By our correspondent
Agartala, Jan 02, 2019: The Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister – in separate programmes – inaugurated two important events relating to school students today in Agartala. In both the events, democratization of education for the benefit of rural students and providing modern education in the line of Indian cultural values were emphasized.
Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb inaugurated 46th State level Science, Mathematics and Environment exhibition today. Total 160 students representing schools of all the eight districts of the State participated in the exhibition with different science models.
In another programme, for the first time, an edu-app for Bengali medium students of Class IX and X was launched by Deputy Chief Minister Jishnu Dev Varman in presence of secretary of Agartala RK Mission Hitakamananda Maharaj and Tripura Board of Secondary Education (TBSE) Dr Bhabotosh Saha.
Students have demonstrated their ideas relating to ‘Science for solving challenges’ in the science fair while, the edu-app provides an avenue to empower the Bengali medium students with emphasis on rural areas.
While the Science exhibition provided the students a platform to display their innovative activities and ideas, edu-app opens a new horizon for Bengali medium students – especially students of rural areas where availability of teachers is a major problem. The app is useful for kokbarok speaking students as the app is available in Kokbarok language too.
Inaugurating the Science exhibition, Biplab Deb stressed on quality education for flourishing scientific ideas and creative attitude of the students. For quality education, Deb mentioned about State Government’s decision to introduce NCERT syllabus in schools.
“Of course, science fair and exhibition of Maths and environment give the student an invaluable opportunity to present their creativity and improve their knowledge on the subjects”, said one the guide teachers. Creating attractive and useful models for the benefit of larger section of the society improve confidence levels of the students.
However, boosting scientific ideas is a major task – particularly because lack of adequate qualified teachers. Rural students are the worst sufferers of shortage of teachers. In such a scenario, a group of young entrepreneurs – led by Amit and Diptanu – came up with an edu-app in Bengali and Kakborok languages – titled ‘aAHARAN’ for students of Class IX and X.
Inaugurating the app-launching programme, Swami Hitakamananda delivered a speech strongly pitching for mother-tongue based education system.
“Learning English is necessary for job market – and English can be learnt in Bengali medium schools also provided there is a good English teacher”, Maharaj said. Appreciating the initiative to utilize modern technology for the benefits of Bengali medium school students, he said, children will be able to understand and learn subjects easily if they co-relate topics with our culture.
“In English medium schools, topics relate to western culture which has no similarity with Indian cultural practices – as a result students do suffer”, Maharaj said.
Echoing the crux of Swamiji’s speech, Jishnu Dev Varman too appreciated the venture and said, education system should not discriminate.
“Education is not for creamy layer only, every child has the right to get educated – for this information dissemination to all students is important. And the app will be a boon for rural students as they will now be able to access quality education material without discrimination”, Varman said. He also stressed on modern education based on Indian – not the western – value system.
