Jalandhar: The Punjab Government, in another endeavour to promote bilateral global exchange, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in school education with the University of Wolverhampton (UK).

The MoU was signed between Secretary of Education KBS Sidhu and Caroline Gipps, Vice-Chancellor of Wolverhampton University on behalf of the Punjab Government and the UK-based University respectively.

Besides the MoU, two more agreements were signed, one between Wolverhampton Football Club and the JCT Football Academy, Hoshiarpur and another between the Wolverhampton Chamber of Commerce and Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) for promoting bilateral trade and commerce activities and strengthening trade links through new marketing opportunities.

Elaborating the MoUs, the Chief Minister's Media Advisor, Harcharan Bains said that the basic aim of the MoU on education is to increase the interflow of educational skills between Punjab and the UK through a teacher-training programme.

Under this arrangement, the government school teachers in the state would now be offered specialized academic training by the UK teachers. Such training programmes would help in raising the teaching skills in general and in English language in particular, Bains stressed.

The Chief Minister said that that the state had already implemented the teaching of English as a compulsory subject right from Class 1 to 10 in all the Government Schools.

"We have already finalized the recruitment of 1000 trained engligh teachers for the first time. Earlier, English was being taught by Social Studies' teachers. The newly appointed teachers would be in position before the schools re-open after the summer vacations in July," said the CM.