Jaya announces over Rs 500 cr initiatives for TN edu sector

Chennai, Aug 24: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa today announced initiatives worth over Rs 500 crore for higher education and school education in the state.

Making a suo motu statement in the Assembly, she announced setting up of a centre to link all the universities and affiliated colleges in cloud computing which will offer the students and teachers a range of services.

The proposed centre will come up on the Anna University campus here at an estimated cost of Rs 160 crore, she said, adding that a motor vehicle technical centre will also be established there to focus on research related to emission mitigation and fuel consumption of automobiles.

An auditorium, at a cost of Rs 50 crore, with a capacity to accommodate 5,000 people, will also come up in the technical university, she said. Jayalalithaa also announced a research uplift and training centre on the Anna University campus, which will coordinate all the aspects related to obtaining a patent.

Other announcements made by her for the higher education sector include establishing training centres at Chennai and Dharmapuri to help the Indian Engineering Services examination aspirants and a scheme to send 100 government engineering students on 15-day annual foreign study visits.

Proposing new initiatives for the school education sector, Jayalalithaa announced construction of schools, upgradation of the existing ones, providing raincoats and boots to the students of hill areas, computerisation efforts, creation of virtual classrooms etc.

PTI