Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said here on Wednesday that under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, revolutionary changes were taking place in the past six years for the holistic development of Uttar Pradesh.

He said that a lot had been done but there was scope for more in basic education.

The chief minister expressed these views at a programme organised at Lok Bhawan for the transfer of Rs 1,200 in the accounts of parents of students of basic schools for purchase of dress, sweater, school bag, shoes and socks.

Yogi said that in the last six years, nearly six crore people had got rid of poverty and had moved towards becoming capable.

“Steps have been taken in the state to bring about changes in the education sector and in the coming five to ten years even better results will be seen. We are getting results in a very positive direction currently and I would like to thank all the teachers who came forward and adopted these programmes and gave their leadership to bring about results that are here for everyone to see,” he said.

Yogi pointed out that there has been a vast change in the education sector of the aspirational districts of the state. “The figures released by the NITI Aayog shows that there have been a lot of changes and I would like to thank all the departments who made Prime Minister Modi’s vision their mission to achieve the targets,” he said.

The chief minister pointed out that before 2017, the children were scared to go to the basic education schools. “People were not enthusiastic about them but today one can see the increase in the number of students in these schools. Out of the six years, for three years we had to face the novel coronavirus period but in these six years 55-60 lakh children joined the school. Earlier, 1.34 crore children used to study in these schools but today the figure has crossed more than 1.91 crore and this figure should not only increase but the dropouts figures should also be checked because it often happens that children do not go to school after Class 5 or Class 8 and this is seen more in case of the girls as parents do not send the child to school. Just as they made the Kayakalp programme successful, teachers should take responsibility of bringing children to school,” he said

Pointing out that there was an arrangement for CSR activities earlier also, Yogi said that there were no takers because no one wanted to adopt the programme.

The chief minister said Rs 1,200 had been transferred into the bank accounts of the parents of the students and the teachers need to get the uniform prepared in a certain time limit after having a dialogue with the parents. “When a dialogue is established with the parents then solutions will come out,” he said.

He said that earlier there were a lot of complaints regarding students not getting uniforms, shoes, socks and books and also about the quality of the uniform items supplied. “At least today the parents can get the things as per the size and quality and there is no scope of corruption. The scheme will be monitored by principals and teachers and a dialogue will be established between the teachers and the parents through which we will get the correct figures of how many children are studying in the basic education schools. Similarly for the Kasturba Gandhi Schools, we are working on improving their infrastructure after increasing the classes to Class 12. This improvement would be a continuous exercise,” he said.

The chief minister said that before 2017, there was a great paucity of teachers in the basic education schools. He said 1.64 lakh teachers had been recruited in the last six years and this process was being continuously taken forward. “Very soon we will have an Education Commission and the processes are on for the same so that there is no gap anywhere. Apart from DIET and training of teachers programmes, we should have training courses for teachers teaching in schools so that they are always updated because when teachers are updated they will update the entire generation,” he said.

He said that their endeavour was that capable people should go into DIET and merit should be kept as a standard.

Yogi said that the strength of the children studying in the basic schools was more than the population of some of the countries. “It is our responsibility to check the dropouts and for this a dialogue is required with the parents,” he said.

He asked teachers to contact children who were absent from school and also visit the house of the child and guide the child. He said that if the children completed their studies they would do something positive in life.

He said that the teaching manual – ‘Learning by Doing’ – which was released during the programme should be read by every teacher. “It will take time but you will have to give time if you have chosen education as your career,” he said.

Speaking about the Anganwadi centres, the chief minister said, “We wanted to develop the Anganwadi centres but because of COVID-19 the programme could not move ahead in a timely manner but we need to take it forward. The Anganwadis give time to the children and also teach them and this creates a very positive feeling.”

The chief minister thanked everyone associated with Operation Kayakalp. “The same schools which had overgrown trees and grass have changed faces and are helping in the development of the children’s personality. There could be no better programmes than this in terms of CSR because we are strengthening our future generations with it,” he said.

He said to produce a feeling of positivity amongst the children they had to be connected with skill development. “The children can be taught drawing, clay sculpting, kitchen gardening, tree plantation which will create curiosity in their minds. Tell children how to make a garden and plant flowers rather than pluck them. If the teachers put effort into this, it will give great results. Apart from other programmes, local efforts should also be made,” he said.

He said that Operation Kayakalp 2 would be run for all the government colleges and aided government colleges and even Sanskrit schools would be covered under a qualitative work strategy.