As many as 1,234 government schools have been identified in the district for improvement of infrastructure and the work would be completed by June 2020, Collector V. Vinay Chand has said.
Speaking at the inaugural of the three-day TECH 2019 at Novotel Hotel on Tuesday, he said the State government was taking several initiatives to transform the learning spaces in government schools. “The initiatives are intended to fill the infrastructure gap, bring down dropout rate and empower the underprivileged children through teaching of English,” said Mr. Vinay Chand.
Complimenting the UNESCO and the MGIEP for coming up with relevant themes year after year, Mr. Vinay Chand said the three themes of this year’s programme are transformative pedagogy for social and emotional learning, re-imagining learning spaces for planetary citizenship and data, learning and education – role of artificial intelligence.
‘Naadu – Nedu’
“Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy is keen on strengthening of infrastructure at government schools through the ‘Naadu – Nedu’ programme. The government schools will be analysed during the next three years to find out the infrastructure gaps,” said the Collector.
The ‘Amma Vodi’ programme was designed to reduce the school dropout rates by giving incentives to the mothers who send their children to school. English medium will be introduced in government schools from the next academic year, he said, adding that Telugu language would be given a top priority as one of the subjects.
Earlier, Jon Ramer, designer and co-founder of Compassionate Action Network International, said compassion games were designed to facilitate social and emotional learning of children.
World Happiness Report
Referring to the World Happiness Report 2019, Richard Davidson, founder and director of the Centre for Healthy Minds, University of Wisconsin-Madison, said India ranked 129 in the list of 132 countries while the U.S. is at 112th place.
Describing awareness, interpersonal relation, insight (into oneself) and purpose as the four pillars of a healthy mind, Mr. Davidson said each of these four were associated with brain circuits. “The wandering mind is an unhappy mind. There are video games for teenagers to cultivate attentiveness,” he said and appreciated the efforts of the MGIEP in harnessing technology to promote empathy and compassion among students.
Child-centric policy
Director of UNESCO MGIEP, Anantha Duraiappah underlined the importance of bringing out child-centric policies in education sector by incorporating the views of students.
