5. Quality Education for Weaker Section and Disadvantaged Groups

Categories
Yojana/Kurukshetra
Published
26th Mar, 2020

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, entitles every child of age 6 to 14 years to a right to free and compulsory education in a neighbourhood school till completion of elementary education.
Section 12(1)(c) of RTE Act provides that all specified category schools and unaided schools shall admit at least 25% children belonging to weaker section.
Samagra Siksha, an overarching programme for school education sector extending from preschool to class XII, aims to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education at all levels.
It envisages the ‘school’ as a continuum from pre-school, primary, upper primary, secondary to senior secondary levels.
The ‘Padhe Bharat Badhe Bharat’ is a sub-programme of erstwhile Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) which is continued under the new integrated scheme Samagra Siksha to ensure quality at the foundational years of schooling.
It promotes early writing and reading comprehension skills in children along with basic numeracy skills.
These include adoption of NCERT model of early reading material and development of state specific models for early Maths and early reading.
The objectives of the programme are to promote early reading and writing with comprehension skills in children, and also basic numeracy skills.
The Navodaya Vidyalaya Scheme provides for opening of one JNV in each district of the country to bring out the best rural talent.
Its significance lies in the selection of talented rural children as the target group and aim to provide them quality education comparable to the best in a residential school system.
The Draft National Education Policy 2019 is presently under consideration. The revision of curriculum, syllabi and textbooks for school education would depend on the finalization and approval of the New Education Policy.