Jammu: The Chief Secretary, Dr.Arun Kumar Mehta, today chaired a meeting to review the implementation of the centrally sponsored scheme, Samagra Shikshain Jammu and Kashmir.
Administrative Secretary of School Education department, Directors School Education of Jammu and Kashmir divisions, Project Director, SamagraShiksha and other senior officers of the School Education Department participated in the meeting.
It was informed that although educational indicators in J&K have shown improvement over the past two years, there is still considerable ground to cover to come up to the national benchmarks.
Giving details, Administrative Secretary informed that the gross enrolment ratio in the primary and upper primary levels have increased from 79.93 and 68.06 in the year 2019-20 to 93.16 and 72.77 respectively in the year 2020-21.
While reviewing the educational indicators in J&K, the Chief Secretary, Dr Arun Mehta observed that there is a very significant drop in the gross enrolment ratio and net enrolment ratio from primary to upper primary level.
“Every fifth students seems to be dropping out at the time of moving from primary to upper primary school. This calls for a concerted action from the department to arrest this trend,” he added.
The Chief Secretary advised the department to rope in Panchayats in the monitoring of the primary schools and institute a mechanism of obtaining monthly reports on the performance of the schools, besides seeking feedback from the students about their experience of teaching in the classes.
Dr Mehta directed the department to prepare a framework for assessing the competency of the teachers based on the achievement of learning outcomes by the students during the year so that capacity building of teachers, wherever necessary, is also made a part of overall focussed policy action in the education sector.
While directing the department to take steps to increase the enrolment ratio in the schools, he advised the department that increase in drop out ratio beyond an acceptable level in a given schools should be made an area of responsibility of the teachers in that school and accountability of the teachers fixed in case the enrolment declines below the acceptable level.
Stating that virtual/online teaching has been a great enabler during the Covid times, the Chief Secretary directed the Education department to explore the feasibility of building capacities towards virtual/online learning in all schools, besides emphasising that the department should also increase the sweep and spread of the vocational education in J&K.
