Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE) of the general education department said it had created 22,402 smart classrooms at state-run schools in a month. The project took off on January 22 with the distribution of information and communication technology (ICT) equipment under the ambitious programme to schools that have satisfactorily completed the preparatory works.
“We have made all arrangements for converting 11,000 more classrooms into hi-tech in Phase II this month. With this, there’ll be 33,000 smart classrooms,” K. Anvar Sadath, who heads the project told DC. “Under the programme, all classrooms in 1,564 schools have been equipped with a laptop, ceiling-mounted multimedia projector, projection screen, painted wall and sound system along with broadband connectivity and access to Samagra resource portal.”
In addition to these, more than half of the total classrooms in 1,079 schools have been provided with hi-tech facilities. The KITE would also be providing schools Rs 1,000 towards the installation of ceiling mount kit for projectors and Rs 1,500 for painting classroom wall for projection instead of a projector screen. “The deployment of the ICT equipment has been undertaken through a dedicated online monitoring mechanism through our regional offices in each of the 14 districts,” he said.
Last year, KITE completed the pilot project covering 1,264 classrooms at 139 schools. Malappuram, the state’s largest district, also tops with 2,819 classrooms, followed by Kozhikode (2,502) and Ernakulam (2,085) in Phase I. Some schools have requested for extension of time for completing the preparatory works, and their classes would also be made hi-tech by May. This process would ensure that all classrooms from Standard VIII to XII in all government and government-aided high schools, higher secondary schools and vocational higher secondary schools went hi-tech before the start of the next academic year, scaling new heights in ICT-enabled education.
KITE has also developed Samagra with numerous syllabus-based educational contents for these classrooms. The general education department has already planned to provide specific training for teachers on using the resource portal during the annual vacation. The government has already allocated Rs 300 crore in its annual budget for extending the project to 11,000 primary and upper primary schools covering Std 1 to VII. IT@school’ project of the Kerala government was incorporated as KITE in August 2017 as a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to avail the funding from the Kerala Infrastructure and Investment Fund Board (KIIFB) for the project.
