Govt primary and upper primary schools: Varanasi arms all 1,143 schools with smart classrooms, tops U.P.

All 1,143 government primary and upper primary schools in Varanasi district have been equipped with Smart classrooms, providing a technologically advanced and interactive learning environment to students.

In terms of equipping the government schools with smart classrooms, Varanasi district tops Uttar Pradesh, said chief development officer Himanshu Nagpal, and added that this work was done with the help of gram panchayats and CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility).

“Smart classrooms have helped improve attendance of students from 40% to over 75% in schools and have also resulted in a notable enhancement in the quality of education and student performance, making Varanasi a model,” added Nagpal.

The programme to arm all government schools with smart classrooms began around two years ago and was completed over a month ago, said Nagpal, who monitored implementation of the smart classes programme.

Teachers have also been imparted training on how to teach using smart classrooms, said Nagpal.

Sanjay Gupta, assistant teacher at government primary school, Jamapur, is also happy with the smart classrooms at his school.

“It is a matter of great joy for teachers like me to have smart classrooms in our school. In fact, it was needed for a long time. Children take keen interest in learning in smart classrooms since it makes learning interesting. Audio-visual lessons to make children learn letters and numbers in an interesting manner are there,” said Gupta and added that the smart classes added joy and curiosity with learning.

“The smart LED installed in a classroom, functions as a digital board, a computer and as an audi-visual video player. It is connected with a high power inverter. For teaching arithmetic, we use this LED as a digital board, whereas for English teaching, audiovisual lessons are played on it for the students,” said Gupta.

Audiovisual lessons are available on almost every subject. These lessons are played on LED in the smart classroom, children watch and learn. We also explain to them, adds Gupta.

For instance, to tell children about historical places, an audio-visual lesson is played on the LED. It gives information about five or 10 historical places with introduction about them in brief, said Gupta and added that the children learn moral stories, numbers, and letters quickly in the smart classroom.

Assistant teacher Arvind Verma says that the attendance of students has increased tremendously because the smart classrooms is a new thing and generate interest among them for learning. This initiative has yielded very good results.