About 700 construction works under Samagra Shiksha and JKIDFC were completed, including five girls’ hostels (residential schools) and five Kasturiba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas (KGBV), government claimed on Wednesday.
As per the official statement, the construction works are part of reforms in the school education sector to ensure quality, equity, accessibility, accountability and affordability in the system, besides improving teaching and learning standards in schools of the Union Territory.
“The infrastructural edifice in schools of the UT has also witnessed tremendous upgradation and improvement. About 700 construction works under Samagra Shiksha, UT CAPEX budget and JKIDFC besides major works were completed including 5 Girls Hostels at a cost of Rs. 13 crore and 5 KGBVs at a cost of Rs. 1.98 crore,” the statement read.
15 major projects were also e-inaugurated by the Lieutenant Governor in this month, it added.
It further informed that to strengthen human resource management, the government regularized about 38,000 Rehbar-e-Taleems (RET) besides ensuring their capacity building under Integrated Multidisciplinary Professional Advancement Course for Teachers (IMPACT) programme.
The official data said that under inclusive education, “16115 children with special need (CWSN) were enrolled students. Besides, stipend, escort and “reader allowance of Rs 1.20 crore was disbursed among 2838 children with special needs through DBT mode and 42 laptops were provided to special educators for visually impaired children. Also, 1785 aids and appliances were distributed among the CWSN during 2019-20.”
The government also launched JK-DIKSHA and Vidya Daan apps, portals “Nearly, 2500 ICT labs for secondary schools are being established and 100 percent saturation of KG/Pre-schooling being attained in 1000 government schools with toilet, drinking water facility and electrification
To ensure gender equity in schools, 88 Kasturiba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas (KGBVs) and 88 Girls Hostels (Residential Schools) for 1,54,000 girls being made functional in far-flung areas to reduce gender gap and girl child dropout rate.
To ensure education is provided to students during COVID-19 lockdown, various initiatives were taken including giving assignments to all the students by SIEs/DIETs, radio classrooms, tele-classes on DD Kashir and local cable network, video lectures repository using JK Knowledge Network and its telecast and up-loaded on cloud platforms.
Online virtual classes are being promoted during the lockdown period.
“So far, 7302 schools were covered and 41,214 teachers linked 2,52,310 students,” said the statement.
Additionally, National Educational Portals like e-Paathshala and DIKSHA were promoted and special WhatsApp Groups were created to interact with Children with Special needs through Special Educators.