India: Elementary Education (Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan II)

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The Second Elementary Education Project (SSA II) for India development objective is to significantly increase the number of 6-14 year old children, especially from special focus groups, enrolled, regularly attending and completing elementary school and demonstrating basic learning levels. SSA II is the second phase of the Development Partners' (DPs) support to the Government's ongoing and evolving SSA program. SSA is a national Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS) of Government of India (GoI) running from 2001 to 2010. The project will finance State and District Annual Work Programs which support the above project development objective. The key thrust and categories of activities financed under SSA II include: (i) the quality enhancement framework has a clear focus on capacity building, with the following main pillars: ensuring basic provisioning to create enabling learning conditions for all children; capacity building and academic support to state and sub-state structures; and monitoring learning outcomes and research and evaluation of quality initiatives; and (ii) a combination of demand and supply side interventions are being financed to enable the hard-to-reach children to attend school. These include the establishment, construction and extension of primary and upper primary schools in districts where access is still an issue, and provision of teachers. Demand-side interventions include provision of free textbooks and financial subventions to private aided schools to encourage them to subsidize enrolment of students.