Chandigarh, Apr 29 (IANS): In a bid to encourage students to come up with positive ideas to overcome negativity, the Punjab government has launched a special competition for students in the state titled ‘Ambassadors of Hope, Punjab Education Minister Vijay Inder Singla said on Wednesday.

He also said that the state government had also preponed the summer vacations in the state to save the academic loss to students due to the nationwide lockdown amid the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.

Speaking to IANS, Singla said, "The decision of extending lockdown by 14 days in the state by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh is a positive step in my opinion. During the nationwide lockdown the state government has done a lot of work to keep the people of state safe." He said that the purpose of extending the lockdown in the state is meant to break the chain of transmission as in the last two days some people who came to Punjab from other states tested positive.

"So keeping that in mind the lockdown was extended in the state," he said. Highlighting the works of the state government in Punjab, he said that the government has provided ration, prepared meals and medical assistance to people and in the coming days the state government will take care of its people. When asked about the classes being suspended due to lockdown, the minister said, "In Punjab, after a long time we have introduced board examination in Class five and eight. But due to Covid-19 we were unable to finish the class five exams."

He said even for class eight, only the theory papers were completed while the practical exams were left. "But our state government was the first state to decide on promoting children from their classes," he said. He further said that on Tuesday the state government received a report from the expert committee constituted by the Chief Minister, which had members like former chief secretaries and other former top officials on education, agriculture about the exit policy after the lockdown.

"The expert committee has proposed that class 10 students can be promoted on the basis of the pre-board exam results in the state," he said. The minister further said that the state Cabinet, which was supposed to take place on April 30 has been postponed to May 2, so the government will be able to take a decision on what could be done and what steps need to be taken for the students. Singla said that keeping in mind the academic loss of the students, the state government decided to prepone the summer vacations.

"We preponed the summer vacations from April 10 to May 10. Earlier the summer vacation in the state was given between June 1 to June 30. This was done so that the students don't lose their classes once they come back to school after the lockdown," he said. "Whole idea was to get well equipped for the online classes and we have already started classes on Google Drive and also hired some radio channels to engage the students and we are also in touch with the television channels to engage children as there are some internet connectivity issues in some villages of the state," he said.

He said that the whole idea is to engage children either via radio or television so that no child is left behind.

Speaking about the Ambassadors of Hope competition, Singla said, "Its an online competition for the children of Punjab. As students are sitting at home and feeling negativity due to staying inside home I launched this programme where the children need to upload a video which could be of minimum one minute on any social media." He said the children need to tag their videos with the hashtag #AmmbassdorsofHope so that it is viewed by the government and everybody in Punjab.

He said all students of Punjab, whether from government or private school can participate in the competition and there is no registration fee required.

Pointing out at the state government's plan to upgrade the government schools, he said, "There are 19,000 government schools in the state. Before lockdown was announced, we had converted 5,550 schools as the smart schools with all facilities."

He said the rest of the school will also be converted into smart schools after lockdown ends. Till date, in Punjab there are 322 cases of Covid-19 with 19 people losing their lives due to the pandemic while 71 people have been cured.