Analyzing Centrally and State Sponsored Educational Schemes in India

India is home to over 250 million school-going children, making its education system one of the largest in the world. Yet, for decades, millions of children – especially from rural areas, marginalized communities, and low-income families – have faced serious barriers to quality education. To address this, the Government of India, along with state governments, has designed and implemented a wide range of educational schemes aimed at improving access, equity, and quality across all levels of schooling. Understanding these schemes – who they target, what they aim to achieve, and how they work – is essential for anyone interested in India’s educational landscape.

The structure of educational schemes in India 🔗

Educational schemes in India broadly fall into two categories: Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) and State-Sponsored Schemes. Centrally Sponsored Schemes are special-purpose grants extended by the central government to states to encourage them to implement programs aligned with national goals – such as universal elementary education, gender equity, and quality improvement. These schemes are jointly funded by the centre and the states, implemented through state machinery, and cover sectors that fall under the State and Concurrent Lists of the Constitution.

State-sponsored schemes, on the other hand, are designed and funded entirely by individual state governments. They often address local challenges – whether it is dropout rates among girls, food insecurity, or lack of access to higher education in remote areas. Together, these two layers of schemes form the backbone of India’s education delivery system.

Key centrally sponsored schemes for school education 🔗

Samagra Shiksha: the umbrella scheme 🔗

The most comprehensive centrally sponsored scheme for school education today is Samagra Shiksha. This integrated program brings together three earlier schemes – Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA), and Teacher Education – under one umbrella, covering education from pre-primary to Class XII. Its objectives are to provide inclusive, equitable, and quality education for all children, strengthen school infrastructure, improve teacher training, and support digital learning. Under this scheme, states receive financial assistance to construct schools, add classrooms, set up hostels for vulnerable groups, and provide free uniforms and textbooks to eligible elementary students.

Samagra Shiksha also places strong emphasis on inclusive education for children with special needs (CwSN), funding block-level disability assessment camps, therapeutic services, aids and appliances, and support for special educators. This reflects the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020’s vision that education must serve every learner, regardless of ability or background.

PM SHRI: model schools for the future 🔗

PM Schools for Rising India (PM SHRI) is a targeted centrally sponsored scheme aimed at developing over 14,500 exemplary schools across the country that will implement the NEP 2020 in letter and spirit. These schools are intended to become model institutions in their regions, guiding and mentoring other schools to achieve the objectives of the new education policy. PM SHRI Schools are being developed as “green schools,” integrating solar panels, nutrition gardens, waste management systems, and water conservation practices. As of 2024-25, 12,084 schools across 32 states and Union Territories have been selected under the scheme.

PM POSHAN: tackling hunger to improve learning 🔗

One of the oldest and most impactful educational interventions in India is the PM Poshan Shakti Nirman (PM POSHAN) scheme, formerly known as the Mid-Day Meal Scheme. Established under the National Food Security Act, 2013, it provides hot-cooked meals to children in government and government-aided schools from Balvatika (pre-Class I) through Class VIII. The scheme’s logic is straightforward: children who are hungry cannot learn effectively. By guaranteeing a nutritious meal at school, PM POSHAN increases enrollment, reduces absenteeism, and improves retention – particularly among children from the poorest families. During 2022-23, the scheme covered over 12 crore students in more than 10 lakh schools. The meal cost per child was revised in December 2024 to ₹6.19 for primary and ₹9.29 for upper primary classes per day.

Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) 🔗

RMSA was launched in 2009 to improve access to secondary education through better infrastructure, teacher quality, and learning outcomes for students in the 14-18 age group. A key focus was universalizing secondary education by ensuring that every habitation has a secondary school within a reasonable distance. The scheme also worked to bridge gender and social gaps, with special provisions for girls and students from disadvantaged communities.

Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) 🔗

At the higher education level, RUSA is a centrally sponsored scheme that provides strategic funding to state universities and colleges based on proposals meeting set norms, with the aim of enhancing equity, access, and excellence in higher education. The scheme specifically targets underserved areas and promotes inclusion of socially disadvantaged groups. It has funded the creation of new universities, infrastructure improvements, and faculty recruitment initiatives across multiple states.

Schemes targeting specific groups and needs 🔗

Beti Bachao Beti Padhao 🔗

Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP), launched in 2015, addresses one of the most persistent barriers to education in India: gender bias. The scheme aims to provide a safe and supportive learning environment free from gender discrimination, while enabling proper financial support and awareness programs for girl child education. It works at the community level to change attitudes and ensure that girls are enrolled and kept in school.

Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) 🔗

For girls from disadvantaged sections – including Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, and minorities – the KGBV scheme provides residential schooling at the secondary level. These residential schools are specifically designed to improve educational outcomes for girls who might otherwise be unable to attend school due to distance, poverty, or social constraints.

ULLAS and adult literacy 🔗

Recognizing that education is not just for children, the government has also launched ULLAS (Nav Bharat Saaksharta Karyakram), a new literacy program aimed at adults who could not access formal schooling. This scheme aligns with NEP 2020’s emphasis on lifelong learning and seeks to bridge the foundational literacy gap that still exists among older generations in many parts of India.

Digital education: DIKSHA 🔗

DIKSHA (Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing), launched in 2017, is a national platform that provides digital resources, e-learning content, and teacher training modules across different states and languages. By leveraging technology, the platform aims to bridge educational gaps and provide continuous professional development for teachers, while making quality content accessible to students regardless of their location.

State-sponsored schemes: local solutions to local challenges 🔗

While centrally sponsored schemes provide a national framework, state governments have developed their own targeted interventions to address region-specific challenges. These schemes are particularly important in a country as diverse as India, where the barriers to education vary significantly across geographies.

Jagananna Amma Vodi (Andhra Pradesh) 🔗

One of the most talked-about state education schemes in recent years is Andhra Pradesh’s Jagananna Amma Vodi, which translates to “Mother’s Lap.” Launched on January 9, 2020, the scheme provides financial assistance of ₹15,000 per year directly to mothers or recognized guardians from below-poverty-line (BPL) households whose children study from Class 1 to Class 12. The direct transfer goes to the mother’s bank account, making her an active partner in her child’s education. The scheme covers government, private-aided, and private-unaided schools, and has no bar based on caste, religion, or the number of children. Its key goals include boosting gross enrollment ratios, reducing dropout rates, and empowering mothers as financial decision-makers in the education of their children.

Vidyasiri (Karnataka) 🔗

Karnataka’s Vidyasiri Scholarship Scheme is a state-level initiative by the Department of Backward Classes Welfare designed for students from backward classes pursuing post-matric education. The scheme targets students who are not provided hostel facilities at government institutions, covering the cost of food and accommodation so that financial constraints do not force them out of higher education. Eligible students receive ₹15,000 per year, transferred directly to their Aadhaar-linked bank accounts through the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) system, ensuring transparency and reducing leakage.

How these schemes connect to broader educational goals 🔗

Individually, each scheme addresses a specific problem – hunger, dropout rates, gender discrimination, lack of infrastructure, or inadequate teacher training. Collectively, they form a layered system designed to achieve three overarching goals: access (ensuring every child can reach a school), equity (removing social, economic, and gender barriers), and quality (improving what children actually learn once they are in school).

The Ministry of Education’s alignment of these schemes with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG-4) reflects a conscious effort to move beyond mere enrollment numbers toward meaningful learning outcomes. The introduction of PARAKH (a national assessment center under NCERT), for instance, focuses on standardizing and improving competency-based evaluations across states – a direct effort to make quality measurable and comparable.

However, implementation remains uneven. Challenges including insufficient funding, poor infrastructure, weak monitoring systems, and limited focus on teacher development continue to limit the effectiveness of many schemes. Digital divides between urban and rural areas also mean that technology-driven initiatives like DIKSHA do not always reach the students who need them most.

The significance of a two-tier approach 🔗

The coexistence of centrally sponsored and state-sponsored schemes reflects India’s federal structure and the constitutional understanding that education is a shared responsibility. Centrally sponsored schemes are extended by the Union Government to states under Article 282 of the Constitution, allowing national priorities to be pursued while giving states the flexibility to adapt implementation to local conditions. State schemes, meanwhile, fill the gaps that national programs cannot address with sufficient specificity – whether that is the particular needs of minority students in Karnataka or BPL mothers in Andhra Pradesh.

This two-tier approach also creates healthy competition among states to innovate. Several state schemes that proved successful – such as the mid-day meal concept pioneered by Tamil Nadu – have later been absorbed into national programs. The cross-pollination of ideas between the centre and states, when it works well, strengthens the entire system.

What do you think? Given that centrally sponsored schemes set the national framework while state schemes address local realities, do you think the current balance between the two is adequate – or should states have more autonomy and funding to design their own educational interventions? And considering the persistent gaps in quality and equity despite decades of schemes, what do you think is the single most important reform needed to make these programs more effective on the ground?

References

1. https://www.clearias.com/centrally-sponsored-schemes-css/
2. https://www.cry.org/blog/government-schemes-for-free-education-in-india/
3. https://dsel.education.gov.in/en/inclusive-education
4. https://www.drishtiias.com/india-year-book-2024/social-welfare/chapter-14-education
5. https://testbook.com/ias-preparation/education-schemes-in-india
6. https://www.impriindia.com/insights/ministry-of-education/
7. https://parenting.firstcry.com/articles/government-schemes-for-school-education-that-parents-should-know-about/
8. https://www.buddy4study.com/article/jagananna-amma-vodi-scheme
9. https://dom.karnataka.gov.in/new-page/Vidyasiri%20(Food%20&%20Accommodation%20Scheme)/en
10. https://www.education.gov.in/en