Question : COMPUTER EDUCATION

(a) whether the Government is promoting computer education in the schools;

(b) if so, the details of the steps taken by the Government in this regard along with their outcome and the present scenario of computer education being imparted to students in the schools;

(c) whether a majority of school children in the country do not have access to computers and specialist teachers for computer education;

(d) if so, the details thereof along with the student-computer ratio and student-specialist teacher ratio in the schools across the country during the last three years, State-wise and year-wise; and

(e) the corrective measures being taken by the Government in this regard?

MINISTER OF THE STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT (DR. D. PURANDESWARI)

(a) Yes, Sir.

(b) Sarva Siksha Abhyan provides financial support amounting to Rs. 50 lakhs per District per year for Computer Aided Learning (CAL) under the Innovation head. The focus of CAL is to maximize coverage in Upper Primary School (UPS) with special emphasis on Science and Mathematics. Procurement of hardware, software, training, maintenance and resource support if required could inter alia be included in this component. Regular school teachers are provided training and support to implement the programme. So far 80,307 Upper Primary Schools have been covered under CAL up to 2011-12. The Centrally Sponsored Scheme of “Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Schools” was launched in December 2004, and revised in 2010, to promote computer enabled learning and usage of ICT in teaching in Government and Government aided Secondary and Higher Secondary Schools with emphasis on educationally backward blocks and areas with concentration of SC/ST/Minority/weaker Sections. The grant of Rs. 6.4 lakh (non-recurring) and Rs. 2.7 lakh (recurring) per school is given under the scheme which is shared between Centre and State in the ratio of 75:25 except for North East States where it is 90:10

The Scheme also has provision of establishing 150 Smart Schools in the Districts by conversion of one of the existing State Government schools, to serve as role model and to share the infrastructure and resources with the neighbourhood schools also. The grant of Rs. 25 lakh (non-recurring) and Rs. 2.5 lakh (recurring) per smart school is given under the scheme which is shared between Centre and State in the ratio of 75:25 except for North East States including Sikkim where it is 90:10.

(c) to (e) The State-wise list of number of schools covered under CAL for the last three years (2009-10 to 2011-12) may be seen at Annexure I. 94,752 Government and Government-aided Secondary and Higher Secondary schools with 1.78 crore students have been approved for coverage including provision of 10 PCs with other accessories per school for normal schools and 40 PCs with other accessories per school for Smart Schools. The Scheme has provision for a dedicated Computer Teacher and also, in addition, provide for Pre-service and In-service (Induction and Refresher) Training to teachers for computer enabled teaching in Schools. The State- wise list of number of schools approved including Smart Schools for the last three years (2009-10 to 2011-12) may be seen at Annexure II.