To further improve the quality of education and to provide better infrastructure to the students, about 6,000 schools have been converted into smart schools so far under the Punjab Government’s initial drive to create excellent environment in the government schools.
As a result, enrollment in government schools has increased by 14.55 percent this year and about 1.60 lakh students of private schools have take admission in the government schools,” said the state Education Minister Vijay Inder Singla.
Singla said that the number of students in government schools in 2019 was 23,52,112 which has increased to 26,94,424 this year.
“Singla had launched the smart school policy in September 2019 to raise the standard of education with the main objective of uplifting the school infrastructure and revolutionize the education sector. Under this campaign, the face of 6,000 schools has been changed in one year,” said the spokesperson.
The spokesperson said that the village panchayats, various leaders, communities, donors, school management committees, NRIs and school staff have made invaluable contribution in this drive to build smart schools. “The Education Department has now decided to honor these individuals, who came forward to improve the school infrastructure and support the smart school campaign,” added the spokesperson.
“The condition of classrooms, playgrounds, education parks, science laboratories and toilets in schools has been improved. This has led to an increase in the performance of students which is evident from the results of government schools this year. These smart schools are completely different from normal schools. Smart schools are technology-based learning institutions which are playing the significant role in the overall development of students,” added the spokesperson.
Spokesperson said that each smart school has a separate classroom for each section according to the student-teacher ratio. “They are quite open, airy and have green or white boards. Separate toilets are provided for boys and girls. There is provision for separate rooms in smart schools for principals or headmasters and staff rooms in addition, science laboratories, vocational laboratories etc has also been ensured,” added the spokesperson.
PUNJAB GOVT SIMPLIFIES PROCEDURE OF ACCREDITATION OF OF PRIVATE SCHOOLS
To make the functioning of Punjab School Education Department smooth and transparent, the State Government department has simplified the procedure of issuance of Accreditation or Registration Certificate to the Private Schools and Institutions. The state’s School Education Secretary Krishan Kumar has issued a letter in this regard. “Now private schools or institutions have to apply online to get the certificate of recognition or registration. The registration fee will also be paid online by the school or institution,” said the spokesperson.
The spokesperson said that the applications, received from the schools, will go directly to the District Education Officer (EE) and they will send the documents online to the concerned committee for scrutiny of the documents. The District Education Officer (EE) may reject the received documents if there will be any deficiency.
According to the spokesperson, after scrutinizing documents and approval by the committee, the District Education Officer (EE) would send the case to the inspection committee for inspection of the concerned school or institution.
“After inspecting, the report will be sent back online within seven days by the concerned committee to the District Education Officer. Once everything is found to be correct, the recognition or registration certificate of that institution will be automatically generated and displayed on the login ID of the concerned school or institution. It can be downloaded by those schools,” said the spokesperson.