Special Chief Secretary to the Government, Higher and Secondary Education, Adityanath Das has said that the government is gearing up to establish digital classrooms in about 10,000 schools in the next couple of years in the State.

Mr. Das inaugurated the ‘Application of future technologies in education: a conclave of principals”, organised by Vellore Institute of Technology, Amaravati (AP), here on Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters, Mr. Das said Andhra Pradesh was in the forefront in using information technology, particularly in education and was conducting events such as hackathon, apart from establishing digital classrooms and technologies with the help of private universities.

Private universities were coming forward to give free software tools and VIT too came up with the programme to educate principals and also provide free learning tools and software, he said.

He said such programmes were a supplement to the government initiatives aimed at preparing young generations, who could quickly adapt to new technologies.

About digital classrooms, Mr. Das said the State so far had over 1,000 digital classrooms. “There is a need for more digital classrooms in about 10,000 schools, and the government is to ready to establish them in the next two to three years,” he said.

“Students are liking the concepts taught in digital classroom, where complex subjects become easier to learn, we are also analysing the usage of the new tools,” he added.

VIT, A.P. registrar C.L.V. Sivakumar said the institute was poised to educate principals of private and government educational institutions in new technology-based learning tools through such meetings, which would also be conducted in Visakhapatnam and Tirupati soon.

Resource persons, including Jeremy Sunderraj, higher education consultant, Tushar Bansal, head for digital products at Pearson Education, Samuel Johnson of VIT AP School of Business and others were present.