BHUBANESWAR: Striving to increase enrollment in government vocational higher secondary schools (GVHSS), the School and Mass Education (SME) department has decided to introduce smart classrooms in the skill institutions from this year.
The directorate of higher secondary education (DHSE) has held a meeting with the Odisha Computer Application Centre (OCAC) for development of classrooms in the schools. Of the total 231 GVHSS in the state, 174 will undergo revamp for which the centre has sanctioned Rs 12.39 crore this year.
The SME department has approved Rs 1.85 crore of this fund for installation of smart classroom in 74 vocational institutions in the first phase. Around Rs 2.5 lakh will be spent on developing one smart classroom in each school.
The classroom will have a 75 inch interactive smart panel board, web camera, wireless keyboard, panel with lock and key facility, 4TB hard drive, document camera and in-built content software among others. It will accommodate at least 64 students at a time.
OCAC has been chosen for the task as it is already carrying out the project of installing smart classroom in 353 government high schools under SME department. Besides the smart classrooms in Odisha Adarsha Vidyalayas have also been installed by the OCAC, officials said.
“Efforts are on to implement the project at the earliest,” said an official. The state government had recently asked all district education officers (DEOs) to take adequate measures to improve enrollment in these schools in the 2023-24 academic session.
The DEOs have been instructed to reach out to the students, especially at the secondary level, Class X students and pass outs, through massive campaign to persuade them to enroll in these courses. The vocational streams include horticulture, computer technique, audio visual technique, creche and pre-school management, electrical domestic appliances, medical laboratory technician among others.