ITANAGAR, Jun 22: Chief Minister Pema Khandu today in a high-level meeting with Education Minister Taba Tedir, Chief Secretary, Commissioner to CM, Secretary Education and other officials of the Education Department approved Mission Shiksha, the ambitious plan of the state government that envisages to overhaul the education system of Arunachal Pradesh completely.

Currently in a conceptual stage, through technological interventions Mission Shiksha aims to revamp the infrastructure of the state’s schools along with bringing radical changes in other important aspects like evaluation process, promotion, motivation and transfer and posting of teachers. With a vision to provide good quality education to students in an improved educational environment, the plan’s larger aim is to improve Arunachal’s position in GoI’s Performance Grading Index (PGI) which is amongst the lowest in the country currently.

As a first step, Khandu suggested identification of one school with high enrollment in each assembly constituency and completely overhauling it with technological and digital interventions. “After identification of such schools by the District Administrations in all the 60 ACs, a technical team from the Education Department will physically inspect and assess these schools and recommend the required interventions,” he said, suggesting further that the entire state be divided into three zones – East, West and Central, each to be assigned to an independent agency to study, frame parameters and evaluate the performance of teachers as well as students as per the PGI. He directed the Education department to submit a detailed plan for implementation of the mission in the next meeting.

As a road map for rejuvenating the state’s education scenario, Mission Shiksha focuses on early childhood care and education, live classes through a two-way system using VSATs, construction of teachers quarters, closing down of zero enrollment schools (so far 372 such schools have been closed down), stress on high-enrollment schools, evaluation of teachers-students performance, one-to-one yearly training of teachers, strengthening of DIETs and SCERTs etc. 

It also envisages to introduce a digital-centric  system for transfer and posting of teachers through software, which is in the making and supposed to be ready within the next few months. CMO