Education Minister Rohit Thakur said that the state government would collaborate with UNESCO to strengthen quality, equitable, and inclusive education for every child in the state. He said that the state government would soon sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with UNESCO by exploring potential areas of collaboration to further reform the education system up to a higher level. He was chairing a meeting with a delegation from UNESCO here today.
The Minister said that education had always been a top priority for this hilly state, which was quite evident from the fact that today the literacy rate of the state stands more than 83 percent which was merely 7 percent at the time of attaining the statehood status in 1971. Although, it had been witnessed that the quality of education had declined to some extent in the past few years, the present state government had taken major reformative measures to improve the education quality, which had started showing encouraging results, as was also evident in the recent national report. The government had allocated around 20 percent of its total budget for the education sector alone, which clearly shows its commitment to bringing qualitative changes in this vital sector.
“The vision of the state government is to provide quality education to the children studying in government schools in rural areas. For this purpose, the state government is opening Rajiv Gandhi Day-Boarding Schools in a phased manner in every Assembly constituency, where all the modern facilities will be available under one roof, so that students could face the challenges of life with confidence. I am personally looking after the construction of these schools,” said the Education Minister.
He said that the state had the highest learning levels, and the educational reforms were being made as per the present demand. He expressed hope that the long-term partnership with UNESCO would further strengthen these endeavors.
Secretary, Education Rakesh Kanwar stressed that instead of picking up a single individual teacher from different educational institutions, the entire teaching staff and administration of a particular institute should be imparted training so that they together work as a team and could bring better results. He said Himachal Pradesh had good infrastructural facilities, a high enrollment rate, and there was also no gender gap at the elementary level. Besides, the state had universal reach, a good ecosystem in the educational institutions, and the vocational and technical education-based courses were also being run successfully across the state. In the past two years, the state government has undertaken a major exercise on consolidation of schools, he added.
Programme Specialist and Chief of Education, Joyce Poan said UNESCO was the leader in imparting training in the education sector and was looking forward to partnering with the state government for a period of five years to train the teachers in a phased manner. She said that besides sharing experiences, exchange programs would be undertaken up to the block level to improve the education quality.
Special Project Director, Samagra Shiksha Rajesh Sharma, presented the overview of education in the state and said that with the assistance of UNESCO, the state was looking forward to transforming the schools into hubs of innovation, sustainability, and excellence.
