Interventions

Moving  towards  Universalisation  of  Secondary  Education  (USE)  after  achieving encouraging  progress  in  nation’s  efforts  to  universalise  elementary  education through Sarva Shiksh Abhiyan(SSA), the Ministry of Human Resource Development has launched a Scheme of Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) in March   2009   in   partnership   with   state   governments   and   other stakeholders and came out with RMSA framework to guide the states/UTs on the implementation of this scheme. RMSA is a holistic and convergent programme which addresses access, equity and quality goals targeting both secondary and higher secondary stages of school education with a clear time frame.

The Ministry of HRD, discussing with the World Bank and DFID on possible support for RMSA during the Preparation Mission held in New Delhi from 8 to 21 April, 2010 entrusted  NCERT  with  the  task  of  development  of  a  “Vision  and  multi-layer strategic guidelines for improvement of quality of secondary education” (letter is annexed as annexure I) in active consultation with State Governments to chart out  a  road  map  for  secondary  education  up to  2020  and  also  to  explore inclusion   of   quality   improvement   strategies,   activities   an   norms   into   RMSA planning process.

Following quality components embedding equity within  are essential

1.  Curriculum Reform
     Curriculum  reform  is  a  major  quality  aspect  of  secondary  education, which includes –

1. Revision   of   State   Syllabi   and   Textbooks   at   secondary   stage   in accordance with the NCF-2005.
2. Improving classroom processes and school management to implement the curricular and pedagogic shift for enhancing participation in learning process and providing success experience to all learners.
3. Assessment   and   Examination   in   consonance   with   the   emerging perspectives on Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation as well as examination reform at secondary stage

2.  Teacher Preparation

The quality issue related to teacher preparation is evolving a mechanism for continuous in-service professional development in States/UTs to cover a large no. teachers for continuous updating of content knowledge and of pedagogic concerns in view of improving school-classroom setting.

3.  Researches and Monitoring for Quality

Researches  play  a  very  important  role  for  providing  feedback  on  the quality  interventions,  which  have  gone  into  the  system  exploring  deeply the  intervention,  process  and  outcomes.  Many  a  times  findings  of  these researches also provide for policy inputs. Hence, researches and monitoring mechanism for quality are not only helpful in ensuring quality but also improving modalities for quality inputs as and when required

4.  Information and Communication Technology

Information   and   communication   technology   is   seen   integral   to   the Secondary  Education.  This  quality  component  is  infused  in  each  of  the quality initiatives such as Curriculum Reform, teacher preparation, research and monitoring.