Saharanpur: Chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Wednesday launched the second phase of the School Chalo Abhiyan from an Upper Primary School in Saharanpur and urged parents to ensure their children attend school.“Good education alone makes civilised, cultured citizens and shows the right path. Only through good education will good social workers, teachers, principals, public representatives, officers, entrepreneurs, engineers, doctors, judicial officers, etc, emerge,” the CM said.Reflecting on the start of the School Chalo Abhiyan, which started in UP in 2017, Yogi said BJP govt’s clean intentions and its resolve to take education to every child were reflected in its work.“In 2017, only 36% of schools in the Basic Education Council were considered fully saturated. At that time, there was no proper arrangement of toilets, drinking water, furniture, library, light, mid-day meal, etc. Our govt implemented Operation Kayakalp to change the situation,” he said.The CM further said, “We decided that in every school, separate toilets for boys and girls, drinking water, and daily food in the mid-day meal would be fixed. Smart class, digital library, uniforms, bag, books, etc, for every child from govt will be provided. The ratio of students and teachers will be corrected. Over the next five years, saturation increased to 96%.”He added that in 9 years, over 60 lakh children increased in the Basic Education Council and the dropout rate decreased from 19-20% to 3-4%.Yogi also appealed to citizens to help in meeting the objectives of the campaign, pointing out that it was not just the responsibility of families with children to educate them but was of every section of society to ensure that no child remains deprived of education.He called it one’s social responsibility and national duty to ensure that every child attends school.Addressing teachers, the CM said they would need to work very hard over the next 15 days for the successful implementation of the programme.“Teachers must visit all gram panchayats and wards, meet every family and engage in healthy competition with other schools to attract more children,” he said while proposing that a new method of teaching be developed in which the children are taught through poems, songs, idioms and proverbs.The CM listed out various initiatives taken by govt for children, which included distribution of tablets to teachers, opening of smart classes, etc.“Over 1.5 lakh divyang children in the Basic Education Council were given assistive devices. Last year, more than 13,000 severely disabled children were provided an escort allowance of Rs 6,000 per year, and over 23,000 divyang girls were provided a stipend of Rs 2,000 per year,” he said.Through the Learning by Doing programme, skill-based education is being imparted to children at the elementary level itself, he added.The CM said the honorarium of Shiksha Mitras has increased from Rs 10,000 to Rs 18,000 while the honorarium of instructors went up from Rs 9,000 per month to Rs 17,000. “Govt also recently announced the facility of cashless treatment worth Rs 5 lakh annually for every Shiksha Mitra, teacher, principal, cook and instructor,” he said.
