Tripura chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb and education minister Ratanlal Nath on Monday officially launched a full-time dedicated educational TV channel for the school students of the state.

The school education department has come up with Vande Tripura’, an 24×7 educational TV channel, dedicated to broadcast classes for school students.

Initially, recorded classes will be broadcasted and later the channel will start broadcasting online classes.

While launching the channel at Civil Secretariat in Agartala on Monday afternoon, chief minister Deb said, “Education is a sensitive sector where 24 new reforms have been made to upgrade the students’ education and the initiative has been appreciated by the Union education ministry,”

The chief minister is hopeful that the newly-launched educational TV channel would help the students of Tripura avail classes from home during the second wave of COVID19 pandemic.

Education minister Ratanlal Nath said, “The educational sector in Tripura incurred loss for 14 months as schools were closed, There has been a loss of 36%.”

“We have introduced various reforms, but 40% of the students don’t have smartphones. So, the education department has started the educational channel,” said Nath.

The education minister further said, “From June, live classes will be started. Discussions and education related news will also be broadcasted and 90% areas across Tripura will be covered.”

The chief minister and education minister were accompanied by the state chief secretary Manoj Kumar and education secretary Saumya Gupta, directors of school education and elementary education departments, Saju Vaheed and UK Chakma respectively.