WB government to spend Rs 70 crore to improve safety infrastructure in schools

The West Bengal government will spend Rs 70 crore to improve safety infrastructure in schools, a top official of the School Education department said on Saturday.
"Developing sound infrastructure in schools with good hygiene and clean environment dominates the state's agenda," principal secretary, School Education department, Dushyant Nariala told a gathering of more than 100 school teachers, including 45 principals, at the CII School Excellence Conclave in Kolkata.

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Later Nariala told reporters, "A sum of Rs 70 crore has been sanctioned to improve the safety infrastructure in government and government-aided schools all over the state."
Elaborating he said, "the state government is forming safety committees in schools to look into safety issues. "There are altogether 25 safety issues which ranged from healthy food, nutrition, protection from outsiders, stop any use of tobacco and drugs in the campus and safeguard to cyber threats," he said.

The government is also committed to end the practice of bullying by a section of students, he asserted. On the digital initiative of the state, Nariala said, "the government has developed 4,000 e-classrooms in 2000 secondary schools. "Under the government¿s ICT (Information and Communication Technology) programme, 3,915 secondary schools have been provided 39,300 computers in the past five years", he said.

Nariala said in the changing technology-driven times, it is imperative to focus on building schools which can adopt to the change in teaching methods. "Technology should have a greater presence in future schools", he said. He said "greater emphasis should be laid on multi-disciplinary learning and have individual plans for students. The system should involve studies in sports, art and extra-curricular activities." The School Excellence Conclave was a forum where important personalities from school education joined industry
members and other stakeholders to discuss how a robust system can be built to enable school children enter the professional world, be it jobs or entrepreneurship, Chairman, Education Subcommittee, CII, East, Kaushik Bhattacharya said.