Samagra Shiksha : The vehicle for NEP 2020

Prabhat Kishore
Contd from previous issue
Also KGBVs will be equipped with ICT & SMART classes and will be enriched with library books through Library Grant. Activities will be planned to improve access, enrolment, retention and learning outcomes of all disadvantaged groups and vulnerable children including girls, transgender, SC, ST, minorities, migratory and urban deprived children. States will adopt & notify guidelines for fixing accountability of school management with regard to the safety of children in schools. A comprehensive action plan is to be chalk out for identification of children with special needs (CWSN), training of teachers, availability of special educators, infrastructure creation  and ICT inclusive programmes.
To expedite the vocational education, construction of workshop/laboratory-cum-classroom, training module for courses of entrepreneurship soft skill etc. is to be done in upper primary schools. All upper primary, secondary and senior secondary school will be covered with ICT and digital initiatives in a time bound manner. Social  Audit to cover 20% of schools per year is mandatory to monitor the implementation of  schemes and ensuring transparency & accountability. Special emphasis is to be given to Aspirational Districts, Special Focus Districts (SFD), Left Wing Extremism (LWE) districts, Educationally Backward Blocks (EBB), SC/ST/Minority concentration districts.  
For all Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS), the financial management system has been changed and a Single Nodal Agency (SNA) has been designated for each CSS for each state. The bank account of each SNA is to be opened and mapped in PFMS.
Samagra Shiksha will act as vehicle for carrying out the recommendations of National Education Policy 2020. Proper planning and implementation of interventions of Samagra Shiksha would help in achieving the objectives of providing quality education for all, in a time bound manner and remove the bottle necks currently available in the education sector. It will prove to be an efficacious weapon in transforming the Nation as “Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat”.
(The author is a technocrat & academician. He holds Master in Engineering from M.N. Regional Engineering College, Allahabad/Prayagraj)