in 6 states

The Indian government in association with the World Bank has started a new project called ‘Strengthening Teaching-Learning and Results for States (STARS)’. The Union Cabinet approved a scheme worth Rs 5718 crore for improving the quality of school education under the project while the World Bank will provide $500 million (approximately Rs 3700 crore), as per the official release.

Under STARS, the Ministry of Education will set-up and support the National Assessment Centre called PARAKH (Hindi for assessment) as an independent and autonomous institution under the Department of School Education and Literacy. The project envisions improving the overall monitoring and measurement activities in the Indian school education system through interventions in selected states.

The project covers six states namely Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala and Odisha. The STARS



project seeks to support the states in developing, implementing, evaluating, and improving education outcomes. The overall focus and components of the STARS project are aligned with the objectives of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, claims the ministry.

The STARS project also aims to focus on initiatives of PM e-Vidya, foundational literacy, and numeracy mission and national curricular and pedagogical framework for early childhood care and education as well.

Some of the measurable outcomes of the project include an increase in students achieving minimum proficiency in class three language in selected states, improvement in secondary school completion rate, improvement in governance index scores, strengthened learning assessment systems, strengthened school management by training of headteachers and principals for improved education service delivery among others, as per the official statement.