Parliament Question: Funds under Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF SCHOOL EDUCATION AND LITERACY LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO-2411 ANSWERED ON – 15/12/2025 Funds under Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan 2411. Dr. Prabha Mallikarjun: Will the Minister of EDUCATION be pleased to state: (a) whether the Government has assessed the widening learning gap between students of Government and private schools post COVID pandemic in the country under the National Education Policy (NEP 2020); (b) if so, the details of the findings thereof, State/UT-wise; (c) whether the funds under the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan have been allocated to bridge digital and infrastructure disparities in the country, if so, the details thereof; and (d) the details of corrective steps being taken by the Government to ensure equitable access to quality education in rural and urban areas of the country? ANSWER MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION (SHRI JAYANT CHAUDHARY) (a) & (b) Education is part of the Concurrent List of the Constitution and most of the Government schools and School Boards are under the administration of the State Government and its bodies. The Ministry of Education (MoE) announced the National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020) on 29.07.2020 as the first education policy of the 21st century that aims to address the many growing developmental imperatives of our country. The Government of India undertakes large-scale assessments to measure learning outcomes in schools across the country from time to time. The latest such assessment namely the PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan (earlier known as National Achievement Survey) was conducted on 4th December, 2024, to understand the baseline performance under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 in development of competencies among students at the end of the Foundational, Preparatory and Middle Stages (assessed in Grades 3, 6 and 9, respectively) of schooling. Nationwide, over 21.15 lakh students from more than 74,000 schools, including government and private schools, across all States/UTs of India participated in the assessment. National, State and District level reports from PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan 2024 containing key insights for various School management types (Government, Government aided and Private) are available at https://dashboard.parakh.ncert.gov.in/en, a dedicated dashboard designed to disseminate the findings of the assessment.Findings from the PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan 2024 reveal that State Government schools outperform private schools at the foundational stage, while Central Government schools achieved the highest scores among all school management types, including private, at the preparatory and middle stages. (c) & (d) The Government of India is implementing Samagra Shiksha-an integrated Scheme for school education from 2018-19, an overarching programme for the school education sector extending from pre-school to class XII with an aim to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education across the country including rural areas. Samagra Shiksha has been aligned with NEP 2020 and focuses on improvement in access, infrastructure and quality of education throughout the country. The major features of the scheme are: • Universalising access to quality education by provision for new/ upgradation of schools from pre-primary to senior secondary level and strengthening of existing schools including provision of barrier free access for Divyang children. • Support for mainstreaming of out of school children extended from elementary level to children in the age group of 16-19 years through open schooling. • Provision of upgradation of Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas (KGBVs) to provide residential and schooling facilities upto Class-XII. • Provision of free textbooks to all children and free uniforms to all girls, SC, ST and BPL boys at elementary level including primers/textbooks for tribal languages with bridging materials. • Transport facility extended to secondary level @ upto ₹ 6000 per annum, for children in difficult sparsely populated areas. • Residential schools/hostels named Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Avasiya Vidyalayas in hilly terrain, small and sparsely populated areas for children without adult protection who are in need of shelter and care. • Provision of upto ₹ 500 per child per annum for Teaching Learning Materials, indigenous toys and games, play based activities for pre-primary sections in Government Schools. • Support for NIPUN Bharat Mission on Foundational Literacy and Numeracy through provision of TLM upto ₹ 500 per child per annum, ₹150 per teacher for teacher manuals and resources, ₹ 10-20 lakh per district for assessment, Teacher training on FLN. • Provision for qualitative and innovative interventions such as Holistic Progress Card (HPC), sports grant, library grant, composite school grant, teacher training, strengthening of TEIs, assessment cell, Bagless days, school complexes, internships with local artisans, curriculum and pedagogical reforms etc. • Self-Defence training for girls under ‘Rani Laxmibai Atma Raksha Prashikshan’.• Provision of upto ₹ 3500 per child with special needs, per year, studying in government, government aided and local body schools for aids and appliances, teaching material, home based education etc. • Separate provision of stipend for CWSN girls @ ₹ 200 per month for 10 months, in addition to student component from pre-primary to senior secondary level. • Annual identification camps for CWSN at block level @₹ 10000 per camp and equipping of Block Resource centres for rehabilitation and special training of CWSN, and training of special educators & Block Resource Persons. • Academic support of BRCs and CRCs extended for pre-primary and secondary level. • Enhanced emphasis on convergence with Skills and other Government • Departments/agencies undertaking development works for providing exposure and internships to children on different vocations. • Support under Skill Education extended to Government aided schools also in addition to Government Schools and grant/number of job roles/sections linked to enrolment and demand. • Provision of ICT labs, Smart classrooms including support for digital boards, virtual classrooms and DTH channels. • Child tracking for tracking the learning level of children for students of Government and Government aided schools. • Support States & UTs for implementation of provisions of RTE Act including reimbursement under Section 12(1) (c) of the Act. Further, a comprehensive initiative called PM eVidya was initiated as part of ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan’ on 17th May, 2020, which unifies all efforts related to digital/online/on-air education to enable multi-mode access to education across the country under the aegis of National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. States/Union Territories (UTs) collaborate with NCERT to utilise, monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of these initiatives as per their requirements in mother tongue/local/regional languages. PM eVidya includes 200 DTH TV Channels allotted to States/UTs/Autonomous Bodies (ABs)/Other Ministries in Government of India and 400 Radio channels to enable them to provide supplementary education as per their requirement in various Indian languages for classes 1-12. Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing (DIKSHA) is the Nation’s One Nation, One Digital platform for providing quality e-content for school education in States/UTs along with QR coded Energised Textbooks (ETBs) for all grades. As a participant in DIKSHA, States/UTs/ABs have generated and contributed over 3.7 lakh content in mother local/regional languages enabling multilingualism. Overall, 565.28 crore learning sessions have been completed on DIKSHA by students, teachers and other stakeholders. DIKSHA Offline supports areas with limited or no internet connectivity. The stakeholders have access to more than 450 Virtual Labs and 100 Virtual skill labs (50 each in Hindi and English) on DIKSHA.Additionally, the Government of India, in the Budget 2025, has announced provision of broadband connectivity to all Government Secondary schools in rural areas, under the ‘BharatNet’ project to enhance digital infrastructure in remote areas by BSNL in a phased manner. An amount of ₹ 44493.94 crore, ₹ 45647.55 crore and ₹ 47475.67 crore has been approved as central share to all States/UTs by the Project Approval Board of Samagra Shiksha during FYs 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25, respectively. *****