The Chief Minister also announced the creation of 8,393 pre-primary schoolteachers' posts and said these would be filled soon by the Education Department.

 

He also virtually inaugurated 1,467 Smart Schools in the state, apart from distributing 2,625 tablets to students in 372 government primary schools.

 

At the virtual event, he was connected with teachers, students and their parents from more than 4,000 schools, Ministers, MLAs, officials and non-teaching staff through WebEx, Facebook and YouTube.

 

Pointing out that 14,064 contractual teachers had been regularised by his government, he listed out various measures undertaken for the welfare of the teaching staff.

 

Amarinder Singh disclosed that self-defence training was imparted to female physical education teachers below the age of 50 to enable them to teach karate to all girls studying in government schools.

 

To mark the conclusion of the 'Punjabi Week' on Saturday, the Chief Minister directed Minister Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa to draw a detailed plan for the promotion of Punjabi language and revival of the Patiala Central Library, which was facing acute fund shortage.

 

Pointing out that Punjabi became the official language in Patiala in 1940, replacing Persian, he recalled Patiala's long-standing relationship with Punjabi.

 

His grandfather Maharaja Bhupinder Singh had made the first Punjabi typewriter in 1938, he noted.

 

Amarinder Singh also observed that Punjabi had been named the official language in Canada and the UK, where a large number of Punjabis were settled, thus giving global recognition to the language.

 

Punjabi should live and grow in the hearts and minds of every Punjab, he said, while stressing the importance of English and other foreign languages to enable students to compete globally.

 

He said more than 3.7 lakh students had opted for English medium in government schools.

 

Pointing to the challenges posed to education in view of the Covid situation, Amarinder Singh said that 'Mission Shat Pratishat' was aimed at further strengthening the digital education infrastructure in schools through e-books, EDUSAT lectures, e-content and inline classes through Zoom App.

 

The mission, said the Chief Minister, would help further boost the standards in government schools, which had witnessed massive improvement in quality and performance in the past three years, in line with the state government's decision to curb all malpractices in board exams.

 

Lauding the contribution of Smart Schools to increasing the educational standards in Punjab, the Chief Minister said of the total 19,107 schools in the state, 6,832 were currently Smart Schools, to which another 1,467 were added on Saturday.

 

He said 13,859 projectors would be provided to the remaining schools too, in order to make them Smart Schools, adding that a budgetary provision of Rs 100 crore had been made this year for digitisation of schools.

 

Earlier, Cabinet minister Vijay Inder Singla said while 8,393 posts had been advertised, more would be filled up in due course.