Bihar edu dept to conduct survey to upgrade schools

PATNA: With a view to provide adequate infrastructure and other facilities, the state education department has directed the officials concerned to take stock of the physical status in higher secondary and secondary schools and create a database.
There are 9,361 higher secondary and secondary schools in Bihar, out of which 2,948 middle schools have been upgraded to secondary schools to admit students from the academic session 2020-21. In these upgraded schools, a survey would be conducted for providing necessary facilities to ensure education up to class XII.
Sanjay Kumar, additional chief secretary (education), said the survey would help the department identify such institutes which lack the required infrastructure so that to plan accordingly to upgrade and build additional classrooms to accommodate more students and other facilities like libraries, laboratories, playground and toilets.
“Several schools have been upgraded from middle to secondary level and from secondary to higher secondary level. All these institutes have to be surveyed. Depending on the availability of land and condition of the existing buildings, plan for the refurbishment will be made. We have achieved the target of providing high school in all panchayats in the state. Now, it is extremely important that every high school in panchayats have required facilities, so that students will not have to go to other village or drop from school,” Sanjay told this newspaper on Sunday.
He added: “The survey will be done by the end of this month. Based on the report, the department will draw a plan for strengthening and refurbishing the infrastructure. We may not be able to upgrade all the schools within a year, but the detail will help us do it accordingly. Priority will be given to such institutes which lack infrastructure.”
The Bihar Education Project Council has also asked the district education officers (DEOs) to conduct survey and collect information from government schools on various parameters, including enrolment of students (as on September 30, 2020), infrastructure -- number of buildings, status, condition, number of classrooms, scope of expansion and year of construction, and availability of land among other things.