Fund crunch hurdle in providing free computer edu: Bhardwaj

Tribune News Service

Shimla, August 22

Education Minister Suresh Bhardwaj today said the state government was keen to provide free computer education in all the 10,000 medium, high and senior secondary schools but paucity of resources and funds was proving to be a major constraint.

The issue of providing free computer education in all government schools from junior classes was raised by Col Inder Singh through a motion. “In today’s age, poor or no knowledge of computers proves to be a major handicap for students. This places students from government schools at a clear disadvantage,” he remarked. He demanded that this shortcoming must be removed by providing IT education from class six onwards.

Participating in the debate, CLP leader Mukesh Agnihotri said computer education must be provided to all students in government schools. He lamented the delay in providing laptops to meritorious students and also the scholarship scam. “Political will must be shown as the purchase of laptops had been delayed inordinately for reasons best know to government,” he said.

Rajinder Garg, Surinder Shourie and Inder S Gandhi also stressed the importance and need for providing computer education in all schools as this was pushing students towards private schools.

In his reply, Bhardwaj stated that presently 1,109 computer trainers had been appointed in senior secondary schools and students from class IX to XII were being given IT education on charges of Rs 110 per month. “We are keen to provide IT education in all 18,000 government schools but owing to resources crunch, this was not possible.