Pune: The students in DES New English School, Tilak Road will soon get an opportunity to experiment and explore their interest in space. To attract more students towards career opportunities in the field of space research, the school will soon build a ‘Space Laboratory’ on its premises.
At the same time, to digitise education and make the school activities more ‘bagless’ and ‘paperless’ in line with the recent order to reduce the weight of students’ bags, the school has now facility for Wi-Fi connectivity and digital classrooms.
Speaking about the space laboratory, Kiran Shaligram, Member of Governing Body, Deccan Education Society (DES) said, “We require an estimated budget of Rs 50 lakh for building the laboratory. Suresh Naik, former group director of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will guide us. Here, the students will be encouraged to carry out space-related research, make models, projects, relevant at their level.
“We hope to start the work by next year,” he said.
To promote the students’ interest in space, for the past four years, the students of Std X are taken to ISRO for field visits. The school already has its own planetarium. Two of the teachers at the school, Radha Ketkar and Jyoti Bodhe have visited NASA.
“I went to NASA in 2007 for teachers’ training. On returning, I passed on all I learnt to my students. We also briefed our students about career opportunities in space research,” Ketkar said.
About the digitisation, Shaligram said, “All our 38 classrooms have Wi-Fi connectivity and are equipped with projectors and speakers. All our teachers have been provided with laptops, and we run approved e-learning modules in the classrooms to support the curriculum, as well as teach the students beyond the syllabus.”
The admissions, notices to students and exam result are given online already.
When asked if the school plans to adopt CBSE curriculum, Shaligram said, “We have already adopted all the good features of CBSE in our syllabus, so I do not think we need to switch boards now. We already teach our older students on par with the CBSE curriculum. It has helped the students a lot.”
