Smriti Irani launches 'Vidyanjali' to involve volunteers into co-scholastic activities of schools

Inspired from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision to inculcate reading habits among children and create a reading culture at school and community level, Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Smriti Zubin Irani today dedicated 'Vidyanjali'- a school volunteer programme to the nation.

In her inaugural address, Irani said that Vidyanjali is a step forward in creating an ecosystem, wherein education will be attached with imbibing knowledge and improving learning output.

The Union Minister added there is an ingrained sense of participation and willingness within the people of this country to contribute towards nation building.

"We are hoping to leverage the same through this programme. Numerous researches have reflected that community engagement with schools has led to improvement in the quality of learning and education. This programme will instil fresh enthusiasm in school children to take up reading and will re-energise the teaching-learning process at schools," she said.

She also emphasised upon the significance of providing timely remedial support to improve the learning outcomes of school children, thereby reducing the number of school drop outs

The programme is designed to involve volunteers from different walks of life to strengthen the co-scholastic activities in government schools.

Vidyanjali, which is being implemented under the overall aegis of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, will enhance the community involvement in government run elementary schools and effectively engage children in reading, creative writing, public speaking, play acting, preparing story books etc.

Giving a nod to their ideas, the Minister assured to widen the scope of Vidyanjali to include performing arts and life skills. She also urged the MyGov team to create a module under Vidyanjali wherein NRI community or others, who want to contribute by providing additional teaching-learning aids like books etc. and other resources, can do so in conjunction with state and district administration.

The programme is unique in that it gives the freedom to the volunteers to design their activities in consultation with the school.

The programme will be open for participation by all Indian citizens including retired Professionals, retired government officials, working professionals and homemakers; and also persons from the Indian Diaspora.

The programme will be piloted across 21 states which committed to do so in the conference of state ministers of Education held on February 8.

These states are Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Goa, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Telangana, Tripura, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh.