Mobile school and community science labs for five blocks in Odisha

Bhubaneswar: Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi on Thursday flagged off mobile school and community science laboratories for five blocks of southern Odisha.

Padhi said Odisha government in collaboration with TCS foundation and Tata Trusts has started the initiative.

The initiative aims at creating an environment of learning excellence in south Odisha through multi-stake holder engagement including community, school, teachers and students, he added.

Jitendra Nayak, Regional Manager, Tata Trust said that these five vehicles would cover five blocks in southern Odisha namely Muniguda, Bissamcuttack, Thuamul Rampur, Lanjigarh and Kothgarh.

The vehicles were designed as multi-purpose mobile labs and they would cover all primary and secondary schools in these blocks, he added.

Available data show, around 25,000 students of 250 elementary and secondary schools would get exciting learning experiences through these vehicles. The vehicles are equipped with equipments, application models and charts as per the curricular needs of the schools.

They also carry all audio-visual apparatus like TV, Projector, Audio amplifier, solar power back-ups, etc to support science and math learning through audio-visual communication and simulation experiments.

The vehicles have been fitted with GPS trackers to provide real time data on movement of the labs. The NGOs, teachers and community members have been tagged up with the programme to make it broad based and outcome oriented.