Nagpur: State school education minister Dada Bhuse visited five schools across the city on Wednesday under the ‘Chala Shaalet Jaauya’ (Come, Let’s Go To School) campaign, and directed officials to develop three of them as model schools, whose best practices will be emulated by others.These schools include a Zilla Parishad primary school in Chankapur, Saraswati Vidyalaya and Nagpur Municipal Corporation’s PM Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri Secondary Vidyalaya in Hanuman Nagar.Bhuse also addressed education officials and principals at the conference hall in St Ursula Girls High School, where he stressed the importance of upgrading the quality of education provided at state-board schools.At the ZP primary school in Chankapur, Bhuse tasted the midday meal served to students to check its quality and inspected the facilities. He inaugurated the school’s new ‘IDEAL Center’ for interactive digital and administrative learning. The school also runs an AI lab and provides free transport to students. Senior education official Shivling Patve accompanied Bhuse on these visits.At the NMC’s Hanuman Nagar school, Bhuse reviewed the school’s modernisation progress, in the presence of mayor Neeta Thakre. He directed that all schools hold a weekly patriotic-song drill every Saturday and said the ‘Rani Lakshmibai self-defence training camp’ would now extend to NMC schools.Thakre asked Bhuse to allow NMC schools offering classes up to 10th to switch to CBSE, and to get state approval for junior colleges where required. Bhuse assured her a formal proposal would get positive consideration. He also flagged a shortage of physical education teachers, pending development funds, and a delay in supplying shoes promised with uniforms to NMC students, and sought action on all three.Bhuse asked officials to replicate the Hanuman Nagar school’s initiatives, run jointly by NMC and Aakansha Foundation, across other municipal schools, and to raise the standard of low-enrolment schools at risk of closure.At Saraswati Vidyalaya, the school placed second statewide in the “Mukhyamantri Majhi Shala, Sundar Shala”; Bhuse joined students for their morning prayer and had them read aloud to assess their progress. Citing its academic record and emphasis on Marathi-language teaching, Bhuse asked officials to plan its development into a model school with better infrastructure, technology use and student-centred programmes.At Seva Sadan High School in Sitabuldi, Bhuse reviewed the school’s skill-development and arts programmes and interacted with the management.At St Anne’s English Medium School in Chankapur, Bhuse reviewed the institution’s initiatives and interacted with students, with teachers briefing him on programmes for their overall development.
