Bihar government plans secondary school in every village

The Bihar government is considering plans to set up one secondary school in each gram panchayat, entailing a cost of Rs5,500 crore, chief minister Nitish Kumar said today.

The state government is committed to setting up more schools with good facilities for imparting quality education to students, Kumar said at the Independence Day function yesterday.

There were 8,400 gram panchayats in the state and only 3,000 secondary schools, Kumar pointed out, adding that the state government planned to set up one secondary school in each gram panchayat. He said this would entail an expenditure of around Rs5,500 crore.

Besides, the state government would have to earmark Rs3,000 crore towards recurring annual expenditure of each proposed secondary school, the chief minister said.

He said efforts were on to increase enrolment of children in schools, which had resulted in 97 per cent enrollment and only 3 per cent children remaining out of school. The government, he added, was making efforts to bring the children not enrolled to schools.

In order to improve the level of education, he said, the NDA government will also ensure that the students have 80 per cent attendance in their classes.