Himachal to launch school health program

Shimla: Having raised enrollment in schools, the Himachal governments education department intends to start a school health program, whereby regular health check-ups of children would help to provide early detection and prevention of diseases and also help to inculcate good health habits.

An official spokesman said, “the government would soon be launching the Chief minister’s health program, which would undertake regular health check up of the students.”

The program would be carried out with assistance from National Rural Health Mission, he added.

With education being one of the top three priorities, the government is emphasizing on quality infrastructure to make the state an educational hub.

Primary education is compulsory in the state and the enrollment upto elementary level has reached 99.67 percent. The drop-out rate is less than one percent and efforts are being made to drop-outs as well as left out students by holding counseling and motivational camps, said the spokesman.

For providing a nutritious mid-day meal to 775,263 students in 15,167 primary schools in the state, cooks cum helpers have been appointed. Mothers of the children have been authorized to test the meals being served to the children.

For ensuring imparting of quality education, parents of students have been taken on board of School Management Committee’s who have been entrusted with task of monitoring the schools functioning. Girl’s education has been declared free of costs at all levels.

Introducing computers at an early age, 320 elementary schools are being covered under Computer Aided Learning (CAL) Program from the current session. These schools have been provided with required hard ware, soft ware and multi media content on various subjects.

At present, there are 17,408 educational institutions in the state, out of which 15,045 are in the government sector. Of the 22,040 special children, 19634 have been integrated with regular schools and only the 2397 that are severely challenged, are unable to attend school regularly. The government is endeavoring to provide them with Home Based Education through special instructors or by requisitioning services of NGOs in the field, the spokesman said.

For the meritorious students scholarships have been instituted and as many as 14,000 school scholarships are being provided for.

Ravinder Makhaik

As Editor, Ravinder Makhaik leads a team of media professionals at Hill Post.

Spanning a career of over two decades in mass communication, as a Documentary Filmmaker, TV journalist, Print Media journalist and with Online & Social Media, he brings with him a vast experience. He lives in Shimla.