India signs loan agreements with World Bank for assistance for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan III

The Indian Government and the World Bank on Thursday signed the Loan Agreement for World Bank (IDA) assistance of US$ 1006.20 million for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan III.

Nilaya Mitash, Joint Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs signed the Agreement on behalf of the Indian Government and Michael Haney, World Bank's Operation's Advisor in India signed it on behalf of the World Bank.

Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) is the largest ongoing Education for All (EFA) program in the world. It is the flagship programme for universalizing elementary education. The overall goals of the program include universal access and retention, reducing gender and social category gaps in elementary education and enhancement of learning levels of children.

On this occasion, Mitash said that the World Bank assistance to Sarva Siksha Abhiyaan-III will primarily focus on qualitative improvement in the learning process of the children. He said that the project will also focus on children with special needs. This will also steer smooth and effective implementation of the whole Sarva Siksha Abhiyan project.

He further added that the assistance from the World Bank will be in the form of Credit under IDA 16 at a concessional rate from the International Development Assistance (IDA)

The objective of this project with World Bank assistance of US$ 1006.20 million is to improve education outcomes of elementary school children in India. It will help in bringing qualitative improvements in the programme by leveraging the World Bank's global knowledge.

The project will directly benefit about 200 million children enrolled in elementary schools and 4.5 million teachers in the sector. The benefits of the project also include development of grade and subject specific learning indicators to measure children's progress in acquiring expected knowledge and skills at different grade level. It will also strengthen monitoring and evaluation for teachers' accountability.

The project is to be implemented in 3 years. Ministry of Human Resource Development is the implementing agency.