Uttarakhand became the first State in the country to start virtual classes for the students of Government-run schools on Saturday when Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat inaugurated an ambitious programme of virtual classes in 500 schools.

The process of linking students of 150 schools across the State is complete and the department is claiming that remaining 350 schools would get connected within next 15 days.

Inaugurating these classes at Rajiv Gandhi Navodyaya Vidhyalaya, CM Rawat said that the proposal was pending from the year 2010-11 but indecisiveness ensured that lakhs of students remained deprived of it. He said that the Uttarakhand Government has now taken the decision which would help 1.90 lakh students. CM said that apart from academics, these classes would help in career counselling, preparation for competitive examinations and other related works. He added that technology cannot replace a teacher but it would be beneficial where teachers are not there. The teachers would also be trained for these classes. The multi-dimensional development of students would also take place with the help these classes, he said.

Speaking on the occasion, the Education Minister Arvind Pandey said that the facility of virtual classes would be helpful in providing high quality education, especially in the mountainous areas. He added that the State Government is committed to improving the quality of education.

Elaborating about the project, the education secretary, R Meenakshi Sundaram, said that 500 schools of the State are being linked by two-way seamless interconnectivity by use of satellite interactive terminus (SIT) and Receive Only Terminal (RIT) technology with the help of four central studios. He claimed that the technique employed in Uttarakhand is the latest one and the classes of classes VI to XII would be operated by the subject specialists.

The virtual classes would start in 52 schools of Almora, 10 of Bageshwar, 45 schools of Chamoli, 15 schools of Champawat and 46 schools of Dehradun. Similarly, 10 schools of Haridwar, 61 schools of Nainital, 82 schools of Pauri, 40 schools of Pithoragarh, 21 schools of Rudraprayag and 52 schools of Tehri would have this facility.

On this occasion, the CM also interacted with the students of different schools by the help of virtual classes.