SATH-Education to Create Islands of Excellence

SATH-E, Sustainable Action for Transforming Human Capital in Education Project that aims to create role model States for education and mainstream ‘islands of excellence’ across the country to facilitate qualitative and quantitative transformation of learning outcomes is being undertaken NITI Aayog in partnership with three participating States of Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha. Amitabh Kant CEO, NITI Aayog, while releasing its roadmaps on March 17, 2018 said, “SATH-E aspires to be a ‘saathi’, to the educational system with the student and the teacher at its centre”, “The aim is to make the entire governmental school education system responsive, aspirational and transformational for every child.” Principal Secretaries for education, State Project Directors (SPDs), and knowledge partners: the Boston Consulting Group and Piramal Foundation for Education Leadership were present on the occasion.

• SATH-E or SATH-Education puts the States in the driver’s seat to transform education at scale, by marrying technology with need-based, data-driven assessment and a ‘giving it what it takes’ approach – be it innovation, incubation, external third party funding and Public- Private- Philanthropic Partnership (PPPP) experimentation.
• SATH-E initiative in based on formal agreements with the States and will be funded through a cost-sharing mechanism between NITI Aayog and the participating states.
• SATH-E has been envisaged as a programme which aims to transform elementary and secondary school education across these three states.
• The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Piramal Foundation for Education Leadership (PFEL) have been chosen as knowledge partners for the project facilitating review, data collection and implementation.
• SATH-E roadmap refers to a time-bound, goal-driven exercise that will reach its logical culmination by the end of the academic year 2020.
• Further, the foundations of other long term interventions, as is found necessary by each state, would be laid during this period.
• Limiting interventions to only those where there is complete state buy-in for sustainability, the whole process would be done in consultation with the states and MHRD.

This will be facilitated by the National Steering Group (NSG), chaired by the CEO of NITI Aayog and including the Chief Secretaries of the States, which will continuously monitor progress, introduce course-corrections and offer a platform for addressing issues in implementation.