Lok Sabha Question No. 2430 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2021-12-13
Subject: STARS and ASPIRE Initiatives
Ministry: Education
Asked by: Dr. T. Sumathy (a) Thamizhachi Thangapandian

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF SCHOOL EDUCATION & LITERACY

LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 2430 TO BE ANSWERED ON 13 TH  DECEMBER, 2021

## STARS and ASPIRE Initiatives .

2430. DR. T. SUMATHY (a) THAMIZHACHI THANGAPANDIAN:

Will the Minister of EDUCATION be pleased to state:

- (a) the status, timeline and framework for partnership with Asian Development Bank for roll out of the project Accelerating State Education Programme to Improve Results(ASPIRE) in 5 new States;
- (b) the process to be followed to select these States?
- (c) the details of non-State actors with whom meetings have taken place for implementing elements of the Strengthening Teaching Learning and Results for States Programme(STARS) and ASPIRE projects, along with the components thereof ; and

(d) whether there is a commitment to ensure all PPPs under the scheme likely to be solely permitted with non-profit entities and if so, the details thereof ?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION (SHRIMATI ANNPURNA DEVI)

- (a): The project of Accelerating State Education Programme  to Improve Results (ASPIRE) has been approved by Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC). The timeline for ASPIRE  is  from  2022-23  to  2026-27.  The  framework  for  the  project  is  available  at https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/project-documents/53386/53386-001-pam-en.pdf
- (b): The states of Assam, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, and Uttarakhand are covered under  ASPIRE  program.  The  five  States  were  selected  according  to  the  Ministry  of Education (MOE)'s Performance Grading Index 2017-2018, by considering a mix of States from different levels, population sizes, and geographic dispersion.
- (c)  &  (d):  The  STARS  Program  has  two  result  areas:  a  national  component  that  supports efforts  to  improve  overall  monitoring  and  measurement  activities  in  the  Indian  school education system and a state component with five sub-components. The national component

broadly aims at improving and tracking secondary school completion rates, fostering reforms in  governance and monitoring improvement in states' governance scores through the State Incentive Grants (SIGs) and strengthening learning assessment systems at the national level. The  state  component  encompasses  strengthening  of  Early  Childhood  Education  (ECE), improving  learning  assessment  systems,  improving  teacher  performance  and  classroom practice, strengthening the school-to-work/higher education transition, strengthening governance and decentralized management etc. The program has offered flexibility to the six states to choose from among the five sub-components depending on their state-level context and needs. Under the STARS Program it is up to the States to use any of the components to improve service delivery.

ASPIRE program is  aligned  with  the  National  Education  Policy  (NEP)  2020  to  assist  the states to transform a set of government schools into achieving essential learning resources, scale  up  effective  student-centred  interventions  to  boost  learning;  and  strengthen  the  core elements  of  state  education  for  overall  system  improvements.  The  program  also  aims  to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on students' learning and mainstream digital learning-teaching capabilities across the schools.

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