Lucknow: Students of madrassas will now be included in the upcoming pilot project of the Uttar Pradesh government that aims to hone spoken English skills of government-run primary school students through radio programmes, an official said Monday.

"The move intends to expand the reach of the interactive English learning programmes through radio communication," said District Institute of Educational Training principal Lalita Pradeep.

"We have already apprised the state's minority department about the spoken English radio programmes. The department has assured us to extend all necessary help in this regard," she added.

Initially, the `Angrezi Sikhe' radio programme, which will start Aug 1, will be included in the curriculum of about 1,700 government schools in Lucknow. The programme will later be included in the course of schools in 17 other districts of the state as well, officials said.

In June, the state government had decided to start the spoken English learning project in association with State Council and Educational Research and Training (SCERT), Centre for Learning Resources (CLR), All India Radio (AIR), DIET, Unicef and a Pune-based NGO. (IANS)