Central team arriving on Sept 20
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Sept 7: Union Ministry of Human Resource Development has pulled up Jammu and Kashmir Government for poor implementation of flagship programmes in the school education sector and decided to seek the intervention of Governor N N Vohra and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti for early preparation of a road-map to overcome all the deficiencies, which otherwise are persisting during the past several years.
The serious concerns over glaring shortcomings in the implementation of schemes have been conveyed by Anil Swarup, Secretary Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Human Resource Development to the Chief Secretary of J&K B B Vyas through a formal communication dated September 4, 2017, the copy of which is available with EXCELSIOR.
Swarup, who recently held series of discussions with all the senior officers of the Department of School Education and Literacy, has highlighted several issues in the communiqué for urgent attention of Jammu and Kashmir Government.
“In the case of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, compliance of audit observations is pending from Jammu and Kashmir for 2009-10, 2010-2011, 2011-12, 2012-13, 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16 financial years”, the Union Secretary said while putting successive Project Directors SSA of J&K in the dock on this vital aspect. Had serious attention been paid towards the audit observations, the situation vis-à-vis implementation of SSA in Jammu and Kashmir would have improved considerably.
It has also been pointed out that in terms of quality of learning J&K is not performing very well. As per National Achievement Survey (NAS), in Class III 57% children achieved more than 50% marks in language and 68% children in Maths (Round-III, 2013). In Class V number of children achieving more than 50% marks in language declined to 35% and in Maths 46% (Round-IV, 2015). Only 21% and 22% children could achieve more than 50% marks in Maths and Science respectively in Class VIII (Round-III, 2013).
“As per NAS 2015, for Class X, the average performance of students from J&K is significantly lower than the national average in all subjects except in English, where the average achievement is equal to national average”, the Union Secretary said, adding “keeping all these aspects in mind the State should have prepared a road-map to improve the quality of education but this vital aspect has not received the due attention”.
As per Unified District Information System for Education, which is a database of information about schools in the country, the HRD Ministry has found that J&K has comfortable Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR) of 9 at the primary level, 6 at upper primary level and 13 at secondary level though there are 4013 elementary schools that have adverse Pupil Teacher Ratio.
“It appears that teachers are not being posted to or joining schools in the rural or remote areas and are instead concentrated in urban schools”, the Union Secretary said while stressing that J&K Government should take urgent action on this matter.
Under Shalla Siddhi Programme, self-evaluation of schools has been completed by only 7 schools out of 29429 schools, the HRD Ministry said while advising the J&K Government to make concerted efforts to implement the programme in all these schools by December 2017. The Ministry has also pointed out that under Mid-Day Meal Scheme, Automated Monitoring System is yet to be rolled out by the Government.
Under School District Management Information System, the data of only 89.57% students has been provided by the State. Further, Aadhaar coverage of students in J&K is only 37.29%. “However, the strategy of Aadhaar enrolment for the remaining students is still awaited from the State Government”, the HRD Ministry said. Even concerns have also been conveyed over delay in construction of schools under the Centrally sponsored schemes.
“State Government should ensure that funds received from the Central Government for various schemes under ST component are separately accounted for so that the observations of Comptroller and Auditor General of India are complied with”, the HRD Ministry said. However, the Ministry has appreciated the best practices being followed by State Education Department such as Seasonal Centers, E-Learning Training and J&K Knowledge Network etc.
The Union Secretary has conveyed to the Chief Secretary that he along with a team of senior officers will be visiting the State from September 20, 2017 to have thorough discussion on preparation of road-map so as to overcome all these deficiencies. The Central team will also call on Governor N N Vohra and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti to seek their intervention on early framing of much-needed road-map so that J&K comes up to the expectations of HRD Ministry.
A senior officer of the School Education Department told EXCELSIOR that Minister for Education Altaf Bukhari and Administrative Secretary of the Department Farooq Shah have passed on clear directions to the officers implementing the flagship programmes to pay special attention towards overcoming the deficiencies which are persisting during the past several years.
“They have also directed for compliance to the audit observations in a time-bound manner by the Project Director SSA”, sources said.
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