Bengaluru: Corporates, NGOs invited to help government schools

Bengaluru: Primary and Secondary Education Minister Tanveer Sait on Wednesday said the government will ensure equity in education by encouraging philanthropists and agencies in the Pubic Private Partnership (PPP) sphere to improve the reach and quality of education provided in government schools.

The minister, along with Chief Secretary K. Ratna Prabha, launched the official portals of NammaShale.org, which aims to bridge NGOs and philanthropists to the education sector, and Student Achievement Tracking System, which records the academic details of each child in government schools. “Nammashale is a single-window clearance for NGOs to choose the partnering options available. Apart from developing infrastructure, the government is open to ideas on designing remedial classes, spoken English training, emphasis on science and math learning among others,” he said.

Ms Prabha said, “With corporates joining hands, we hope to improve the quality of our schools and teachers to be on par with their private counterparts in technological advancements, infrastructure development and safety measures.”

NammaShale has four primary modules for NGOs – child-friendly learning infrastructure, smart classes with digital technology, co-scholastic learning for holistic development and safety measures at schools. 

The government has established a Project Management Unit (PMU) with Thinkthrough Consulting, a sustainable development advisory firm, to facilitate the initiative. The PMU will function out of the Education Department at MS Building.

The School Adoption Programme will cover all the four modules. Over 50 NGOs signed up on Wednesday. Later, corporates and NGOs discussed with government officials ways to facilitate the initiative.

Teaching Kannada 
After a debate on languages taught at schools, Ms Prabha said, “A child should learn both English and Kannada. The more languages one knows, the better it is.” Mr Sait said that the state has always been “progressive” and has introduced English from Class 1 across schools. “The regional language too is now being made compulsory,” he said.    

Teacher is irreplaceable
Commissioner for Public Instruction P.C. Jaffer said, “We want teachers to continue their irreplaceable presence at schools, while technologies improve. Such advancements should help them improve their teaching methods, but never replace them,” he said

Personalised marks cards
The education department has assessed 36 lakh students studying in classes 4 to 9 over 20 days as part of the State Achievement Survey (SAS). “72 lakh OMR sheets were filled and scanned to generate customised pre-printed marks cards to identify students’ strengths and weaknesses,” said Mr Jaffer. Mr Sait distributed the marks cards to 11 students from the Government High School, Link Road, Seshadripuram.