The Education Ministry has shortlisted 9,000 schools from across the country and will soon announce the first set of schools from among them to be eligible for its flagship Pradhan Mantri Schools for Rising India (PM SHRI).
Existing schools are shortlisted and, if successful, will be developed into model schools where students will be trained to participate in hackathons and excel in studies and other co-curricular activities. Equipped with smart classrooms and improved infrastructure, PM SHRI schools will present the National Education Policy (NEP) in its entirety.
The idea behind this scheme is to establish model schools and enable other educational institutions to follow suit in terms of teaching and learning methods.
The shortlisted institutions were selected from over 2.5 million government schools, including Kendriya Vidyalayas and Navodaya Vidyalayas, which were found eligible to apply for the designation. They were evaluated on six broad parameters: “curriculum, pedagogy and assessment”; “access and infrastructure”; “Human Resources – Management”; “inclusive practices and gender equality”; “management, monitoring and management”; and “recipient satisfaction”.
An official from the Ministry of Education told, “We are very happy with them (the shortlisted schools) and we will announce the names of the schools (which will be shortlisted) very soon.
Once developed, the PM-SHRI schools will operate in partnership between the central and state governments, with the former contributing 60 percent of the funds and the latter providing the remaining 40 percent.
The official quoted above also said that most states have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the ministry to participate in the PM-SHRI program except for seven states – Bihar, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal, Delhi and Jharkhand.
“We have urged all states to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Center for participation in the program but these seven states are yet to do so. The program is in favor of the states as it will improve educational infrastructure,” said the official.
Over the next few years, the central government plans to increase the number of PM-SHRI schools to 14,500 across the country.
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