Bhubaneswar: With parents willing to nurture English education and vocab of their wards, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik today announced introduction of Spoken English subject from Class-I in all primary and secondary schools across the State. While Aadhaar seeding of the students would be made mandatory now, the School & Mass Education department will deploy adequate teaching staff to successfully implement the education programme.
Patnaik further directed that 101 schools across 30 districts will be developed as centres of excellence. There are provisions of soft infrastructure in these schools and to implement the same, each school will be granted Rs 25 lakh. Such centres will also have English Medium sections from Class-I, sources said.
Most likely, the School and Mass Education department will come under the ambit of Mo Sarkar very soon. For successful execution, the department will be digitising the phone numbers of guardians of school children. As per 5T programme, the department will also ensure that students are able to avail all their certificates online.
The government has also directed to merge all the government primary, upper primary and high schools located within a radius of 1km/2km/3km to ensure that students are not deprived of their educational rights. Schools having less than 20 students will be merged with nearby government schools while the admission process will be the lookout of the department.
As per a decision taken in this regard, those students re-admitted to nearby government schools would be provided Escort Allowance as per provision of RTE Act. They will also be given Rs 5000 as relocation allowance.
This apart, all Block Grant, Aided, Newly Aided Schools would be merged with government schools and the non-functional ones will be closed. A policy will be formulated to depute teachers of Block Grant and government schools on requirement basis.