Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1697801838832.pdf (India)
Research Note on Parliament as a platform to promote Education for Peace, Security and the Rule of Law Research and Information Division Lok Sabha Secretariat ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Note is only for the use of Members of Parliament.

It is largely based on published sources and is intended to serve as a background aid.

It is not for publication or reproduction in any form.
2 Introduction: ‘Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world’.

In other words, education is fundamental to development of the individual and society.

It is through education than an informed society and an enlightened community can be created to make the world a better place.

It is the most important tool that helps develop human capability.

In today's globalised world, a country’s overall development is governed by a sound education system.
Education contributes to overall economic growth, improved health, gender equality and strengthened social cohesion, as well as mitigating inequity and reducing poverty.

Quality based education would empower youth for self sustainability.

The literacy rate in India is about 74.04 percent as per the 2011 Census.

However, the percentage of children who do not attend school is quite high, especially in rural areas.
➢ Education is a fundamental right that empowers people and ensures that they are able to lead a productive life in a globalising world.

The Government of India amended the Constitution to include the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act 2009.

It acknowledges that every child has a right to full time elementary education of satisfactory and equitable quality in a formal school.
➢ The Central and State Governments have various schemes and programmes to ensure that children from vulnerable sections of society enroll in and attend mainstream school systems.

Two schemes, namely Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the Mid-day Meal scheme have had a huge impact and success in the country in improving enrollment and retention of students at the primary level.
The Midday Meal Scheme is aimed at increasing enrollment in primary schools as well as improving the 3 nutritional status of primary school children.

Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, on the other hand, aims to universalise elementary education across the country.1 ➢ All States/UTs are yet to achieve the target of 100 percent enrollment.

Among States, Tripura has the highest enrollment ratio of 94.72 percent, while Delhi leads the UTs with an enrollment ratio of 92.95 percent.
➢ 2.97 percent of children in the age of group of 6-13 years are out of school in India.

Seventeen States/UTs have achieved the national target of reducing this rate to two percent.

Himachal Pradesh and Puducherry perform the best among States and UTs respectively in this context.

➢ 54.69 percent of responses on Learning Outcomes in Language, Mathematics and Environmental Sciences (EVS) were attempted correctly by Class 5 students across the country.
This percentage stood at 44.58 percent for Class 8 students when assessed on Learning Outcomes in Language, Mathematics, Science and Social Science.

➢ 17.06 percent of school-students dropout at secondary level against the 2030 target of reducing this rate to below 10 percent.

Three States – Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Tamil Nadu, and two UTs – Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Lakshadweep Islands have already achieved the 2030 target of reducing the dropout rate to 10 percent or less.
• 70.43 percent of elementary and secondary schools in India have achieved a Pupil Teacher Ration of less than or equal to 30.

The 2030 national target is to have all schools providing at least one teacher for 30 students.

UT of Lakshadweep Islands has already achieved this target.

• The Government of India has initiated major reforms in the education sector to improve the quality and access to education.
Aimed at expanding access to quality education, new premier higher education institutions have been opened across the country, marking the highest ever such expansion in the history after Independence.2 1 NITI Aayog, SDG India Index, Baseline Report, 2018 2 Written reply by the Minister of State (HRD), Dr. Satya Pal Singh in Lok Sabha, 2 April 2018 4 • SWAYAM MOOC portal (Study Webs of Active learning for Young Aspiring Minds) (Massive Open Online Course) is an indigenous MOOCs portal that provides high quality education - anyone, anytime, anywhere at no cost-has been made operational.
The portal has courses by the best teachers in the country and offers video lectures, e-reading material, and discussion forums and assessment system - resulting in award of credits to the successful learners.

So far, more than 1000 courses have been made available and more than 33 lakh users are registered in this forum.

Up to 20 % credit transfer into the academic record of students is allowed now, for the courses taken on the SWAYAM portal.
• To reach high quality educational content to the most backward areas using satellite communication, 32 DTH channels have been made functional, under SWAYAM Prabha Programme.

These channels air 4 hours of new content every day.

• The initiative of National Digital Library (NDL) is a virtual repository of learning resources with a single window search facility.

It has already brought together 15 million digital books and journals and 31 lakh learners are using this facility.
It supports all academic levels including researchers and life-long learners, all disciplines, all popular form of access devices including differently-abled learners.
Unnat Bharat Abhiyan is a new initiative to make use of the knowledge base in the higher educational institutions for plugging technology gaps in the rural areas in which, 750 institutions were selected to enrich rural India by way of customising existing technology as per local needs and also by improving the implementation of existing government schemes.
• Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya National Mission on Teachers and Teaching (PMMMNMTT) scheme was launched in 2014 to address the 5 issues of supply of qualified teachers, attracting talent into teaching profession and raising the quality teaching in schools and colleges.
• Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat programme promotes mutual understanding between States & Union Territories (UTs) in India which have diverse cultures, traditions, languages etc., through a process of sustained mutual engagement between the people.

All States and UTs are paired with one another for a period of one year on a rotational basis.
The objective is to break the inhibitions arising from diversity in culture through participative appreciation and engagement by people, so that a spirit of oneness is created in the process for the nation building exercise.
• Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN) is an initiative launched on 30th November 2015 to garner best international knowledge and experience into the country’s higher education so as to enable Indian students and faculty to interact with the best academic and industry experts from across the world.

GIAN courses are short duration courses and as on date, 1075 courses have been conducted, in which more than 40,000 students gained enriched academic inputs and knowledge.
These courses are also video recorded for subsequent use and some are also telecast live.

• The Government has embarked on building 20 Institutions of higher learning, 10 public and 10 private institutions as “Institutions of Eminence” (IoE), so that they are rated among the global best institutions.

These institutions will have complete academic and administrative freedom and the public institutions will be given 1000 crore fund in the next 3 years.
• The best performing Institutions with high accreditation would be given autonomy in functioning.

The Graded Autonomy Regulation introduced recently would provide liberal regulatory oversight so that the institution can plan for new courses and would strive for excellence.

6 • IMPRINT India is an effort to direct research in the premier institutions into areas of social relevance.

10 such domains have been identified which could substantially impact the living standards of the rural areas.
More than 2600 research proposals have been submitted by scientists in these areas.

• The Uchchtar Avishkar Yojana has been launched to promote industry specific need-based research to keep up the competitiveness of Indian industry in the global market.

It is proposed to invest Rs.

250 crore annually on identified projects.

The Industry’s contribution would be 25 %.


• Prime Minister Research Fellows (PMRF) scheme is launched to support 1000 bright undergraduate students annually, for admission in the research programmes in reputed institutions like the IITs and the IISc.

The fellowship ranges from Rs 70,000 to 80,000 per month for 5 year period.

• Smart India Hackathon initiative is to promote innovation among students by encouraging out of the box solutions for common problems faced by society at large.
In the first edition held in 2017, more than 40,000 students have participated to solve more than 600 problems.

In 2018, the scope has been expanded to Hardware area also.

• National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) is the biggest ranking exercise launched in 2015, in which more than 3,500 institutions participated.

The first edition of India Rankings 2016 was released in April, 2016.
The India Rankings is one of the biggest efforts for bringing in accountability and transparency in institutions of higher education.

The ranks are released in various categories of institutions namely Universities, Engineering colleges, Management institutions, Pharmacy, etc.

• Higher Education Financing Agency (HEFA) has been approved by the Union Cabinet for the creation of a fund with government equity of 7 Rs.

1000 crores, to give a big push for building up robust higher education.
The HEFA would finance academic and research infrastructure projects through a 10 year loan.

It is expected to spend one lakh crore in the next 5 years for creating high quality infrastructure in premier educational institutions.
• Rashtriya Uchchatar Siksha Abhiyan scheme has been given extension by the Union Cabinet recently to provide infrastructural assistance for Universities and Colleges, creation of Model Degree colleges, Cluster universities, Upgradation of autonomous colleges and vocationalisation of higher education.

• Under the Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme Phase III (TEQUIP-III) Rs.

2,600 crore is to be spent for improving the quality of teaching and research in engineering institutions.
The Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Act declared IIMs as Institutes of national importance and provided complete autonomy for deciding their administrative and academic matters.

• In accordance with the policy that education should be accessible for everyone, the National Scholarship Portal has been started.

Apart from this, the Vidyalaxmi portal provides one-window clearance for Educational Loans with Interest Subvention.
SCHOOL EDUCATION • In order to focus on quality education, the Central RTE Rules have been amended on 20th February, 2017 to include reference on class-wise, subject-wise Learning Outcomes.
The Learning Outcomes for each class in Languages (Hindi, English and Urdu), Mathematics, Environmental Studies, Science and Social Science up to the elementary stage have been 8 finalized and shared with all States and Union Territories to serve as a guideline to ensure that all children acquire appropriate learning levels.
• National Achievement Survey (NAS) was conducted on 13th November, 2017 through which the learning levels of around 22 lakh students of Classes III, V and VIII from 1.10 lakh schools across 700 districts in all States and UTs were assessed.

This competency based assessment was based on the Learning Outcomes developed by the The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT).
• Through NAS, teachers have a tool to understand what the child should be learning in various classes, how to teach this through activities and how to measure and ensure that children have reached the required level.

NAS for class X was conducted on 5th February, 2018 in a sample of around 15.5 lakh students in 45,337 schools.

The performance of students was assessed in five major subjects i.e.
English, Mathematics, Science, Social Science and Modern Indian Languages (MIL), based on a district wise sampling of schools, to enable States to identify gaps in learning at district level and design strategies to address these gaps.

• The Right to Education Act, 2009 was amended in 2017 to ensure that teachers acquire minimum qualifications prescribed under the Act by 31st March 2019 to reinforce the Government's emphasis on improved quality of primary schools.
The National Institute of Open Schooling has been entrusted to conduct this training through Open Distance Learning mode.

• The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (Second Amendment) Bill, 2017 was introduced in the Lok Sabha on 11th August, 2017 to provide for a regular examination at fifth class and eighth classes at the end of every academic year.
If a child fails in the said examination, he shall be given additional instruction and granted opportunity for re- 9 examination within a period of two months from the declaration of the result.

In case the child fails in the second attempt, the Government may allow schools to hold back a child in the fifth class or in the eighth class or in both classes, in such manner and subject to such conditions as may be prescribed.
The appropriate Government may also decide not to hold back a child in any class till the completion of elementary education.

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has decided to make class X Board Examination compulsory from the academic year 2017-18.

• A four year Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.)

integrated programme with multiple pathways and specialization for pre-primary, elementary, secondary and senior secondary teachers will be introduced from the academic session 2019-20.
• In pursuance of the proposal of the Union Budget, 2018-19, to treat school education holistically without segmentation from pre-nursery to Class 12, an Integrated Scheme for School Education has been formed by subsuming the three Centrally Sponsored Schemes of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan and Teacher Education (TE) extending Central support across all levels of school education.
The National Council of Educational Research and Training is undertaking an exercise to rationalize the curriculum/syllabus/subject contents from Class I to XII with the objective of all round development of students.

• Operation Digital Board is a joint effort of the Centre, States, Corporate Social Responsibility and community initiatives to provide quality education by effective use of technology and telecom services and convert every classroom in the country (from class IX) into a digital classroom.
• Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) was launched by the Government of India in March, 2009 envisaging inter-alia provision of a 10 secondary school within a reasonable distance of any habitation and to improve the quality of education imparted at secondary level by making all secondary schools conform to prescribed norms, removing gender, socio- economic and disability barriers etc.

Under the scheme, 12682 new schools and 37799 existing schools for strengthening have been sanctioned so far.
• e-pathshala has been developed by the NCERT for showcasing and disseminating all educational e-resources including textbooks, audio, video, periodicals and a variety of other print and non-print materials.

So far, 3,062 audios and videos, 650 e-books (e-pubs) and 504 flip books have been made available on the portal and mobile app.