community in all civil work activities in order to instil a sense of ownership in them.
            RTE-SSA also supports repair of old school buildings, provision of school buildings in
      respect of building less, dilapidated schools and retrofitting of school buildings to make them
      hazard resistant.
      School Management Committees and Community Participation
            SSA has always acknowledged the importance of ‘community ownership’ pertaining to
      effective functioning of government schools. As per norms it has been made mandatory for the
      schools to constitute School Management Committees (SMC) wherein the parents/guardians of
      students studying in the respective school are the members.
      Monitoring Institutes
            Institutions, including university departments of education, social science and institutes of
      national stature have been assigned the work of periodic monitoring of SSA implementation in
      states and UTs. In large states more than one institute has been assigned the task of monitoring.
      These monitoring institutes are required to make field visits and report on progress of SSA at the
      ground level every six months. This cycle is repeated every two years. SSA programme modifies
      the terms of reference of the monitoring institutes as and when required.
      Admissions under Section 12(1) (c) of the RTE Act
            Section 12(1) (c) mandates all private unaided schools and special category schools to
      reserve a minimum of 25 per cent of seats for economically weaker sections. Under the SSA, the
      Government of India will reimburse the state expenditure towards 25 per cent admissions to
      private unaided schools, based on per child cost norms notified by the state government, subject
      to a maximum ceiling of 20 per cent of the size of the SSA annual work plan and budget.
      Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan
            Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA was launched in 2009 with the objective to
      enhance access to secondary education and improve its quality. The schemes envisages to
      enhance the enrolment at secondary stage by providing a secondary school with a reasonable
      distance of habitation, with an aim to ensure GER of 100 per cent and universal retention by
      2020. The other objectives include improving quality of education imparted at secondary level
      through making all secondary schools conform to prescribed norms, removing gender, socio-
      economic and disability barriers, etc.
            Some of the significant initiatives, under RMSA for improving quality of education are as:-
      (i) Shaala Siddhi: School Standards and Evaluation Framework and its web portal was launched
      in 2015. It is a comprehensive instrument for school evaluation leading to school improvement.
      Developed by the National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA), it
      aims to enable schools to evaluate their performance in a more focused and strategic manner and
      facilitate them to make professional judgements for improvement. The programme’s objective is
      to establish an agreed set of standards and benchmarks for each school, by focussing on key
      performance domains and their core standards.
      (ii) Shala Darpan: The “Shaala Darpan Project” to cover all the 1099 Kendriya Vidyalayas was
      launched in June, 2015. The objective of this project is to provide services based on school