PIB Summary- 8th April, 2021 | PIB (Press Information Bureau) Summary - UPSC PDF Download

‘Students’ and Teachers’ Holistic Advancement through Quality Education (SARTHAQ)’

Context: The Department of School Education and Literacy unveiled an implementation plan for school education called SARTHAQ in pursuance of the goals and objectives of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.

About SARTHAQ

• SARTHAQ has been developed through wide and intensive consultative process with States and UTs, autonomous bodies and suggestions received from all stakeholders.
• The major focus of SARTHAQ is to define activities in such a manner that they clearly delineate goals, outcomes and timeframe i.e., it links recommendations of NEP with 297 Tasks along with responsible agencies, timelines and 304 outputs of these Tasks.
• SARTHAQ is a working document and is broadly indicative in nature and will be updated from time to time based on inputs/feedback from all stakeholders.
• States and UTs are given the flexibility to adopt this plan with local contextualisation and also modify it as per their needs.
• Outcomes envisaged after the implementation of SARTHAQ:
  • Curriculum reforms – New National and State Curriculum Frameworks for School Education, Early Childhood Care and Education, Teacher Education and Adult Education will be developed.
  • Increase in enrolment and retention rates and reduction in the drop-out levels and out of school children.
  • Access to quality ECCE and Universal Acquisition of Foundational Literacy and Numeracy by Grade 3.
  • Improvement in Learning Outcomes at all stages with emphasis on teaching and learning through mother tongue/local/regional languages in the early years.
  • Integration of vocational education, sports, arts, knowledge of India, 21st century skills, values of citizenship, awareness of environment conservation, etc. in the curriculum at all stages.
  • Introduction of experiential learning at all stages.
  • Reforms in Board exams and various entrance tests.
  • Development of high quality and diversified teaching-learning material.
  • Availability of text books in Regional/local/home language.
  • Improvement in quality of Teacher Education Programmes.
  • Improvement in quality of newly recruited teachers and capacity building through Continuous Professional Development.
  • Safe, Secure, inclusive and conducive learning environment for students and teachers.
  • Improvement in infrastructure facilities including barrier free access and sharing of resources among schools.
  • Uniform standards in learning outcomes and governance across public and private schools.
  • Integration of technology in educational planning and governance and availability of ICT and quality e-content in classrooms.

Clean Ganga Fund (CGF)

About the Clean Ganga Fund

• In September 2014, the Union Cabinet had approved the formation of the CGF for Ganga river cleaning.
• It was set up in January 2015, with the objective of collecting funds from the general public, as well as private and public sector companies, non-resident Indians and people of Indian origin.

Project RE-HAB

Context: Project RE-HAB to be replicated in all elephant-affected states of the country.

Details

• Project RE-HAB was launched by KVIC in March 2021.
• Now it will be replicated in all states affected by elephant attacks like West Bengal, Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Assam, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

About Project RE-HAB

• Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) launched a unique project of creating “bee-fences” to mitigate human – elephant conflicts.
• The pilot project RE-HAB was launched at four locations around village Chelur in Kodagu district of Karnataka.
• These spots are located on the periphery of Nagarhole National Park and Tiger Reserve and prone to human-elephant conflicts.
• The total cost of the RE-HAB project is just Rs. 15 lakh.
• Objective
  • To thwart elephant attacks in human habitations using honey bees and thus reducing loss of lives of both, humans as well as elephants.
• RE-HAB is an acronym for Reducing Elephant – Human Attacks using Bees.
• Project RE-HAB is a sub-mission under KVIC’s National Honey Mission.
  • While the Honey Mission is a programme to increase the bee population, honey production and beekeepers’ income by setting up apiaries, Project RE-HAB uses bee boxes as a fence to prevent the attack of elephants.

How it works?

• KVIC has set up 15-20 interspersed bee boxes at each of the four locations in the passage ways of elephant-human conflict zones to block the entrance of elephants to human habitations.
• The boxes are connected with a string so that when elephants attempt to pass through, a tug or pull causes the bees to swarm the elephant herds and dissuade them from progressing further.
• Bee boxes have been placed on the ground as well as hung from the trees to block the passage of elephants.
• High resolution, night vision cameras have been installed at strategic points to record the impact of bees on elephants and their behaviour in these zones.

Background

• Nearly 500 people die every year due to elephant attacks in India.
• This is nearly 10 times more than the fatalities caused by big cats across the country.
• From 2015 to 2020, nearly 2500 people have lost their lives in elephant attacks.
• Out of this, nearly 170 human fatalities have been reported in Karnataka alone.
• On the contrary, nearly one-fifth of this number, i.e. around 500 elephants have also died in retaliation by humans in the last 5 years.