Maharashtra's international govt schools to be named after Vajpayee

Atal Bihari Vajpayee

The state's ambitious project of offering affordable international schooling to government schools, will be named after former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. A funding of Rs 10 crore will be issued by the state government every year to the Maharashtra International Education Board (MIEB) which will run these schools.

The Maharashtra government's education department formed MIEB earlier this year. The objective is to bring government schools at par with international standards. While the plan is to create 100 such schools by helping existing government schools to affiliate to MIEB, the first 13 Zilla Parishad (ZP) schools have done this.

These ZP schools will now be called Bharat Ratna Atal Bihari Vajpayee International Schools. The Maharashtra state's school education department has issued a Government Resolution (GR) in this regard. MIEB, which will develop these schools of international standards, will get funding of Rs 10 crore every year for next 10 years. After that the schools are expected to be self-sufficient.

Francis Joseph, Head, Development and Strategy at the MIEB, said, "This plan of making government schools rise up to international standards was started with a great vision. What could have been a better name for these schools? It will give these schools the required branding."

The state government has already received applications for schools interested in affiliating to MIEB. Applications have been invited from Zilla Parishad, municipal corporation, government-aided schools and Marathi medium schools. The plan is to begin with Marathi-medium schools.

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