New Delhi: Every student in the Delhi government schools will be encouraged to take up at least one sports activity while efforts will also be made to strengthen the involvement of parents in school management.
Education Minister Ashish Sood on Tuesday launched an 11-day-long district-wise drive covering 1,000 schools to ensure that dark spots in schools are covered for student safety, to review academics, infrastructure, administrative issues and student welfare through direct interaction with heads of schools (HoS) and education officials.
He said inspections of government schools will also be carried out to assess facilities such as classrooms, laboratories, libraries, sports infrastructure, drinking water, toilets and digital education arrangements. Repair and maintenance works are expected to be completed during the summer vacation period.
During the interaction, Sood said the objective of the exercise is to directly understand challenges faced at the school level, seek suggestions from teachers and administrators and make government schools more modern, student-friendly and academically stronger.
The meetings with deputy directors of education (DDEs), principals and school heads will focus on improving learning outcomes, implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, attendance monitoring and better coordination between schools and the department.
Sood said the discussions are also being held in view of changes in CBSE evaluation norms and the need to ensure schools maintain academic performance in the coming years.
"Delhi schools are fully affiliated to CBSE unlike several other states that have their own boards. We want to sensitise schools so that results do not decline," he said.
According to him, issues identified for discussion have been divided into categories including academics, human resource concerns, infrastructure and operational challenges faced by schools.
The minister stressed the need to make all schools "NIPUN-certified" within a fixed timeline and asked officials to prepare proper schedules for achieving the target.
On sports participation, Sood said every child should be connected with some form of sport and schools should identify shortcomings related to sports facilities and deployment of physical education teachers.
"If we want to promote sports, we have to involve teachers and students properly," he said.
The minister also emphasised that schools should focus not only on academic results but also on students' mental health, discipline, emotional well-being and overall development.
Expressing concern over school safety, Sood said there should not be any "dark spot" on school premises where any unpleasant incident could occur.
He also said teachers should primarily remain engaged in academic work and non-academic responsibilities should be reduced as far as possible.
The agenda further includes promotion of smart boards, ICT labs, language labs and digital libraries.
Sood said the government aims to convert all 38,000 classrooms in Delhi government schools into smart classrooms in phases.
Nearly 9,000 smart classrooms, 175 ICT labs, 100 language labs and 100 digital libraries are currently being developed, he said.
The minister also spoke about increasing community participation in schools through revised School Management Committee (SMC) guidelines under which parents would have a greater role.
"The meetings will additionally cover biometric attendance systems, school inspections, teacher training schedules, private school issues, EWS admissions, fee hike complaints and implementation of programmes such as NEEEV, Rashtraniti and Science of Living," he said.
Sood lauded teachers and school heads for the improvement in Class 10 board examination results in the East district zones.
According to official figures shared during the meeting, Zone-1 recorded a Class 10 pass percentage of 98.53 per cent in 2025-26 compared to 94.57 per cent in 2024-25, while Zone-2 improved from 89.30 per cent to 96.54 per cent during the same period.
The number of schools recording 100 per cent Class 10 results in Zone-1 increased from three to 11, while in Zone-2, it rose from three to 18, an official said.
He said the district-level interaction exercise is aimed at strengthening academic supervision, improving infrastructure and making schools more effective learning spaces for students.
This report was published from a syndicated wire feed. Apart from the headline, the EdexLive Desk has not edited the copy.
