Shergad: As many as 27 smart high schools have been inaugurated by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in Shergad block of Ganjam district in five phases. Students in these schools will be taught through digital mode.
But management of the smart classes has now come into question as there are no information technology teachers to look after the functioning of the smart classes.
According to reports, each school should have an IT teacher to facilitate digital classes. But IT teachers have not been appointed in these schools till date.
The issue has become a cause of concern for the school authorities and the education committees. For the last 10 days, classes are being somehow managed.
Teachers with working knowledge of computers are running the systems. There is a need for trained teachers to look after the smart and digitized classrooms.
A few years ago, computer teachers had been engaged in some schools through a contractual agency to impart computer education. But those teachers were later disengaged.
Computers worth lakhs of rupees are gathering dust in closed rooms.
Headmasters of some schools on condition of anonymity observed that the schools had been transformed digitally, but there is a need for trained IT teachers to manage the systems.
Some headmasters did not express their opinion on the issue even though they have been facing hiccups in running the smart classrooms. It is said that the school managing committees should take up the issue of IT teachers with the government.
Some said, if IT teachers are not appointed in these schools, managing the smart classroom will be too difficult.
Local guardians of Dhinkishala, Kulagad, Narendrapur, Pital, Baramundali, Bandharuguda, Karadakana and Kumarpani villages demanded the government take immediate step to appoint IT teachers to run the smart classrooms so that children can benefit.
Block education officer, Bhaskar Lenka, said the government has been carrying out the appointment process to fill up the teacher posts. The smart classrooms will be run successfully, he asserted.
PNN