Government of Madhya Pradesh will spruce up it’s education facilities in colleges with an approximate financial assistance of Rs 3,000 crore from the World Bank, which it had approved in the year 2015. The classrooms of more than 200 colleges will be smarter rather than conventional through more investment in cult-edge technology driven tools.

According to a well-placed official, the project will render benefit to nearly 3.6 million students, 10,800 academic staff, 1,400 administrators and officers in these Government colleges and universities. Under the project named as ‘Quality Improvement of Higher Education’, the department has decided to make education job-oriented so that students may become more employable in any industry.

Talking to ‘The Hitavada’, Deepak Singh, Commissioner, Higher Education, said “State has taken administrative approval for establishing smart classrooms in 225 colleges under MPHEQIP (Madhya Pradesh Higher Education Quality Improvement Project) not under the RUSA.”

The RUSA (Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS) which was launched in 2013 to provide strategic funding to eligible state higher educational institutions.” “We want to make our education system especially higher education more job oriented,” Singh said.

Initially it was decided to improve teaching technique of 200 colleges but now more premises will come under this project. For the project, World Bank had approved a grant of 300 million US Dollar (Rs 2,000 crore) in 2015. State Government will chip in 40 per cent to the total investment of the project. After a prolong period of five years, including almost three-years stagnation due to COVID-19 pandemic, the project is now coming out of the drawing board. Academicians in town also believe that if classrooms in colleges become smarter through audio-visual medium or any other hi-tech, cult-edge technology driven devices, they will have more space for gathering employable skills. The students will be able to save time as they will have better understanding of certain subjects that requires explanation through drawing board. In fact the project envisages development of centres of excellence in select colleges and university departments. Under the project the Government will provide scholarships, upgrade faculty skills and extend technical assistance to get accreditation from National Assessment and Accreditation Council.