The Bihar government is mulling setting up one secondary school in each gram panchayat entailing a cost of Rs 5,500 crore, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has said.
The state government is committed to set up more schools and equip them with good facilities to provide quality education to the students, he said at the Independence Day function yesterday.
There are 8,400 gram panchayat in the state and only 3,000 secondary schools, Kumar said, adding that the state government is making an endeavour to set up one secondary school in each gram panchayat. About Rs 5,500 crore will be required to set up 5,400 schools, he said.
Besides, the state government will have to arrange Rs 3,000 crores to provide recurring annual expenditure of each proposed secondary school, the Chief Minister said.
He said that efforts have been made to bring children to schools and as a result of which there are only three per cent children remaining out of school, but these children must also be enrolled in the schools to ensure their future.
Among other measures taken by the NDA government to improve education in Bihar, it has been decided to ensure that the students should have an attendance of 80 per cent in their classes.