Chief Secretary, B B Vyas Sunday chaired a video conference here to review the implementation of the road map to address the issues of improving quality of education in schools across the state.Secretary, School Education, Director School Education, Mission Director RMSA, Mission Director SSA and other senior officer’s attended the meeting.The road map has been prepared after undertaking an exhaustive exercise to identify gaps in school education system and devising approaches and strategies to address the issue of improving quality of education in schools.In keeping with the road map, Chief Secretary emphasized on shifting focus from schooling to learning and working on issues related to teachers, classroom processes, evaluation and assessment, school infrastructure, career counseling and community involvement.Secretary, School Education gave a detailed account about the steps being taken to implement the road map. He said GIS mapping of all schools has been completed besides consolidation of around 800 schools.He said over 700 ICT Labs in Higher Secondary schools will be provided Solar Power packs in the next couple of months. He said 220 ICT Labs have already been introduced and by the end of this year, over 1000 schools will have an ICT Lab.
Secretary, School Education informed that the department has roped NGOs for career counseling of students besides vocational training in various fields like tourism, retail etc has been introduced in 352 schools. He said vocational training will be expanded to include other fields like horticulture, animation, cookery, mechanics, plumbing, electrician, security systems etc.Secretary, School Education also spoke about the various measures being taken to improve learning outcomes in schools. He said special focus is on teachers, their qualification, rationalization and capacity building, activity based learning and providing quality supplementary material to the students.He said for the first time, on pilot basis, School Education department is considering introducing pre-primary classes for children and implementing Mid-Day Meals programme through NGO support.Further, as a step towards accountability of the School Management, teaching and non-teaching staff in the completion of syllabus and co-curricular activities, the School education department will be shortly issuing a school specific calendar of holidays, he added.