Gearing up for the brand new educational yr, officers on the helm of the School Education Department are immersed in setting up instruments that may facilitate technology-induced classroom educating.

After distributing tabs to the scholars and equipping the lecture rooms with Interactive Flat Panels (IFPs) and sensible TVs, the problem is to make lecturers adept at dealing with the brand new applied sciences.

While the A.P. State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) is making ready the bottom for induction coaching to 4,000-odd new batch of lecturers appointed from the DSC batches in May and June when faculties will stay closed for summer time holidays, the upper officers within the division are in talks with the Indian Institute of Management, Visakhapatnam, to coach lecturers on use of IFPs and BYJU’s content material.

“The services of IIM-V are being sought as the institute has the domain knowledge in technology-induced training programmes,” says an official of the division.

CBSE syllabus

The new educational yr additionally assumes significance because the affiliation of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) given to the scholars of Class VIII in 1,000 authorities faculties final yr might be prolonged to Class IX this yr, and to Class X within the educational yr 2024-25.

“Earlier, the State had only 347 schools following the CBSE syllabus, 296 private schools, 35 Kendriya Vidyalayas and 16 Jawahar Navodaya institutions. With the government making the shift from State to the Central syllabus in 1,000 schools in the first phase, the total number of schools following the CBSE syllabus in the State has gone up to 1,349,” says Principal Secretary, School Education, Praveen Prakash.

Focus areas

At the behest of Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, who’s eager on altering the face of the faculties within the authorities sector by scaling up services and equipping lecturers with enough coaching, the division is focussed on the flagship programmed launched by the federal government.

The Chief Minister, in a evaluate assembly with the division officers scheduled on April 10, might ask the officers to furnish detailed details about the progress achieved in key areas, together with implementation of the schemes corresponding to Jagananna Vidya Kanuka, in view of the approaching new educational yr, availability of topic lecturers in pre-high faculties and Foundation and Foundation Plus faculties, motion plan for procurement of IFPs and sensible TVs, use and upkeep of tabs given to the scholars and coaching of lecturers in using new know-how.

Monitoring of educational efficiency of scholars, conduct of the Class 10 and Intermediate examinations, gross enrolment ration (GER) of upper schooling and high quality and tempo of works taken up below Mana Badi Nadu-Nedu are different points that might be mentioned threadbare.