Tripura govt to give laptops to school teachers

Tripura government has decided to distribute laptops to 800 school teachers to assess the level of students development in different disciplines.

State Education Minister Ratan Lal Nath told reporters that the government has sanctioned Rs 28 crore for -Notun Disha (new direction) - a new one-month project to provide training to teachers.

Eight hundred teachers would be selected for the training, and selected NGOs, societies or educational institutions would provide them training.

In February, the state government held a Baseline Survey to asses the educational status of students between 3rd and 8th standard in government schools.

"Different national surveys have shown that a section of students cant do simple addition, subtraction, division etc, neither can they read out from their textbooks.

"I am sure nobody is happy with this state of affairs of education.

"Our government is committed to develop an academic system in the state by changing this situation," a public notification issued by the Department of School Education said on February 23.

"The survey report has revealed that 60 percent students, which amounts to 51,599, in the 5th standard, cant read Bengali language textbook from the 2nd standard. 46 percent of the surveyed students cant do subtraction and 81 percent students dont know how to solve division problems.

"In the 8th standard, 36 percent students failed to read Bengali textbooks from 2nd standard. 800 students from the 8th standard couldnt recognize 11 in digits, the education minister said.

'Notun Disha' is aimed at making the students efficient and capable in all subjects from the 3rd to 8th standard, Nath said.

The BJP-IPFT government, which came to power about a year ago in Tripura, is committed to improve the standard of education in the state.