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On Wednesday, the Union Cabinet approved the PM Schools for Rising Schools (PM-SHRI) scheme to turn current government schools into model schools for executing the National Education Policy (NEP 2020).

The implementation of the scheme will be as a Centrally sponsored scheme with a total project cost of ?27,360 crores, with the Centre’s claim being ?18,128 crores for five years from 2022-23 to 2026-27 for transforming 14,500 schools across the nation.

According to the information by the Ministry of Education, schools will be selected if the State government approves to enforcement of the NEP in its entirety, with the Centre laying down commitments for supporting these schools in accomplishing specified quality parameters to become PM SHRI schools. These schools will be monitored vigorously to evaluate their improvement in implementing National Education Policy (NEP 2020).

The scheme has been declared at a time when some states, including Tamil Nadu, continue to fight NEP for inflicting a centralized education system on the entire country when education is a state subject and enforcing the three language policy under which students will learn three languages out of which two have to be Indian native languages.

Other grounds for opposition comprise compulsory school entry at three years, which could flee many from marginalized communities, promotion of vocational courses from 6th Standard at the expense of formal education, and the option to exit schools in Class 10 with the chance to re-enter Class 11.

Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said at a press conference that a school would receive nearly two crores. The money will be transferred directly to the school’s account via Direct Benefit Transfer. The principal or the local committee will be provided the flexibility to decide the use of 40% of the fund.

The PM SHRI scheme also delivers a School Quality Assessment Framework- which will be developed for estimating or calculating key performance indicators for carrying out a quality evaluation of schools chosen from the current academic year.

The quality parameters that will be evaluated once a school is picked for the scheme will include enforcement of National Education Policy 2020, improvement in learning outcomes of children to accomplish levels above state and national average, the local entrepreneurial ecosystem for mentoring and creating students rooted in the heritage of India, proud of values of Bharat, student registry for tracking enrolment and learning progress, conscious of responsibilities towards nation building and duties towards society.

The selection of schools will include an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with state and union governments which will have to agree to execute to implement the National Education Policy (NEP 2020) in its entirety. Eligible schools will be recognized based on the prescribed minimum benchmark via the government's UDISE+ data on schools. Later, the schools will compete against each other on specific parameters, which will be assessed via a physical inspection. States and union territories will then suggest the list of schools to the Ministry. Two schools per block will be chosen for the scheme.

Earlier, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi offering his cooperation as it had transformed government schools in the state with very little money. He wrote about the PM-SHRI scheme and stated the need to pay attention to all government schools in the country, which he said were worse than kabaadkhana (scrapyard). He added that you have only prepared a scheme for 14,5000 government schools, but there are more than 10 lakh government schools across the nation. At this rate, it will take 100 years to enhance and develop government schools.

Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan reacted to the letter by Arvind Kejriwal and attacked the Delhi government for failing to build new schools in the last eight years and not appointing principals in 2020-2021. He stated that the state government's schools languished behind the national average in the National Assessment Survey.

News Source: The Hindu