Ranchi, Sept. 7 -- The Jharkhand education department is planning online classes in government schools by specialist teachers, which will be streamed live simultaneously in around 4,500 schools across the state, officials aware of the development said on Saturday. Officials said 4,500 schools equipped with Information and Communication Technology (ICT) labs would be covered under the plan initially. The ICT-enabled schools, mostly middle and high schools, are equipped with computers, internet connections and other digital devices required for conducting smart classes. As per the plan, officials said, digital studios - for live streaming of classes and their recordings - will be set up in the Jharkhand Council of Educational Research and Training (JCERT) in the state capital, besides the centres of the District Institute of Education and Training (DIET) across all districts of the state. Specialist teachers for different subjects, screened through internal feedback, will be taking classes from these studios, which will be streamed live, officials added. "The effort is aimed at bridging the pupil-teacher ratio (PTR) gap as well as leveraging technology for imparting quality education. The best of our teachers who are fit for conducting such classes are being selected for this project. The same teachers can't take classes physically in more than one school. But through the digital medium, they can teach simultaneously in hundreds of schools. These classes could also be recorded and used as digital modules for reference by students later," school education and literacy secretary Uma Shankar Singh said. An official close to the developments said a pilot project to this effect was carried out by the department with a studio set up in JCERT two years ago. "Learnings from that exercise will be used in implementing this project afresh," the official said....