Modi asks schools to fix targets up to 2022

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday called for each school in India to plan its own targets which it aims to achieve by 2022, the country's 75th year of independence.

Reviewing the progress of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, the government's flagship universal education programme at a high-level meeting here, Modi reiterated his suggestion for "Swachh Bharat - Swachh Vidyalaya" competitions among various schools, an official release said.

The prime minister asked officials to explore the possibility of a twinning arrangement between one class of a school in an urban area, and one class of a school in a rural area.

He said the best teaching practices should be identified, and a repository of the same created, for wider dissemination.

Modi said basic data for all school teachers, such as Aadhaar numbers, email IDs and mobile numbers should be maintained in a database.

He also reiterated his call for an aptitude test for all students and called for greater synergy between the Digital India initiative and related programmes of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.