The Basic Education department of the state has commenced the process to distribute tablets to government primary and upper primary schools to encourage the teachers’ use of the DIKSHA portal.

Over 2.09 lakh tablets will be distributed with the aim of helping the teachers with online attendance, posting details in real-time and accessing additional digital learning materials for the benefit of the students among other things.

As part of the initiative, a total of 2,09,863 tabs are to be distributed to the teachers in all 75 districts. They include 3,895 tablets in Bareilly, 3,714 in Agra, 2,463 in Mathura, 1,683 in Meerut, 3,024 in Kanpur Dehat, 2,915 in Kanpur Nagar, 4,841 in Prayagraj, 1,959 in Varanasi, 4,113 in Gorakhpur and 2,440 in Lucknow.

As per the letter dated October 10 and signed by Director General, School Education, Vijay Kiran Anand, Uttar Pradesh Development Systems Corporation (UPDESCO), Lucknow, has been designated as the technical partner for the exercise and the respective basic shiksha adhikari (BSAs) acting as district nodal officer for it.

The instruction by the DG (education) says that two tablets each are being made available to 99,744 government primary schools and one tablet each to 10,375 government primary schools as part of the exercise.

In schools where two tablets are to be provided, one will be provided to the principal and the next to the senior most teacher. In schools where only one tablet is to be provided, it will be made available to the principal, it adds.

BSA Praveen Kumar Tiwari said in Prayagraj, out of the 4,841 tablets for teachers of 2,452 schools, around 2,500 tablets have already been distributed. The recent distribution took place on October 20 at District Education and Training Institute (DIET) here where mayor Ganesh Kesarwani distributed tablets to 132 teachers of 66 schools of urban areas.

Officials said the state government plans to make tablets available to all teachers of government-run primary and upper primary schools in the state in a phased manner. The Basic Education department is also working overtime to encourage teachers to make use of the DIKSHA portal as much as possible. Last year, the half yearly exams were conducted on multiple choice question (MCQ) patterns through the app. Through DIKSHA additional digital learning materials have also been made available for the use of teachers and children so that classroom teaching can be made interesting and effective. About 6,500 contents related to 77 ETB (energised text- books) of classes I-VIII have been made available by the Basic Education department through DIKSHA.

“To help teachers further, the. department has uploaded over 4,000 video tutorials on DIKSHA app to achieve the desired learning outcome and improve competence of 1.90 crore students enrolled in government schools,” they added.