The Ahmedabad school board has appointed Pragnesh Patel as its new chairman and Ankit Rathod as deputy chairman, placing a new leadership team in charge of education and facilities across more than 400 schools run by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation.
The appointments were made unanimously at the first meeting of the newly constituted school board on October 21. The meeting was chaired by Ahmedabad Mayor Hitesh Barot, who said all members had agreed on Patel and Rathod’s names. Both office-bearers subsequently took charge at 12.39 pm.
Patel becomes the 29th chairman of the Ahmedabad Nagar Prathmik Shikshan Samiti. The new body includes 11 members from the Bharatiya Janata Party and one member from the Congress, according to the report. The elected members include Patel, Rathod, Navin Patel, Dr Nilay Shukla, Liladhar Khadke, Parth Trivedi, Niki Shah, Chandrasingh Vaghela, Nitaben Prajapati, Amrut Vyas, Nandini Pandya and Sonal Patel.
The state government has appointed Ahmedabad city district education officer Rohit Chaudhary as a government member. Chirag Solanki and Bhavanisingh Shekhawat have been appointed as non-government members. The new board will be responsible for taking forward school development work, improving educational quality and providing better academic facilities to students.
The composition of the board also includes Ahmedabad City Congress president Sonal Patel as a member. The appointments come as the civic school system prepares to continue its focus on upgrading school facilities and expanding the use of technology in classrooms.
Patel said the board would continue work undertaken over the previous five years for children from poor and middle-income families. He said providing students with better educational opportunities would remain a priority during the new five-year term. Patel also claimed that more than 90% of the schools had been converted into smart schools over the last five years, and said further efforts would be made to upgrade the remaining schools.
The chairman added that ensuring access to higher education for students from economically weaker and middle-income households would be another priority. The statement places the school board’s next term at the intersection of civic school administration, public education quality and municipal investment in school facilities.
The new leadership will now oversee the board’s education and development responsibilities across Ahmedabad’s municipal school network. The source report does not provide a detailed implementation schedule for the proposed upgrades or specify the number of schools still awaiting smart-school conversion.
