Modi launches Mission Schools of Excellence in Gujarat

Conceived with an outlay of ₹10,000 crore, the Mission, partially funded by the World Bank, is aimed at strengthening the education infrastructure in the State

With a twin purpose of overhauling the education in government schools in Gujarat and tackling the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) attacks on the State government for poor quality of education, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday launched the ambitious ‘Mission Schools of Excellence’ project in Gandhinagar.

Conceived with an outlay of ₹10,000 crore, the Mission, partially funded by the World Bank, is aimed at strengthening the education infrastructure in the State through setting up of new classrooms, smart classrooms, computer labs and overall upgradation of infrastructure in schools.

Under its first phase, school infrastructure projects worth over ₹5,567 crore will be undertaken. The project will see setting up of 50,000 classrooms in addition to 1.5 lakh smart classrooms, 20,000 computer laboratories and 5,000 Atal Tinkering labs in government schools.

Wednesday’s was the second major event on education that the Prime Minister has attended this year in his home State ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections. AAP, the new political entrant in the State, has been attacking the State government over quality of government school infrastructure and education in the State.

Earlier, Mr. Modi had inaugurated a School Monitoring Centre in Gandhinagar and asked all States to set up such state-of-the-art centres that will help enhance quality of education in schools.

The launch of the project comes in the wake of AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal deploying his deputy Manish Sisodia to visit Gujarat and juxtapose the quality of education in government-run schools in the two States.

Mr. Sisodia, during his visits to a few government-run schools in rural areas in Saurashtra and south Gujarat, had live-streamed the poor quality of infrastructure in schools and lack of enough teachers. He had also invited the Gujarat Education Minister to visit schools in Delhi to see how smart classrooms function there.