In a major decision impacting inter-connected sectors of energy, education and women, Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal on Sunday announced that a Government girls’ school in Punjab would be the first in the country to introduce energy efficiency as a subject in the school curriculum.
“The Government Girls Senior Secondary School, Jalandhar will be the first school where energy efficiency will be introduced in the school curriculum,” Goyal said at the awards function on National Energy Conservation Day in new Delhi, where the girls from Punjab, along with the students from other schools across the country, interacted with the minister via video link.
Displaying a startlingly novel mode of decision-making, Goyal along with senior officials, in response to the student Simran Kaur’s suggestion, said that he would immediately put up to Union Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani the proposal to have energy efficiency as a subject in schools. “There could be a period once a week, or even in a fortnight where ideas and techniques on energy efficiency can be taught,” Goyal said.
“This is the way to go on energy efficiency. There is to be no compulsion because energy efficiency is most efficacious when it is voluntary. It should come from the heart,” he added.A Punjab school being designated to be the first to implement a curriculum on energy efficiency is specially significant for a State which is saddled with one of the lowest female sex ratios in the country.