SARTHAQ

Ministry of Education

Context:

Recently, the education minister released an indicative and suggestive implementation plan for school education called SARTHAQ

On April 8, 2021, Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank launched a National Education Policy (NEP) Implementation Plan for School Education called ‘Students’ and Teachers’ Holistic Advancement through Quality Education (SARTHAQ)’. It will help in achieving goals & objectives of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.

• SARTHAQ has been developed by the Department of School Education & Literacy, Ministry of Education.
• It has been released as part of celebrations leading to ‘Amrit Mahotsav’ on 75 years of Indian Independence.
• It is the Plan of Action of NEP 2020 and outlines an implementation plan for the next 10 years.
• Ramesh Pokhriyal also chaired a high level meeting on implementation of NEP 2020 in New Delhi.

Key Points of SARTHAQ

• It has been developed after a wide & intensive consultative process with states & UTs.
• A Teacher’s fest ‘Shikshak Parv’ was organized in September, 2020 for discussing recommendations of NEP 2020.
• SARTHAQ will focus on outlining goals, outcomes & timeframe i.e links recommendations of NEP with 297 Tasks along with responsible agencies, timelines and 304 outputs of these Tasks.
• It will be updated time to time based on inputs/feedback received from the stakeholders.

Expected outcomes

The implementation of SARTHAQ is expected to bring many changes in the entire education system, they are

• Development of New National & State Curriculum Frameworks for School Education, Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE), Teacher Education and Adult Education, which will help in curriculum reforms.
• Increase in Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER), Net Enrolment Ratio (NER), transition rate and retention rate at all levels. Reduction in drop outs & out of school children.
• Improvement in quality of Teacher Education Programme & infrastructure facilities of Schools.
• Uniform standards in learning outcomes and governance across public and private schools.
• Integration technology for educational planning and governance & availability of ICT (Information & Communication Technology) across schools.