100 more rural schools that follow int'l board planned

Mumbai: The thirteen government schools in rural Maharashtra that are following the Maharashtra International Education Board (MIEB) curriculum, which are referred to as Ojas schools, will have 100 more counterparts, or Tejas schools.

“The thirteen schools were started as a pilot project, but looking at the way it has turned out, a decision has been initiated to taking it forward. The upcoming 100 schools can look up to Ojas schools as their mentor and run their activities accordingly,” Prachi Sathe, an officer on special duty for the state government, told this newspaper. The staff of Ojas schools comprises eighty teachers in total.

Starting this month, applications for 100 schools that are interested in the initiative will be invited. The medium of instruction will be in regional languages such as Marathi, Gujarati and Urdu, and the institutes can be run only from the balwadi level to Class 3 initially.  Later, they can include higher grades over time.

Both Ojas and Tejas schools, as per the MIEB, should be run in vernacular mediums or the language that students from those sections are most familiar with. “As students go to higher classes, they can have English subjects or English talking/learning patterns but when they are in primary section, everything will be in their mother tongue,” Ms Sathe said. However, one per cent out of all these schools will be reserved for English medium.

The 100 schools that are interested in becoming a part of the Tejas project, should be at the zila parishad level, under municipal corporation body or any government-aided school.

Moreover, the state government has even signed a MoU with the American company Google to provide technology and innovations to the children.