Steps will be taken to improve the infrastructure in government schools and upgrade them to international standards in stages through high-end technology, Education Minister C. Raveendranath said in the Assembly on Monday.
The number of working days would be increased and the academic standard of government schools would be improved, he said. Orders have been issued to supply textbooks to schools before July 15. From the next academic year, textbooks would be distributed in three parts to students. Part I will reach students before schools reopening; Part II after the Onam break and Part III when school reopens after Christmas break.
General education will be modernised with the aid of technology, better infrastructure and academic inputs and made competitive. The Government will ensure free food, free uniform, free textbooks till class VIII, skill development, infrastructure development, English study, intra-inter connectivity in classrooms and make the best of academic inputs available to government schools, the Minister said in reply to questions raised by Veena George, James Mathew, V.T. Balram and others.
Schools would have to shift from the current teacher-centred approach to a child-centred approach, with a better and unified syllabus. Additional Skill Acquisition Programme (ASAP) would be utilised to identify the skills and talents of each child. Stress will be given on Communicative English from primary classes itself, Mr. Raveendranath said.
He said that the term, “uneconomic schools” should not be used any more. This was a terminology coined by auditors.
These were indeed problem schools but their issues would be resolved and the schools would be developed. The concept of neighbourhood schools will be followed when allowing new schools, the Minister said.
