New Delhi: The Delhi cabinet on Tuesday gave its nod to a proposal for setting up 18,996 smart boards in govt school classrooms. Announcing the decision, education minister Ashish Sood said another proposal to install 2,466 smart boards in 75 ‘CM Shri Schools’ was already at the tendering stage, while 18,996 boards would be set up in phases during the five-year term of govt.“The work to install 18,996 smart blackboards will be carried out in five phases. A teachers’ training module to teach using the blackboards has also been passed in the meeting,” Sood said. He added that the cabinet, chaired by chief minister Rekha Gupta, approved more than Rs 900 crore for the digital classroom initiative. Sood said the smart boards would initially be installed for classes IX to XII across the state-run schools in Delhi by 2029-30.The education minister said that only 799 smart blackboards were installed in Delhi govt schools between 2014 and 2024 from donations received from various organisations under the corporate social responsibility initiative. “You will be surprised to know that Delhi has a total of 37,778 classrooms in govt schools, yet between 2014 and 2024, only 799 of these were equipped with smart blackboards and even those came through CSR donations, not govt funding,” Sood said. He added that unlike past projects, which focused mostly on central and elite areas, the new reforms aimed to take digital learning to schools in under-served areas such as Najafgarh, Narela, Seemapuri, Mahavir Enclave and Kirari.The minister also dismissed the opposition’s criticism over budget allocations, saying that BJP govt did not cut the education budget but prioritised it. “Others posed in front of school buildings for photos, we are investing in classrooms and teachers,” Sood said. Highlighting the alignment of this initiative with the National Education Policy 2020, the minister said the reforms would help promote experiential and personalised learning. A dedicated training module has been developed for teachers to integrate smart blackboards into their teaching process, he added.“This is the first major step towards making Delhi’s govt schools better than private schools not just in infrastructure, but in pedagogy and learning outcomes as well,” he said.Sood said Delhi govt under Gupta’s leadership was committed to delivering “world-class, equitable, and digitally empowered” education to every child in Delhi, not just in showpiece schools, but where it’s needed the most.In an announcement made last month, Gupta said Delhi govt would set up 7,000 smart classrooms in its schools by the end of the year. She added that 175 digital libraries and 100 APJ Abdul Kalam Language Labs offering foreign language instruction in English, French and German would also be made operational in Delhi govt-run schools.
