BENGALURU: Digital library, well-equipped computer laboratory, painted classrooms and adequate teaching and non-teaching staff: These are some of the measures that the Department of Education has mooted to attract students to government schools. This initiative will be implemented in all government schools across the state from the next academic year.
Confirming this, Primary and Secondary Education Minister Tanveer Sait said, "We have decided to adopt attractive measures from private schools. We will also ensure hygienic and clean drinking water and toilet facilities in all schools."
On the school adoption programme, the minister said, "The idea of the proposal is not to privatise or shut down government schools. Our aim is to improve the quality of education and infrastructure." Sait said the department will concentrate not only on the school infrastructure, but will also ensure that adequate teaching and non-teaching staff are present.
"The cabinet on Wednesday approved the appointment of 10,000 primary and high school teachers. We will even hire non-teaching staff where there are vacancies."
MoU with KV Sanghatan
To improve the academic quality at Adarsha Vidyalayas run by the state government, the Department of Education will enter into an agreement with the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sanghatan for the training of teachers.
Sait said, "The SSLC results at our Adarsha Vidyalayas, running on the lines of KV schools, are better this time, and to improve further we will train Adarsha Vidyalaya teachers in association with the KV Sanghatan."There are 73 Adarsha Vidyalayas across the state and the overall pass percentage in SSLC 2017 exams at these schools is 93. This has inspired the government to mull setting up of Adarsha Vidyalayas at all hoblis across the state to improve the academic quality.
Special enrolment drive
To bring back school dropouts and out-of-schoolchildren, the Department of Public Instruction is organising a special enrolment drive from May 16 to 31. Under the drive, all teachers have to visit their neighbourhood and find out about such children and ensure that they are admitted to the nearest school.
Other departments have been instructed to chip in in the drive and this has even been communicated to the district administration through video conference.
The department has also prepared two small videos on popularising various schemes at schools and to create awareness about why enrolling children to schools is important. It is approaching Kannada cine actor Puneeth Rajkumar to be the brand ambassador of the drive.
Class 1 to 12 at one campus in 176 schools
The Department of Education will incorporate Classes 1 to 12 on the same campus from the next academic year at hobli level. For this, the department has selected 176 schools.