Virtual education system in Mumbai civic schools from January 15

Civic-run schools, otherwise considered laggards in introducing modern teaching techniques, are set to get hi-tech in the new year.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is introducing virtual education system in the civic-run schools, initially for Class X students, from January 15.

"The virtual education system will start from January 15 - first at Marathi medium schools and later at Hindi, Urdu and English medium schools among others. The system will be used for tutorials, lectures, live discussions, interactive sessions for the SSC students," BMC standing committee chairperson Rahul Shewale said.

"A teacher will address students in all schools from a central studio located in a municipal school at Grant Road. The system will be connected through satellite and reach all the municipal schools," Shewale explained.

The municipal corporation has taken up this pilot project in collaboration with city-based NGO Valuable Group.

"This is a pilot project and if it is successful, we will take it forward for all the students. Valuable Group is sponsoring the project, and later depending upon its response we will make budgetary provisions in April," Shewale said.

"We are working out details like how often the lectures or sessions would be conducted, the number of teachers and the timings. We would appoint top teachers for this project," he said.

"MMRDA (a state government agency), which has tied up with this NGO, is making use of this system in a few schools in Thane district. So we thought of trying out the system here (in Mumbai)," Shewale said.

After the implementation of this technology, we expect a steep rise in the number of students taking admission in municipal schools, he said.

At present, there are 1,327 BMC-run schools with over 4.5 lakh students.