PM reviews Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, mid-day meals

New Delhi, Sep 22 (UNI) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today reviewed two of the flagship programmes of the UPA government -- Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and mid-day meals.

The meeting was attended by HRD Minister Arjun Singh and Minister of State (PMO) Prithiviraj Chavan, besides senior officials of the PMO, HRD and the Planning Commission.

It noted that the number of out-of-school children has been reduced from 25 million to 96 lakhs over the last two years.

The Prime Minister, however, expressed concern over the fact that out-of-school children continued to be high in pockets across the country and called for providing joyful and quality learning, especially to the first generation school goers.

In context of the National Curriculum Framework 2005, the Prime Minister laid emphasis on the need to improve the quality of science and mathematics teaching. He expressed concern over delays in teacher recruitment, absenteeism and deployment.

The Prime Minister desired that best practices in Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and Mid Day Meal programmes be shared across the states and the programmes be reviewed in the forthcoming meeting of the NDC to bring about synergy and national consensus on programme priorities.

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