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THRISSUR: The state-level school reopening festival was inaugurated by chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan at the government higher secondary school, Chembuchira near Pudukkad on Thursday. Education minister C Raveendranath announced during the event that Kerala is all set to become the first state in the country with all its schools elevated to hi-tech category.

Education minister said that already over 4,500 classrooms from Class VIII to XII in 4,752 schools have been made hi-tech. Hi-tech laboratories will be set up for the students from Class I to Class 7 in 9,941 schools in the state before Onam .

Raveendranath said there are about 4.5 million students from Class I to Class XII in the state and one of the unique features of the reopening festival this year was that classes are beginning for all of them on the same day. Steps have been taken to ensure the students will have 203 working days this academic year.

Calendars, detailing the schedules of examinations, sports and arts festivals, and other programmes as well as holidays, have reached all students this year before the reopening day, apart from textbooks, uniforms and other materials. “This would be a regular feature,’’ the minister said.

Raveendranath said the efforts to augment the capacities of the government and aided schools have started yielding dividends and more students are now joining them. About 1.47 lakh students are known to have joined the public education system additionally this year, though the final figure will be known on the sixth working day.

Vijayan made a call to launch mass initiatives to keep off the drug mafia from the educational sector. The chief minister said drug racket has made deep inroads into the educational institutions and this could make disastrous impact on the future generation of the state.

He said the government was planning to start one swimming pool each in all the 140 assembly segments in the state. Swimming will be made part of the school curriculum.

Meanwhile, the members of the pro-UDF teachers’ unions boycotted the state and district level schools’ reopening festival to protest against the hasty move of the government to implement the Khader committee report.

