Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Jun 2:

Odisha Government plans to extend the open school programme, which started last year, to all 314 blocks of the state by the end of this year, School and Mass Education Minister Debi Prasad Mishra said today.

Debi Prasad Mishra

Speaking to reporters after Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik reviewed the performance of his department in the Secretariat today, Mishra said that these schools will offer schooling to dropouts and aged candidate who could not complete Class-X level education.

Explaining the key achievements of his department, he further added that the government has managed to make 100 model schools functional in the 2016 academic year. It plans to set up another 100 schools in 2017-18 and 114 more in 2018-19 to ensure availability of model schools in each and every block of the state.

The Department plans to offer vocational education in 284 high schools as well.

The School and Mass Education (SME) department has appointed 9354 teaching assistants and 3669 contract teachers to improve the student teacher ratio in the state. Besides, it has started offering primary education 21 tribal languages in 17 tribal dominated districts and 3400 teachers have been appointed for the same, said a press release issued by the Chief Minister’s office after the review meeting.

Further, the government has distributed 4.8 lakh bicycles to Class-X students so far and the scheme has been extended to Class-IX students to tackle dropout rate in the state, the release added.

The Chief Minister asked the officials to lay focus on infrastructure development and training of the teachers in the meeting.