A total 3,081 government primary and secondary schools from 2,074 clusters across 33 districts and four municipal corporations have been selected for the first phase of the the World Bank-funded Mission Schools of Excellence project. This includes a total of 2,575 primary and 506 secondary government schools in the state.
A team from World Bank on a four-day visit to the state arrived Tuesday and held first round of meetings with the Education Ministers and education department officials.
The project aims to transform a total of about 20,000 government primary and secondary schools — 3,000 in first phase, 7,000 in second and 10,000 in the third phase — over the next five years and provide global facilities through Mission Schools of Excellence.
With the plan of representing one school from each cluster, several clusters in different districts have a representation of more than one school. Among these, Banaskantha district has the highest number of schools shortlisted —168 schools from 124 clusters.
“These 3,000 schools are finalised depending upon the need of the hour and requirement. Also, within this one year, it has been divided into 100 days each, to initiate with the most doable schools in the first 100 days followed by the ones that would require time in developing infrastructure in next 100 days,” said Education Secretary Vinod Rao.
Other districts with highest number of schools selected in the first phase include Amreli (132 from 70 clusters), Rajkot (131 schools from 85 clusters) and Mehsana (123 schools from 72 clusters). With over Rs 8,000 crore in funding from the World Bank (WB) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), more than 90 per cent of the students enrolled in government schools in the state are expected to benefit from the project.
