STARS Programme | World Bank Project | UPSC
HEADLINES:
Cabinet approval for school education reform project
WHY IN NEWS:
The STARS programme is partly funded by the World Bank
SYLLABUS COVERED: GS 3: Scheme : Education
ISSUE:
STARS PROGRAMME
MAJOR COMPONENTS
- Included in the National Education Policy 2020, this autonomous institution under the Union Education Ministry will set norms for student assessment.
- To strengthen MOE’s national data systems to capture robust and authentic data on retention, transition and completion rates of students.
- To support MOE in improving states PGI scores by incentivizing states governance reform agenda through SIG (State Incentive Grants).
AT THE STATE LEVEL
- Strengthening Early Childhood Education and Foundational Learning
- Improving Learning Assessment Systems
- Strengthening classroom instruction and remediation through teacher development and school leadership
- Governance and Decentralized Management for Improved Service Delivery.
- Strengthening Vocational education in schools through mainstreaming, career guidance and counselling, internships and coverage of out of school children
OBJECTIVES
- FUNDING SCIENCE PROJECTS : To fund science projects which are translational, i.e. which have direct implications for the progress of the country, through a competitive process in an open and transparent manner.
- RESEARCH ENVIRONMENT : Basic thrust would be to take stock of an existing problem and work backwards towards conducting research for a solution.
- TRANSLATIONAL APPROACH : Promoting an inter-disciplinary & translational approach in research for synergy, de-duplication and greater comprehensiveness & relevance of research activity.
OUTLAY
- The Strengthening Teaching-Learning and Results for States (STARS) project will have a total project cost of ₹5,718 crore.
- The World Bank’s support amounting to about ₹3,700 crore ($500 million).
FOCUS AREAS
- Physical Sciences
- Chemical Sciences
- Biological Sciences
- Nanosciences
- Data Science and Mathematics
- Earth Sciences
ELIGIBILITY
- Permanent faculty members from Higher Educational institutions
- Non-MHRD funded Institutions with NIRF ranking within 100 (overall category) or NAAC 3.26 and above (colleges or universities).
- Private Institutions from MHRD funded research institutions will not be eligible.
IASbhai WINDUP:
- STARS program supports projects that further its mission of promoting translational, India- centric research in six basic thrust areas.
- The main idea is to identify a societally relevant problem and identify the scientific question that needs to be addressed.
SOURCES:THE HINDU & PIB | STARS Programme | World Bank Project | UPSC

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