New Delhi, May 12 -- Stressing that education reforms must go beyond examination results and focus on creating a safe, modern and student-friendly learning environment, Delhi Education Minister Ashish Sood on Tuesday held an extensive interaction with principals and Heads of Schools (HoS) from Zone-1 and Zone-2 of East Delhi.

The dialogue programme, organised by the Education Department at CM Shri School in Surajmal Vihar, focused on improving academic quality, infrastructure, school safety, cleanliness, digital education and student well-being. Before reaching the venue, the minister travelled by Delhi Metro from INA to Karkardooma Court and then took an e-rickshaw to the school. Addressing principals and school heads, Sood said, "The objective of this interaction programme is to directly understand the challenges faced at the school level and make government schools more modern, empowered and student-friendly." Reviewing school infrastructure, the minister directed officials to strengthen classrooms, laboratories, libraries, sports facilities, toilets, drinking water arrangements and digital education systems. He announced that the Delhi government plans to convert all 38,000 classrooms in the Capital into smart classrooms.

"In the current phase, nearly 9,000 smart classrooms, 175 ICT labs, 100 language labs and 100 digital libraries are being developed," Sood said. Highlighting improvements in board examination results, the minister said Zone-1 recorded an increase in Class 10 results from 94.57 per cent in 2024-25 to 98.53 per cent in 2025-26, while Zone-2 improved from 89.30 per cent to 96.54 per cent.

The number of schools achieving 100 per cent results also rose significantly in both

zones. Sood stressed the importance of mental health and safety in schools. "Schools must not focus only on academic results but also identify stress, depression and emotional issues among students,"

he said, adding that there should not be any "dark spot" in

schools where any unpleasant incident could occur.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.