In a bold move, Maharashtra Governor Ramesh Bais on Tuesday called upon the education authorities to consider changing the timings of schools which can enable the students to get sufficient sleep.
The Governor said that in recent times, everybody’s sleep patterns have changed, especially kids, who sleep only after midnight, but must wake up early to go to school, thus losing on their minimum ‘sleep quota’.
Against this backdrop, he called upon the schools and education authorities to look into this aspect, besides promoting ‘book-less’ schools, ‘e-classes’, and ranking schools according to their quality to lighten the load of education on the student community.
The Governor was speaking at the launch of various initiatives of the School Education Department at Raj Bhavan, in the presence of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, Ministers Deepak Kesarkar, Mangal Prabhat Lodha and Girish Mahajan, besides Principal Secretary Education Ranjit Singh Deol and other dignitaries.
The Governor and the CM jointly launched the initiatives like ‘My School, Beautiful School’, ‘Story-telling Saturday’, ‘Enjoyable Reading’, ‘Adopt School Activity’, ‘My School, My Backyard’, and ‘Cleanliness Monitor’, while inaugurating new school buildings run by Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.
The Governor also rued that there are hundreds of public libraries in the state, but most have dried up, the books are old or outdated, and hence they all need to be revived and transformed by providing computers and Internet on the premises, by launching a ‘library adoption scheme’.
This was necessary as students acquire their knowledge not only through books but also through the Internet, social media and other sources which help improve their IQ levels, and hence “teachers must also remain updated in academic matters,” urged Bais.
He called for making education more enjoyable for the students with “less academic homework” and “emphasis on sports and creative activities” for all-round development of the students.
Speaking on the occasion, the CM said that if there are no temples, mosques or churches in the villages, it doesn’t matter, but “we need ideal schools for the people in the remote areas”, and priority to health and education.
He called for establishing ideal schools in every corner of the state and said even billionaire industrialist Mukesh Ambani is prepared to invest for improving the schools’ infrastructure in Maharashtra.
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