Students of classes X, XI and XII in government and government-aided schools will be entitled to an incentive after completion of schooling, Finance Minister O. Pannerselvam told the Assembly in the Budget speech for 2011-12 here on Thursday. The total outlay for School Education is Rs.13,334 crore.
While students of classes X and XI will receive Rs.1,500 each per year for completion, students of class XII will receive Rs.2000, he said. The amount would be invested in a fixed deposit scheme and given to students on their completion of schooling. The initiative, with a total outlay of Rs.394.04 crore, is expected to cover a total of 24,94,649 students every year and arrest the dropout rates at high and higher secondary school levels.
Senior sources in the department said this was, perhaps, the first time in the country that such an incentive has been announced. “If you give the incentive at lower classes, say primary level, there is still no guarantee that the children complete schooling. When you target students in the higher classes, this will motivate them to somehow complete class XII,” a senior official said.
Knowledge Park
An Integrated Knowledge Park will come up on the campus of the Directorate of Public Instruction here that houses all the Directorates under the purview of the department, with state-of-the-art buildings and facilities such as conference halls, training centres, counselling centres and an EDUSAT centre with a studio. The park will help children obtain knowledge beyond the textbooks. According to the senior official, the decision follows an analysis of the aerial view of the 16-acre DPI campus on College Road. A sum of Rs.498.24 crore has been set aside for school infrastructure and Rs.27.07 crore would go towards strengthening School Management Committees constituted under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.
A total of Rs.150 crore has been allocated for the implementation of the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan, a Central Government initiative that aims to improve quality of education at secondary level. The government will provide two sets of school uniforms to students in the year 2011-12 at a cost of Rs.59 crore and four sets in 2012-13 at a cost of Rs.177 crore. Boys from class VI upward will receive full pants instead of half pants, and girls will receive salwar-kameez instead of half-saris. All students of government and government-aided schools will receive a free pair of footwear each.
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