To discourage students from shifting from government schools to private ones, Uttar Pradesh has decided to turn its 100 schools into ‘smart schools’ based on the concept of ‘clean and green school’.
By Maulshree Seth
In the upcoming annual budget, the state government plans to allocate Rs 50 lakh each for these schools — all from classes VI to XII — with an aim to upgrade them with new infrastructure and technology and also arrange for solar energy and water conservation.
The government will identify old government intermediate colleges that can accommodate new construction, including an area to install solar panels. “There are around 1,600 government secondary schools in the state called Rajkiya Vidyalaya.
Among these, 563 are old. The rest have been constructed in the last five years. Since old colleges have huge areas, most of which remains vacant, we plan to identify such schools first,” said an officer.
He added that the government plans to construct new buildings with solar powered water pumps and also make arrangements for water conservation. The classes will be equipped with projectors and Internet among others.
“These will be modelled on the concept of clean and green schools. The government plans to allocate about Rs 50 lakh for each school and cover around 100 schools across the state in the first phase. While the broad components have been decided, the detailed plan is yet to be given a final shape,” said Jitendra Kumar, Principal Secretary (Secondary Education).