About the STARS Programme

The STARS program builds on the long partnership between India and the World Bank for strengthening public school education and to support the country’s goal of providing ‘Education for All’. 

STARS will support India’s renewed focus on addressing the ‘learning outcome’ challenge and help students better prepare for the jobs of the future – through a series of reform initiatives. These include:

• Focusing more directly on the delivery of education services at the state, district and sub district levels by providing customized local-level solutions towards school improvement.
• Addressing demands from stakeholders, especially parents, for greater accountability and inclusion by producing better data to assess the quality of learning; giving special attention to students from vulnerable sections – with over 52 percent of children in the government-run schools in the six project states belonging to vulnerable sections, such as Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and minority communities; and delivering a curriculum that keeps pace with the rapidly evolving needs of the job market.
• Equipping teachers to manage this transformation by recognizing that teachers are central to achieving better learning outcomes. The program will support individualized, needs-based training for teachers that will give them an opportunity to have a say in shaping training programs and making them relevant to their teaching needs.
• Investing more in developing India’s human capital needs by strengthening foundational learning for children in classes 1 to 3 and preparing them with the cognitive, socio-behavioral and language skills to meet future labor market needs. 

Key focus areas:

The STARS project 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 part of the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan.

Positive Outcomes and Benefits:

• It is in line with the Sustainable Development Goal for education (SDG 4- Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all) and will help produce better data on learning levels by improving the National Achievement Survey (NAS).
• STARS will assist India in participation in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).

• India has successfully achieved gender parity in enrolment in primary education. However, for many children, secondary education is the stage when they leave school and enter the workforce. Under STARS, each state is expected to not only stabilize this downward trend but also improve the completion rate for secondary education.
• STARS will support the Government of India’s vision to provide greater flexibility to states for school education planning and budgeting. 
• This will help states’ implement evidence-based planning to factor in the needs of the most deprived, strengthen accountability at all levels, and thereby adopt a holistic approach to improve education outcomes.

Why in News?

The Union Cabinet has approved the STARS program partially funded by the World Bank to carry out a reform agenda in the governance of school education, and improve data and assessment systems at the national level, as well as teaching and learning outcomes in six States, especially for early childhood and vocational education.

References:

1. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1664361
2. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2020/06/24/new-world-bank-project-to-improve-quality-of-indias-education-system