391 basic schools to be renamed, revived in Bihar: Nitish Kumar

PATNA: Bihar CM Nitish Kumar on Monday asked the state officials to take necessary steps to revive all 391 Buniyadi Vidyalaya (basic schools) which were opened in pre-independence period as per Mahatma Gandhi’s concept of providing necessary skill of livelihood to every child at primary level.
Presiding over the 5^th meeting of the Development Management Institute (DMI) Society at the CM residence here, Nitish also said the revived Buniyadi schools would now be named after Kasturba Gandhi, wife of Mahatma Gandhi.“These schools will now be re-named as ‘Kasturba Buniyadi Vidyalaya”, he said.
The MDI, a state-funded management institute, has been given task to revive and develop a cluster of 12 middle schools in West Champaran district while keeping in the mind the concept of the famous Buniyadi Vidyalaya at Bhitiharwa where Kasturba Gandhi stayed for a long period during the Champaran Satyagrah.
The MDA director Hemnath Rao made a detailed presentation before the CM about the works being undertaken by the Institute for revival of Bhitiharwa-based Buniyadi schools and 12 other middle schools in its surroundings.
“Bhitiharwa is a very important place in the annals of Buniyadi Vidyalayas. Kasturba Gandhi herself stayed there. The DMI has to do a lot for revival of these schools. Our concept is to revive all Buniyadi schools and transform them into model schools,” Nitish told the officials attending the meeting.
The first Buniyadi Vidyalaya was set up by Mahatma Gandhi himself in 1939 at Brindavan village in West Champaran district. These schools were also known as “Mahatma Ke Schools” in common parlance.
After decades of neglect, during which the quality of education in these schools suffered a lot mainly due to lack of teachers and necessary resources, the ‘Mahatma Ke Schools’ have been struggling for survival. Their major problems include shortage of teachers and necessary resources for imparting vocational training to rural children.
The DMI is also working on a pilot project on “Participatory administration through empowerment of panchayat” at At Amarakh gran-panchayat under Kurhani block in Muzaffarpur district.
“Whatever model the DMI would present about the empowerment of panchayats, it would be implemented at other panchayats,” CM said. Nitish further asked the building construction department officials to start the construction work of the DMI campus on priority basis.
Advisor to CM Anjami Kumar Singh, chairperson of the DMI’s board of governors and former chief secretary Anup Mukherjee, principal secretary (Panchayati Raj) Amrit Lal Meena, principal secretary (finance) Sujata Chaturvedi and heads of different departments were present at the meeting.