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May 16, 2008
World Bank
Provides $600 Million
for India's Elementary Education Plan
By Arun Kumar
Washington
The World Bank has approved a $600 million credit to support to
India's Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), a nationwide centrally
sponsored programme designed to provide education to all children
aged 6 to 14.
The credit to finance the Second Elementary Education Project (SSA
II) approved Thursday will be provided by the International
Development Association (IDA), the World Bank's concessionary
lending arm and has 35 years to maturity and a 10-year grace period.
Total cost of the SSA II is estimated at $10.7 billion, of which the
states of India will contribute close to 36.9 percent, the
Government of India will contribute around 53.7 percent and
development partners 9.4 percent.
"The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan programme has served as a powerful
vehicle to mobilise stakeholders at all community, district, state,
and national levels around the objective of ensuring that every
child from 6 to 14 years is included in the education system," said
Isabel Guerrero, World Bank Country Director for India.
"The challenge now is to include those hardest to reach and to
ensure that children get the quality education which is a critical
foundation for both higher levels of education and creating the
skills needed to have a significant impact on economic development."
The project is the second phase of support by the development
partners to the government's ongoing and evolving SSA programme.
With more and more children now entering school, the focus in this
next phase is on quality with equity. In addition to capacity
building and monitoring, the project will also support plans to
enable the hard-to-reach children to attend school.
In areas where access to education remains low, it will support
provision of teachers and construction of primary and upper primary
schools. It will also support provision of free textbooks and grants
to private aided schools to encourage them to subsidize enrolment of
students.
"The first phase of development partners' support to the programme
saw a rapid expansion of primary school facilities across the
country, especially in remote and socially disadvantaged areas,"
said co-team leaders Amit Dar, World Bank Lead Education Economist,
and Venita Kaul, World Bank Senior Education Specialist.
"SSA II focuses on moving towards the achievement of quality goals
and improved learning outcomes. Achieving these goals will play a
big role in moving towards the achievement of the education
Millennium Development Goals on a global scale."
The SSA II aims to improve quality and access to this critical
social service. The project also aims to promote equity by enabling
hard-to-reach children to attend school.
It will create better learning conditions for all children and
provide capacity building and academic support to state and
sub-state education structures. In the area of oversight, the
project will help monitor learning outcomes and support research and
evaluation of quality initiatives.
India has made strong progress in enhancing access to education. In
2002, India made elementary education a fundamental right of every
child through its 86th constitutional amendment.
Between 2003 and 2005, the number of out-of-school children was
reduced from 25 million to about 13.4 million. The transition rates
from primary to upper primary also improved, from 75 percent in 2002
to 83 percent in 2006.
There has been a significant reduction in gender gaps. Access for
children from marginalized groups, minorities, extremely poor
households, and educationally and economically lagging states has
increased, the World Bank noted.
May 16, 2008
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