Mira-Bhayandar: Going ahead with its strategy of involving private players for enhancing the quality of education, the Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC) launched internet-based virtual classrooms and digital libraries in 19 civic-run schools on the virtue of funds provided by the Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI).
High tech gadgets including- smart class digital panels, digitized libraries, computers and water purifiers were inaugurated in the presence of municipal commissioner- Sanjay Katkar and senior regional head of IDBI Bank-Devjani Mandal at school number eight in Ghodbunder village on occasion of the 76th Republic Day which was celebrated on Sunday.
The IDBI Bank has allocated funds amounting Rs 32 lakh to the civic administration under its CSR initiative aimed at providing a quality learning experience to municipal school students at par with their privately-run counterparts.
“Most of the students enrolled with municipal schools belong to the lower economic strata of the society. Enhancing the quality of education for them is amongst our top priorities. Additionally, our focus is also on providing them job opportunities under our employment@18 project. Corporate funding plays a significant role in such endeavours.” said Katkar.
At present, there are 36 municipal schools which impart education in Marathi, Urdu, Hindi, Gujarati and semi-English mode up to class X to around 9,250 students.
Notably, the MBMC has established an Innovative Cell (IC) which not only oversees the education system and specifies needed infrastructure/amenities but also puts efforts for roping in corporate firms to provide funds under their CSR initiatives.
This apart from launching a Centre of Excellence (CoE) unit to foster collaboration between the governance, non-governmental organisations (NGO’s) and other stakeholders to support, research and implement best practices for specific citizen friendly focus areas.
