City night schools to be government’s top priority, says Prakash Javadekar

Improving night schools and zilla parishad schools is the government’s priority, the Human Resources Development Minister Prakash Javadekar said. After assuming charge as the HRD minister, Mr Javadekar on Saturday evening paid a visit to the Gopal Krishna Gokhale Night School in Dadar, Mumbai and interacted with the students studying there.

“Education is essential for upliftment, I sincerely salute the spirit of these poor students, who are pursuing education in night schools, after putting in 8-10 hours of hard work during the day” Mr Javadekar said.

Stressing that education should be inclusive and no one should be left behind, Mr Javadekar described night schools to be among the important institutions helping make education inclusive and asserted that the government’s top priority will be to improve the conditions of night schools and zilla parishad schools.

“After meeting you, my will to work for you has strengthened. PM Narendra Modi says work for the dalits, underprivileged and backward classes. We will study the problems of night schools and will do whatever is possible for them” Mr Javadekar said.

The minister added that since he himself has studied in a zilla parishad School, he is in a good position to understand their problems and challenges. The Union minister assured the students and the teachers that he would ask Maharashtra education minister Vinod Tawde to do his best to improve the infrastructure in nights schools and municipal schools.

School authorities told the minister that they have been having 100 per cent result for the last four years. Mumbai, the commercial capital, has a well-developed infrastructure of night schools, where over 15,000 students, aged 15 and above are enrolled for Class 8 upwards.

The city also boasts of many success stories in the form of night school students who went on to succeed as entrepreneurs, particularly in the hotel business.