Tech plans: State human resource development department at the secretariat. Telegraph picture

Patna, Oct. 7: The state government’s ambitious plan to map 74,000 elementary schools, including primary and middle institutions, for bolstering education will be completed by the end of this year.

As part of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, the state human resource development department had started mapping all elementary schools around a year back using the geographic information system (GIS) to bolster education by making best use of school infrastructure and to facilitate planning and development.

Anjani Kumar Singh, the principal secretary of human resource development department, told The Telegraph: “We are hopeful that by the end of this year, all 74,000 elementary schools would be mapped.”

According to sources, once the mapping is complete, it will be easy for the human resource development department to execute projects for schools.

Information regarding a school’s distance from the nearest block, district headquarters and capital would be available with the department. Moreover, data about the number of students and the teachers would also be available.

Photographs of infrastructure such as classrooms, playground, drinking water facility, school compound, toilets and others will be incorporated in the project, which would be updated every year and used for future planning.

Singh said if the data relating to students, attendance, dropout rate and other aspects were made available, the department would have knowledge of all the school activities.

Singh added that the central government has sanctioned funds for construction of 7,66,693 classrooms under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.

In the past five years, the department has constructed around one lakh classrooms, but there is a need to construct more.

“With the construction of 76,000 classrooms within a year, the problem will be lessened to some extent,” said Singh.

Similarly, construction of 15,000 toilets for girls would also be completed by this year.

Moreover, within an radius of 3km, where there are no high schools, secondary schools would be upgraded to higher secondary schools.

Singh said: “As part of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, we have a target to upgrade 20,182 schools. Till now, we have upgraded 18,410 primary schools to middle schools and the remaining schools would be upgraded within this year.”

The human resource development department would give special attention on Samjho Sikho campaign that was inaugurated by chief minister Nitish Kumar for improving quality of education in the state on September 5.

Nitish, in his letter, had mentioned that it should be a collective responsibility of teachers, students and parents to ensure quality education and it cannot be achieved in a day.