Govt middle schools get Rs1.41 cr for repair of computers
Balwant Garg
Tribune News Service
Faridkot, December 26
As a large number of computers provided by the Punjab Information and Communication Technology Education Society (PICTES) have been lying defunct in government schools for a long time, the Education Department on Wednesday released a grant of over Rs1.41 crore for providing the Internet facility and maintaining these devices. These were provided to impart computer education to the students of Classes VI to XII in the state.
The grant was released to all government middle schools in the state.
Lack of adequate funds for maintaining the computers and paying the Internet bills, all government high and senior secondary schools are spending money from the amalgamated funds, which are collected from students. But, as amalgamated funds are not collected in primary and middle schools, a large number of computers in these schools are lying defunct.
Many high and senior secondary schools are also facing a problem in arranging money from the amalgamated funds. Therefore, these schools had also approached the Education Department for the funds to keep the computers operational. In July 2019, all these schools had received Rs22.24 lakh to pay the Internet bills.
The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in schools was launched in December 2004 and was revised in 2010 to provide opportunities to students to strengthen ICT skills and learn through a computer-aided learning process.
The ICT in schools is a component of the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA). Under RMSA, the Union Government provides financial support to states to establish computer labs in schools on a sustainable basis.
Besides the non-functional Internet, a majority of these labs have computers, which are lying defunct due to lack of maintenance.
The hardware for these computers was procured from M/s HCL Infosystems Ltd. and the software provider was M/s Microsoft. The three-year contract for any minor and major defect with HCL Infosystems Ltd had expired in September 2016.
At present, the hardware installed in these computers is being maintained by the respective schools itself. But most of the computers in the schools have been lying defunct due to lack of funds.
