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| What
is Fund-a-school? | shares 'Gold Award' The Hindustan Times, New Delhi, September 16, 1998 The Education Guarantee Scheme of Madhya Pradesh has shared the Gold Award of the Commonwealth Association of Public Administration and Management with the city of Ontario, Canada for improving quality of public service to its citizens. The M-P scheme has been chosen under category of innovation awards instituted to promote initiatives in government reform. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh told reporters today that the state's scheme was chosen from among the 121 submissions from 24 countries. He said the scheme commenced in memory of Rajiv Gandhi. It had enabled Madhya Pradesh to reach a primary schooling facility to every habitation by middle of this year. Under the scheme, if there is demand from the parents of 25 children in a tribal area or 40 children in a non-tribal area in the 6-14 age group (which does not have a schooling facility within one Kilometer), the government "guarantees" to provide within 90 days a trained teacher, teaching-learning material and contingencies to start a primary school. Within one year, the Chief Minister said, more than 16,000 schools had been created, enrolling 7,00,000 children. |