Academic master plan for all schools

Minister says teacher training programmes will be modernised

An academic master plan will be prepared at all schools before January 30, 2018, with a view to improving the academic standards, Education Minister C. Ravindranath has said.

The Minister was addressing a meeting of education officers, school Principals, and headmasters in the district at St. Thomas Higher Secondary School at Eruvellipra, near Thiruvalla, on Wednesday.

According to him, the proposed master plan should be aimed at developing fully the diverse capabilities of the children. The school history, its present condition, and its academic aims for the near future would be included in the master plan, he said.

Mr. Ravindranath said the support and help of experts in the field of education, retired teachers, and the alumni should be sought in preparing the master plan.

He said the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan had launched the ‘Sradha’ project to extend academic support to children who were weak in their studies. Special training and tuition would be given to them to take them to the academic mainstream.

Training for teachers

Mr. Ravindranath said more training programmes for the teachers too was equally important to raise the academic standards of the children. The government had decided to modernise the existing teacher training programmes, he said. He said the District Institutes of Education and Training (DIET) would be modernised so as to extend training to all teachers.

The Minister said each school would also prepare an infrastructure development plan soon.

A smart classroom, with high speed internet facility, each would be arranged at all lower and upper primary schools in the State. A total of 45,000 classrooms in government as well as aided high school and higher secondary schools would be made hi-tech in the next six months and the first phase of the project would begin this month itself, he said.

Infra development

Mr. Ravindranath said the government would spent ₹2,000 crore for the infrastructure development of schools. He said ₹5 crore each had been provided to 145 schools and ₹3 crore each to 229 schools for infrastructure development this year. This was besides the ₹50 lakh allocation each to 125 schools from the Plan fund, he said. Jimmy K. Jose, Additional Director of Public Instruction, presided. M.K. Gopi, Deputy Director of Education; R. Vijayamohan, SSA Project Officer; and S. Mini, Regional Deputy Director of Higher Secondary Education, spoke.