New uniforms, Aadhaar cards for UP students

Lucknow: Over 1.78 crore children studying in government primary schools in Uttar Pradesh finally have a reason to smile.

From the new academic session in July, the children will wear a new uniform, which will also be armed with Aadhaar cards. The state government has decided that schoolchildren will now wear pink and white check shirt with dark brown trousers for boys and skirts/salwars for girls in the same colour.

The new colour scheme for the uniform had been decided upon after UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath said that in drab khaki uniforms, the children “looked like home guards”.

There are about 1.78 crore children studying in 1.68 lakh government schools in UP. This includes 1.14 lakh primary schools (Class 1-5) and 54,000 upper primary schools (Class 6-8).

According to a senior official in the primary education department, the bright-colour uniform will boost confidence of students. “Samples of uniforms were invited from 16 states and most of them had a shade of brown, including those of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas and Kendriya Vidyalayas. Finally, we shortlisted the combination of pink an brown,” he said.

During the BSP regime, school children and traffic constables were made to wear a combination of white and blue or light blue and dark blue, which was the colour of the then ruling party.

In 2012, when SP government came to power, the khaki uniform was introduced replacing the blue uniform. The government has directed mothers of the students to take turn in tasting the midday meal and verifying its quality. Mothers will be required to come to school in turns.

The government has also decided that all students from Classes 1 to 8 will now get an Aadhaar card.

The government’s decision is aimed at ensuring greater transparency and to increase overall efficiency by putting a check on fake registrations in schools. Teachers’ salary will also be linked to their Aadhaar number.