Kolkata: The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) is all set to introduce smart classrooms in two of its English medium schools and computer education in 10 schools in the city. The move comes with the civic body laying special emphasis on e-learning in its schools. "We have decided to start a pilot project through developing infrastructure of smart classroom in two of our English medium schools. One of them is located at Kazipara at ward 130 in Behala and another at ward 82 in Chetla where Mayor Firhad Hakim is the councillor," said Avijit Mukherjee, Member Mayor in Council (Education), KMC. Sources in the KMC said that soon the teachers in these two schools will be trained so that they are equipped to teach in smart classrooms. It has been learnt that with the aim to introduce computer education in 10 schools, the department has already framed the syllabus in accordance with the computer syllabus of the state primary schools run by the West Bengal Board of Primary Education. The civic body will also conduct training for improvement of English pronunciation skills of a number of teachers who will be taking the computer classes. The KMC is gradually converting all Bengali medium schools to English medium with demands pouring in from different boroughs. "We have a total of 256 schools in the city and our aim is to convert a majority of the schools into English medium. However, the conversion will take place without disturbing the existing language in the schools. The existing language will be treated as a second language. This will equip our students to get admitted in noted English medium schools, after studying upto class V in our schools," a senior official of KMCs Education department said. English will be the first language in the English medium school and Bengali/ Hindi / Urdu the second language. Subjects like History, Geography and Science will be taught in English. Presently more than 20 of the 256 schools under KMC have been converted into English medium. There are 157 Bengali medium schools and a number of schools of Oriya, Hindi and Urdu medium. "Mayor Firhad Hakim has instructed us that the conversion process will be on need-based depending upon the demand of the local area," the official added.

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