1400 govt schools soon to convert into smart schools: Capt Amarinder

1400 govt schools soon to convert into smart schools: Capt Amarinder

Harshabab Sidhu
Nabaz-e-Punjab, Mohali, December 18:
Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh today reiterated his government’s firm commitment to provide the best infrastructure in schools to enable students to compete with their peers in private and convent schools. In this context, he said 7,842 schools and had been converted into smart schools with the latest infrastructure, coupled with computers, tablets etc, and 1,400 more government schools would also be converted into smart schools by the end of the next year. Further, he said the School Education Department had converted 16,589 classrooms as smart classrooms across the state, and the remaining would also be covered under this scheme in the next six months.
Even as he congratulated the teachers for preparing the e-content, which is now used while teaching the students online, the Chief Minister stressed the need for keeping pace with the fast-paced changes in education globally. With Punjabis settled around the world, it was important for students also to learn English and other languages to enable them to be job-ready across the globe, he added.
His government, said the Chief Minister, had ensured that every student studying in Govt. Schools gets the best education with the help of the latest gadgets. Punjab is the first state in the country to universalize Pre-Primary School Education in the year 2017 itself, and the same is now fully operational in all the primary schools. As many as 8,393 posts of the pre-primary school teachers have been created and the same would be filled shortly, he said, adding that the introduction of the online transfer policy for teachers, based on merit and performance, was another major step by his government to raise the bar in education by bringing transparency into the system.
The Chief Minister said the recent reforms implemented in government schools to raise the standard of education had led to unprecedented increase in enrolment by 14.9% as an increasing number of students were shifting from private and government schools. He also underlined the need to promote sports education, for which his government was planning to set up gyms in all schools, he added.
Conceding the demand of Cabinet Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu, who is also MLA from Mohali, the Chief Minister announced that the school would be upgraded to senior secondary level and named after 1971 war martyr Captain Ami Singh, Vir Chakra. Furthermore, Rs. 25 lakh would be given to the Government senior secondary School for Girls Sohana, he said.