Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu held an unusual video-conference with 8500 students from 13 districts on Friday. What is important is the parents of these students also interacted with the chief minister and all these students were from the much neglected Municipal High Schools of the state.
In tune with the attitudes of the people, the state government is planning to transform all these schools in order to equip them to excel the corporate schools. Amenities on a par with any best corporate school in the state will be offered to these school. In the video-conference Naidu has proposed a program to convert the classrooms into ‘e-learning centres’ coupled with IIT foundation classes.
“Special classes for IIT foundation will be held for the 8th, 9th and 10th classes in 2127 Municipal School with a strength of 2, 70,000 students. In the 1st phase, 8,500 students have undergone coaching,” the CM said.
The Chief Minister inquired about career aspirations and interests of many students, a rare experience for these students, who normally come from slums and low income groups.
The CM said helping these students get admissions in institutes of higher learning, now coming up Andhra Pradesh, was the objective of the government.
As part of the program, every school will get high-speed internet connection with 40 to 50 mbps speed. A career counselling centre will also established in schools all across the state to create awareness about the different fields of higher education available in the state and in the country among the students as well as the parents.
Interacting with the students, the CM said in the next few years, many national and international schools would be coming up in the state and his aim was to see the students from the municipal and other government schools get admission in large number.
“The teachers should keep updating their knowledge constantly. This will equip them to guide the their students in a proper way. Apart from the academic curriculum there is need to educate the students in what’s happening around the world,” the CM said and added the e-learning centre concept would benefit the teaches also.
“This was the first major attempt to improve the teaching standards and results in the Municipal Schools on a par with the corporate school,” said P Narayana, Municipal Administration & Urban Development Minister, at the conference.
