CS takes stock of infrastructure & other modern initiatives

Chief Secretary, Atal Dulloo, today held a meeting of School Education Department (SED) to take stock of the projects taken up under different schemes and the modern technology based learning solutions for the students.Present in the meeting were Principal Secretary, School Education; Chairperson, JKBOSE/SCERT; MD, Samagra Shiksha; Director, School Education, Kashmir/Jammu besides other concerned officers either physically or virtually through video conferencing.Speaking on the occasion, the Chief Secretary impressed upon the department to make the learning outcomes/outputs measurable by using certain tools or techniques. He maintained that the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan has a vast scope to enhance teaching-learning process and the department should utilise its potential optimally to obtain the desired outcomes.He advised for including many more subjects to enrich the content developed for Vidhya Samiksha Kendra (VSK) including the MCQs for assistance of the students. He also urged them to create contents/videos in vernacular languages for the understanding of most of the people.Dulloo took this occasion to have live demonstration of several bots developed by the department for making the teaching process more effective and fruitful. He watched the use of bots like Smart Attendance for students, Study Buddy developed for deep learning and retention of lessons, JK Pariksha envisaged to help students to improve their weak areas, Parent Pulse bot for feedback of parents, JK Shikshak Sahayak bot for making tailored lessons to meet specific needs of students.Regarding VSK, Jammu it was revealed that it is going to be commissioned soon. It was divulged that it would be helpful in monitoring Samagra Shiksha projects on real-time basis, besides tracking academic and non-academic activities, help in improving student’s performance, teacher’s accountability and resource usage besides setting up a centralised grievance help desk and creating a real-time school performance dashboard for the UT.Giving details about the PM SHRI (Pradhan Mantri Schools for Rising India) scheme, it was given out that selected schools will showcase the implementation of the National Education Policy 2020 and emerge as exemplar schools over a period of time.Under this scheme, it was divulged that 233 schools including 74 Middle Schools, 114 High Schools and 45 Hr Secondary Schools were taken in J&K in first phase. It targets creation of 45 Atal Tinkering labs @Rs. 10.00 Lacs, 159 STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) labs @ Rs. 10.00 Lacs and 45 Science Centres @Rs. 08.00 Lacs in these Schools.As far as other infrastructure is concerned, it was informed that 89 KGBV hostels were sanctioned for running elementary level classes (6th to 8th) for Educationally Backward Blocks (EBBs). Out of these, 35 KGBVS are 100 bedded and 54 KGBVS are 50 bedded. It was further apprised that 73 KGBV buildings have been completed and rest are in progress and slated to be finished by March,2025.Regarding other civil works in the Department, the meeting was apprised that 8902 works were approved by MoE from 2018-19 to 2023-24 to be completed at a cost of Rs 1220 Cr. It was said that 1551 works are in progress and an expenditure of Rs 601.83 Cr has already been made on completion of these works in the schools of the UT.About the implementation of NEP 2020, it was added that a number of steps had been taken by the department during the past and many are in pipeline to meet the requirements for its smooth implementation on ground