New Delhi: The Ministry of Education has shortlisted 9,000 schools from around the country and will soon announce the first set of schools from among them eligible for its flagship Pradhan Mantri Schools for Rising India (PM SHRI), ThePrint has learnt.
Those shortlisted are existing schools which, if they make the cut, will be developed into model schools where students will be trained to take part in hackathons, and to excel in studies and other co-curricular activities. Equipped with smart classrooms and improved infrastructure, PM SHRI schools will showcase the National Education Policy (NEP) in its entirety.
The idea behind the scheme is to set up model schools and let other educational institutions follow their lead in terms of teaching and learning methods.
Institutions that made the shortlist were selected from over 2.5 lakh government schools, including Kendriya Vidyalayas and Navodaya Vidyalayas, which were found eligible to apply for the tag. They were assessed on the basis of six broad parameters: ‘curriculum, pedagogy and assessment’; ‘access and infrastructure’; ‘Human resources – leadership’; ‘inclusive practices and gender equity’; ‘management, monitoring and governance’; and ‘beneficiary satisfaction’.
An official from the Ministry of Education told ThePrint, “We are very satisfied with them (shortlisted schools) and will be making an announcement regarding the names of the schools (that make the cut) very soon.”
Once developed, PM-SHRI schools will run in partnership between the central and state governments, wherein the former will contribute 60 per cent of the funds and the latter pitch in the remaining 40 per cent. The official quoted earlier also said that most states have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the ministry for participating in the PM-SHRI scheme except for seven states — Bihar, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal, Delhi and Jharkhand.
“We have urged all states to sign an MoU with the Centre for participating in the scheme but these seven states have not done so yet. The scheme is for the benefit of the states as it is going to improve the educational infrastructure,” said the official.
Over the next few years, the central government plans to take the tally of PM-SHRI schools to 14,500 across the country.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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