UP Government Targets Making 30,000 Smart Schools

The Department of Basic Education, Uttar Pradesh, announced that its target is to transform 30,000 schools in UP into smart schools. Another ambitious target the department has set includes providing one tablet each to 2 lakh primary education schools in the state. The department claims that there has been significant progress in this regard. The state already has 12,000 schools with smart classes. This announcement came right before the UP government said that it had earmarked Rs 2,000 crore for the development of primary and upper-primary schools in the state.

In a tweet, the Department of Basic Education wrote, “there is a target to provide 2 lakh tablets to 2 lakh primary and upper primary schools in UP and to turn 30 thousand such institutes into fully smart schools.” The tweet further said that 12,000 schools had been equipped with smart classes.

This is in line with the UP government’s objective to improve students’ skill development by upgrading schools from pre-primary to class 8. On March 12, Hindustan Times reported that the UP government also announced that it had allocated Rs 1,000 crores for the development of 880 primary and upper primary schools under the basic education department. The administration will transform these institutes into Mukhyamantri Abhyudaya Composite Schools.

“A provision has been made to upgrade the infrastructure facilities in each composite school with a sum of around Rs 1.42 crore,” director general, school education, UP, Vijay Kiran Anand said. He added that “in the first phase, about 704 council schools will be upgraded as Mukhyamantri Abhyudaya Composite School from the budget allocated for the basic education department.”

The government has promised that each Mukhyamantri Abhyudaya Composite School will have a range of top-notch facilities, including a library designed with child-friendly and high-quality furniture, a computer lab with a language lab feature, a modular composite laboratory for learning science, mathematics, and robotics, and smart classrooms equipped with interactive display boards and virtual connectivity to facilitate digital learning.

Apart from upgrading the infrastructure of schools in the state, the Department of Basic Education currently also shoulders the responsibility of filling teacher vacancies in primary and upper primary institutes.

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