Haryana: Revamp of 238 schools under PM-Shri scheme

GURUGRAM: The Haryana government has announced it will upgrade 238 schools under the Pradhan Mantri Schools for Rising India (PM-Shri) scheme, following a memorandum of understanding (MoU) it signed with the education ministry to upgrade its schools. Earlier this month, Haryana became one of the 14 states and UTs that agreed to implement the PM-Shri scheme launched by the Prime Minister, under which 14,500 schools across the country will be upgraded in the next five years.
Haryana education minister Kanwar Pal on Tuesday declared that they will soon be gearing up to commence the process of setting up these schools at an estimated budget of around Rs 238 crore. Under the scheme, two PM-Shri schools will be launched in each block of Haryana with the cooperation of the Centre. The governments will together provide around Rs 1 crore per school. Special district-level committees and one state-level committee will be constituted to coordinate and implement the programme.
“Haryana has always been ahead in implementing the Centre’s policies around education and this time too, we will take this scheme as a mission,” Pal told TOI.
Under the scheme, the state government will select around 238 existing schools that will be transformed into PM-Shri schools. The department has claimed that these schools will become “centres of excellences” imparting education via new-age technologies like digital classrooms, artificial intelligence and machine learning to develop a participatory pedagogy and effective monitoring and assessment curriculum.
“National Education Policy (NEP)-2020 is being implemented by the Centre to enhance the quality of education and turn around the teaching-learning ecosystem in government schools across the country. In Haryana, we want to implement NEP-2020 by 2025. It is with that intent that we will be redeveloping existing schools into PM-Shri schools. These schools will offer 21st-century skills as envisaged in the NEP,” additional chief secretary (education) Mahavir Singh said.
Over 14,500 schools across the country will be upgraded in the next five years under the PM-Shri scheme. For this, the Centre in September had approved an overall budget of Rs 27,360 crore. Of this, the Centre will provide Rs 18,128 crore, while the rest will be borne by the states.
The education department aims to roll out an online selection process for schools to be eligible for the scheme. “We signed an MoU with the Centre earlier this month. Now, we will be releasing an online selection process where government schools will have to apply via a portal to be considered under the scheme,” Singh added.
According to the officials, the selection process will comprise various stages. In the first stage, the state will finalise eligible schools after a thorough assessment and evaluation. A pool of all the eligible schools will be inspected to see if they qualify for the minimum benchmarks to be part of the scheme.
The department claims that it is already running around 138 Model Sanskriti Schools and plans to increase the count to 500 in the coming years. The Model Sanskriti Schools and PM-Shri schools together will provide an equitable education in the state, officials said.