The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : Rs.50.8-crore grant for IT education

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Sunday, Dec 30, 2007
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Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Rs.50.8-crore grant for IT education

Staff Reporter

Government schools to get Rs.5 lakh each under the scheme

Schools told to generate utilisation plans
IT infrastructure in schools to be upgraded, says Baby

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Centre will provide Rs.50.8 crore for developing IT-enabled education in 996 government high schools and 20 special schools in the State.

This will translate to an assistance of Rs.5 lakh per school, Education Minister M.A. Baby has said. He was delivering the inaugural address at the State School IT Fest at Technopark here on Saturday.

This money will be utilised to provide necessary software, hardware and IT-related infrastructure in the schools. Banking on the steps taken so far to promote IT learning in the State, the thrust of the government will now be on promoting IT-enabled learning.

The government is committed to upgrading IT-related infrastructure of the schools in the State, Mr. Baby said.

Revolutionary measures

The commissioning of a dedicated education channel in the Edusat and the setting up of broadband facility in the State’s high schools are revolutionary measures in the field of general education.

The Education Department is considering how best it can use the phenomenon of convergence in the IT sector to aid the education sector in the State, the Minister said.

More than 40,000 computers have been installed in 2,800 plus schools. More than 60,000 teachers have been IT-trained and 16 lakh students were being trained in free software.

In fact, the State is already a leader in IT-enabled learning, Mr. Baby said. Such initiatives would also help fulfil the vision of Kerala’s first education minister Joseph Mundasserry, he added.

Instalments

IT@School Executive Director Anvar Sadath later told The Hindu that the Ministry of Human Resource Development will provide the 50.8 crore in five instalments of 10.16 crore.

“We have asked schools to generate individual utilisation plans. Once we get these plans we will go ahead with the scheme. Each school will get Rs.5 lakh under this scheme,” he explained.

This grant has been sanctioned on the basis of a project submitted by the State government, he added.

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