Three education schemes merged under new name

PANAJI: Following a decision by the Union human resource development (HRD) ministry, three of the central government’s programmes— Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) and Scheme of Restructuring and Reorganisation of Teacher Education (STE)—will be merged in Goa as well. The merged body will be known as Goa Samagraha Shiksha Abhiyan, said Nagaraj Honnekeri, who has been appointed the project director of this body.

Schemes under the three centrally-sponsored programmes will now be implemented by this body from the academic year 2018-19 onwards.

While SSA promoted improvement of quality of education and infrastructure from Class I to VIII, RMSA served the same purpose for Class IX to XII. But now Samagraha Shiksha Abhiyan will cover from class I to XII, taking the higher secondary classes also in its fold.

Last week, in a meeting in New Delhi, HRD officials reviewed the implementation of the centrally-sponsored education programmes in Goa, where the state was informed about the merging of the three programmes. Honnekeri said that this merger is expected to improve synergy between those involved in implementation of the programmes. 

Though the merger will reduce the cost, the main idea is to better manage the two schemes and avoid repetition of efforts.

The budget of SSA, RMSA and STE will be merged and the Centre will provide funds on 60:40 sharing basis to most states.

The SSA has achieved its expected major goals and is currently on extension.

The Centre thinks a sudden rollback would affect school education across the country and is slowly reducing fund allocation to the scheme.