PIB – 27 July 2021

SAMAGRA SHIKSHA SCHEME

Focus: GS II- Education

Why in News?

Samagra Shiksha Scheme to improve the access, infrastructure and quality of education.

About the scheme:

Nodal: Ministry of Education

• Samagra Shiksha is an integrated scheme for school education extending from pre-school to class XII to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education at all levels of school education.
• It subsumes the three Schemes of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) and Teacher Education (TE).
• The main emphasis of the Scheme is on improving the quality of school education by focussing on the two T’s – Teacher and Technology.
• The Scheme is being implemented as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme. The fund sharing pattern for the scheme between Centre and States is at present in the ratio of 90:10 for the North-Eastern States and the Himalayan States and 60:40 for all other States and Union Territories with Legislature. It is 100% centrally sponsored for Union Territories without Legislature.
• The vision of the Scheme is to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education from pre-school to senior secondary stage in accordance with the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) for Education.
• SDG-4.1: Aims to ensure that all boys and girls complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes. SDG 4.5: Aims to eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all levels of education.

The major features and interventions of Samagra Shiksha  for improving the access, infrastructure and quality of education throughout the country are

• Universalizing access to quality school education by expansion of schooling facilities in the uncovered areas through up-gradation of schools up-to senior secondary level
• Ensuring availability of adequate infrastructure to ensure that schools conform to the prescribed norms
• Annual Grant of Rs. 5,000 to Rs. 20,000/- per school for strengthening of Libraries
• Composite school grant of Rs. 25,000-1 Lakh to be allocated on the basis of school enrolment, out of which at-least 10% is to be spent on Swachhta Action Plan
• Annual Grant for sports equipments at the cost of Rs. 5000-25000 per school
• Allocation for children with Special Needs (CwSN) of Rs. 3,500 per child per annum including a stipend of Rs. 200 per month for CWSN girls to be provided from Classes I to XII
• Allocation for uniforms at the rate of Rs. 600 per child per annum at elementary level
• Allocation for textbooks at the rate of Rs. 250/400 per child per annum at elementary level
• Running and Upgradation of Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas (KGBVs) from Class 6-8 to Class 6-12
• Strengthening Teacher Education Institutions like SCERTs and DIETs to improve the quality of teachers
• Enhanced use of digital technology in education through smart classrooms, digital boards and DTH channels
• Support States & UTs for implementation of provisions of RTE Act, including reimbursement under Section 12(1)(c) of the Act
• Setting up of residential schools and hostels for difficult areas and for children in difficult circumstances.

NISHTHA AND DIKSHA PORTAL 

Focus: GS II- Education

Why in News?

Ministry of Education issues guidelines for identification, admission and continued education of migrant children.

About NISHTHA (National Initiative for School Heads’ and Teachers’ Holistic Advancement)

• NISHTHA is a capacity building programme for “Improving Quality of School Education through Integrated Teacher Training”.
• It aims to build competencies among all the teachers and school principals at the elementary stage.
• The functionaries (at the state, district, block, cluster level) shall be trained in an integrated manner on learning outcomes, school based assessment, learner centred pedagogy, new initiatives in education, addressing diverse needs of children through multiple pedagogies, etc.
• This is being organized by constituting National Resource Groups (NRGs) and State Resource Groups (SRGs) at the National and the State level who will be training 42 lakhs teachers subsequently.
• A robust portal/Management Information System (MIS) for delivery of the training, monitoring and support mechanism has been infused with this capacity building initiative.

The main expected outcomes from NISHTHA are:-

• Improvement in learning outcomes of the students.
• Creation of an enabling and enriching inclusive classroom environment
• Teachers become alert and responsive to the social, emotional and psychological needs of students as first level counselors.
• Teachers are trained to use Art as pedagogy leading to increased creativity and innovation among students.
• Teachers are trained to develop and strengthen personal-social qualities of students for their holistic development.
• Creation of healthy and safe school environment.
• Integration of ICT in teaching learning and assessment.
• Developing stress free School Based Assessment focused on development of learning competencies.
• Teachers adopt Activity Based Learning and move away from rote learning to competency based learning.
• Teachers and School heads become aware of new initiatives in school education.
• Transformation of the Heads of Schools into providing academic and administrative leadership for the schools for fostering new initiatives.

About DIKSHA Portal

• DIKSHA (Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing) is a national platform for school education, an initiative of National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT), MHRD, now Ministry of Education.
• DIKSHA was developed based on the core principles of open architecture, open access, open licensing diversity, choice and autonomy as outlined in the Strategy and Approach Paper for the National Teacher Platform released by the former Hon’ Minister for Human Resources Development Shri Prakash Javdekar in May, 2017.
• DIKSHA itself was launched by the Hon’ Vice President of India on Sept 5th, 2017 and has since been adopted by 35 states/UT’s across as well as CBSE and NCERT and by crores of learners and teachers.
• DIKSHA is built on open source technology, made in India and made for India, which incorporates internet scale technologies and enables several use-cases and solutions for teaching and learning. 
• DIKSHA, as mentioned earlier, is available for the use of all states and UTs of India.
• DIKSHA policies and tools make it possible for the education ecosystem (educationist, experts, organisations, institutions – government, autonomous institutions, non-govt and private organisations) to participate, contribute and leverage a common platform to achieve learning goals at scale for the country.

MyGov PLATFORM

Focus: GS II- Governance

Why in News?

MyGov celebrates 7 Years of Participatory Governance.

• To commemorate the contribution of MyGov in promoting participatory governance, an event was organised with the theme of MyGov Positive – promoting positive use of Social media.

About MyGov platform:

• MyGov has been established as Government of India’s Citizen Engagement Platform which collaborates with multiple Government bodies/ Ministries to engage with citizens for policy formulation and seeks the opinion of people on issues/ topics of public interest and welfare.
• Since its launch on 26th July 2014, by Hon’ble Prime Minister MyGov has more than 17.5 million registered users.
• Almost all Government Departments leverage MyGov platform for their citizen engagement activities, consultations for policy formulation and also to disseminate information to citizens for various Government schemes and programs.
• MyGov is amongst the most active profiles on Social Media – Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube & LinkedIn with the username @MyGovIndia.
• MyGov has a significant presence on several Indian social media platforms like Koo, Sharechat, Chingari, Roposo, Bolo Indya and Mitron.
• MyGov has adopted multiple engagement methodologies like discussions, tasks, polls, surveys, blogs, talks, pledges, quizzes and on-ground activities by innovatively using internet, mobile apps, IVRS, SMS and outbound dialling (OBD) technologies.
• MyGov has also launched State instances in 14 States, namely HImachal Pradesh, Haryana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Tripura, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Nagaland, Uttarakhand, Goa and Tamil Nadu.
• MyGov is part of Digital India Corporation, a Section 8 company under Ministry of Electronics and IT, Government of India.
• MyGov has had significant success in terms of engaging with citizens.
• Logos and Tagline of key National Projects have been crowdsourced through MyGov.
• Few Notable crowdsourced initiatives are Logo for Swachh Bharat, Logo for National Education Policy, Logo for Digital India Campaign, etc.
• MyGov has time and again solicited inputs of draft policies from citizens few of those are National Education Policy, Data Centre Policy, Data Protection Policy, National Ports Policy, IIM Bill etc. MyGov have also been frequently soliciting ideas for Mann Ki Baat, Annual Budget, Pariksha Pe Charcha and many more such initiatives.
• To disseminate authentic, easy to understand and consistent information relating to COVID19, MyGov has been supporting MoHFW for communications on social media.
• With an objective to drive behavioural change, fighting fake news and busting myths, MyGov created a dedicated portal for COVID related information dissemination –  https://www.mygov.in/covid-19.
• MyGov has also built a Chatbot on WhatsApp to disseminate information about Covid19 and Vaccination through a Helpdesk number 9013151515.

ETHANOL BLENDED PETROL(EBP) PROGRAMME

Focus: GS III-Environment

Why in News?

Government promoting use of ethanol produced from sugarcane and food grains under EBP Programme.

About Ethanol Blending Programme (EBP)

• It aims at blending ethanol with petrol, thereby bringing it under the category of biofuels and saving millions of dollars by cutting fuel imports.
• Under EBP program, availability of ethanol will increase due to the higher price for C heavy molasses based ethanol and enabling procurement of ethanol from B heavy molasses and sugarcane juice for the first time.

National Policy on Bio-fuels

• The National Policy on Bio- fuels 2018 has empowered the National Bio-fuel Coordination Committee (NBCC) to allow conversion of surplus quantities of food-grains for production of ethanol during an agriculture crop year when there is projected oversupply of food-grains.
• The objective of the Bio- fuel policy is to achieve 20% ethanol-blending and 5% biodiesel-blending by the year 2030. The policy also expands the scope of feedstock for ethanol production and has provided for incentives for production of advanced bio-fuels.

EXERCISE CUTLASS EXPRESS 2021

Focus: GS III- Defence

Why in News?

Indian Naval Ship Talwar is participating in Exercise Cutlass Express 2021, being conducted from 26 July 2021 to 06 August 2021 along the East Coast of Africa.

About the exercise:

• The exercise is an annual maritime exercise conducted to promote national and regional maritime security in East Africa and the Western Indian Ocean.
• The 2021 edition of the exercise involves participation of 12 Eastern African countries, US, UK, India and various international organisations like International Maritime Organisation (IMO), United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Interpol,  EurEuropean Union Naval Forc (EUNAVFOR), Critical Maritime Routes Indian Ocean (CRIMARIO) and EUCAP Somalia.
• Indian Navy is participating in the exercise in a ‘trainer role’.
•  The exercise focusses on East Africa’s coastal regions and is designed to assess and improve combined maritime law enforcement capacity, promote national and regional security and increase interoperability between the regional navies. 
• As part of the exercise, the Indian Navy, together with other partners, shall undertake training of contingents from various participating countries in various fields across the spectrum of maritime security operations.
• Information sharing and information flow between various partner countries with respect to maritime domain awareness is also a key focus of the exercise and participation of India’s Information Fusion Centre – Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR) would contribute in achieving the same.