The Centre will soon roll out a scheme to provide digital board for Class IX to XII of all government schools. “We will provide the digital board to government schools for classes IX and above. As many as 15-lakh classrooms will get digital boards soon,” HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar said.
The scheme will be implemented under the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan, an umbrella scheme rolled out recently to implement Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan and Teacher Education programmes together.
To provide blackboards to schools, the Centre had launched ‘Operation Black Board’ in 1987 under the Rajiv Gandhi regime.
“We launched operation blackboard because schools did not have blackboards. Now, we are going to launch ‘operation digital board’ soon,” Javadekar said.
Installation of digital boards with ICT (information communication technology) will help improve the quality of school education, he said.
Official sources in the ministry said the budgetary provisions for the procurement and installation of digital boards “is being worked out.”
Since the cost of digital boards is “very high,” the government is planning to reach out to the India Inc for contributions under the corporate social responsibility (CSR).
Flipped classroom
Installation of digital boards will allow schools to adopt “flipped classroom model” of teaching and learning A flipped classroom is a pedagogical model in which short video lectures are viewed by students at home before they attend their classes.
Much of the class’ time is dedicated to various exercises, projects and discussions pertaining to the topic to be taught.
