The Cabinet’s approval to PM SHRI schools presents a rare opportunity for the country to take a quantum leap in education
The National Education Policy 2020 recognises schools as places for intellectual development and character building. Preparing students to become responsible citizens and active participants in community development is the original mandate of the policy. The policy envisages a focus on more than academics, fostering whole-child development.
Para 4.43 of the policy elaborates that fostering student agency must begin with self-regulated learning, self-assessment, peer-tutoring, and peer-to-peer assessment. It will help students care more about communicating with each other and the teacher to reflect on their learning and pursue collaboration goals.
Early internship possibilities, job shadowing, building cultural competencies, the spirit of volunteering, micro-credentials in life skills and school-college partnership will take the students on a lifelong learning trajectory.
A policy of the scale of NEP 2020 requires enabling legislation, curriculum framework, inter-ministerial dialogue, and preparing the ground for implementation at multiple levels. The policy is riding its course with the Prime Minister leading from the front, initiating discussions, addressing the nation, theme-based task allocation, and participative implementation strategy. The nation’s response is affirmative, and the academia is euphoric —signalling two significant indicators that the buy-in for the change is working.
Once the policy is in place, visualised outcomes recognised, and infrastructural requirements identified, we need strong institutions to foster learning and culture. In the budget speech 2021-22, the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced more than 15000 schools will be qualitatively strengthened to include all components of the National Education Policy.
These schools, she added, will emerge as PM SHRI schools in their regions, hand-holding and monitoring other schools to achieve the ideals of the Policy. Consequently, the Union Cabinet has recently approved the launch of a new centrally sponsored scheme for setting up PM SHRI schools (PM schools for Rising India). These schools will influence, inspire, and impact other schools, receive performance-based budgetary allocation and adhere to standard benchmarks.
Of the total project cost of `27360 Cr spread over five years, the significant contribution of `18128 Cr will come from the centre, and the States and UTs will raise the remaining `9232 Cr. UDISE+ code having schools managed by the Centre/State/UT Governments/Local self-governments would be considered for selection under the scheme. Selection of PM SHRI schools will be made through Challenge Mode, where schools compete to become exemplary schools succeeding through a rigorous three-stage process.
The selected schools will undergo intervention, support, and quality assessment from 2022-23 to 2026-27. The entire process will be driven by an Online Challenge Portal, open once every quarter for the first two years. The policy stipulates that a maximum of two schools, one elementary and one secondary/senior secondary, would be selected per block.
The Bhaskaracharya National Institute for Space Applications and Geo-Informatics (BISAG-N) will service the scheme in geo-tagging and other related tasks. The big question is how PM schools for rising India will differentiate themselves from the rest. The government has an ambitious target for whole-Child education through motivation to learn and succeed, while promoting the relevance of the learning experience for future lives and careers, and instilling a sense of belonging in the school environment, besides adopting a broader approach to knowledge and skill acquisition.
Furthermore, embedding technology must enable personalised and mastery-based learning. Tracking of data, educational outcomes and timely interventions can be done more frequently with the intervention of EdTech, resulting in course correction, remediation, and prompt guidance to each student.
PM SHRI schools will manage teacher talent through a structured approach, involving teachers in decision-making and policy implementation. Treating teachers as valuable assets, intentional investment in their capacity building, career management and promotion will be hallmarks of these schools.
PM SHRI schools will endeavour to invite parents as partners in learning. Their resources, energy and local network can be leveraged to benefit learners. There is also the need for shifts in interactive, participative, experiential pedagogy and empowering learners to change their behaviour and act for sustainable development goals.
(The author is a Delhi-based educationist)
