J&K Administrative Secretary of School Education Department, B K Singh Hail SCERT In Maiden Executive Meet

Jammu: Presiding over the first Executive Meeting of the State Institute of Educational Research and Training (SCERT), J&K Administrative Secretary of School Education Department, B K Singh (IFS), hailed the efforts of those involved in building a formidable institute within a short period of time.

The meeting, held at the SCERT Jammu office, was attended by Director SCERT, Prof. Veena Pandita, Director School Education Jammu, Dr Ravi Shanker Sharma, Director Finance, School Education Department, Iftikhar Hussain Chauhan, Joint Director, SCERT, Jammu Division, Surinder Kumar, Project Director, Samagra Shiksha, Deep Raj Kanethia.

Director School Education Kashmir, Tasaduq Hussain and Joint Director, SCERT, Kashmir Division, Shams-ud-din Bhat, participated in the meeting via Video Conferencing from Kashmir.

Head and Dean, Faculty of Education, University of Jammu, Prof Renu Nanda and former Director School Education, Kashmir, Mohammad Rafi, were among a host of specially invited dignitaries.

Singh, while acknowledging the efforts of the SCERT staff, said that despite multiple difficulties, the Council had achieved more than what was expected from it.

“Since its inception, what SCERT, J&K could achieve within a short time is remarkably appreciative,” Singh said, adding, “It’s heartening to note that the performance of SCERT, J&K, despite the challenges posed by Covid-19 pandemic is comparable to any SCERT in the country.”

SCERT, J&K, came into existence vide Govt. Order No. 197- Edu of 2020 Dated: 01/09/2020 and subsequently registered as a Society Under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 vide No. 63-CSA of 2021 Dated:11/05/2021, replacing the erstwhile State Institute of Education (SIE). The Administrative Council had taken a decision vide No:114/16/2020 dated: 27-08-2020 to this effect.

Earlier, Director SCERT, Prof Veena Pandita, welcomed the administrative secretary and members of the Executive Council with bouquets of flowers.

While giving a detailed PowerPoint presentation of SCERT’s accomplishments, Prof Pandita hailed the contribution of her staff in giving their best to build a strong institution.

“We took the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic head-on and geared up our resources and machinery in its wake,” She informed. “We could train some 1.7 million teachers from pre-primary to the senior secondary through various versions of the Nishta courses,” she added.

SCERT conducted a series of webinars to acquaint the teachers and other staff with the features of the new education policy, aka NEP 2020, she informed the chair.

“A comprehensive document was developed on the feedback/suggestions on the effective implementation of NEP 2020 viz-a-viz challenges and suggestions in J&K on all its eight components,” Prof Pandita said.

With regard to the review and revision of history textbooks, SCERT, in collaboration with JKBOSE, conducted a workshop for classes 6th to 10th.

“Experts from various parts of the country were invited to participate in the workshop and the suggestions and feedback from the deliberations were contextualized and incorporated into the history textbooks,” Prof Pandita informed.

“History of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh during the ancient, medieval and modern periods have been integrated and incorporated into the textbooks,” she added.

It was followed by an assessment survey in September last year involving students from grades 3, 5 and 8.

“The aim is to ascertain the student learning levels and learning gaps that arose due to the Covid-19 pandemic,” she said, adding, “A total of 876 Schools and 26812 students took part in the survey.”

NCERTs first of its kind FLN-NAS 2022 survey was also successfully conducted in the UT of J&K.

“FLN-NAS under NIPUN Bharat Mission conducted in 112 Schools of all the 20 Districts of J&K,” she said. “Around 954 students of Grade 3 of various schools participated in the survey.”

At present, SCERT is playing a crucial role in taking part in the formation of the National Curriculum Framework (NCF).

“State Curriculum Frameworks (SCFs) passing through the process of District Level Consultations (DLC), mobile app survey and development of position papers by the State Focus Groups in 25 areas/themes identified as per the NEP, 2020 has already been initiated,” she said.

SCERT introduced School Leadership Academy (SLA), wherein, over six hundred school leaders, DIET faculty and resource groups, have so far been trained.

While rounding up her presentation, Prof Pandita said SCERT is following all the programs initiated by the Ministry of Education and the NCERT in letter and spirit.

The Committee, in the end, put forth a set of agendas to be completed in due course of time.