Few years back, before the inception of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, the education system in the erstwhile state was not so good due to which students used to suffer a lot and were unable to compete with their counterparts from other states and UTs in various competitive exams. But soon after taking over the reins of the affairs of Jammu and Kashmir, the Government, as a part of its reformative spree, initiated a number of steps to upgrade the system. Not only, the educational institutions were provided adequate manpower for teaching the students but several new schemes were also launched to provide financial assistance and support to deserving candidates for pursuing higher studies without any problem. The Government laid special stress on education of women and launched a number of specifically formulated schemes to make the womenfolk literate and self-dependent, which is a must for realizing the dream of women empowerment. It is only due to the strenuous efforts of the present dispensation, that at present women of J&K are not only excelling in every sector but also running their set ups with full support and assistance of Government. In this regard, recently, the Union Territory administration launched a scheme- Vidya Shakti Scholarships, wherein almost 1500 girl students, from various degree colleges of Jammu and Kashmir, would be awarded scholarships to undergo technology driven, high-quality online skilling programmes in cutting edge technologies like digital marketing, data science, artificial intelligence and many others. As per details, the higher education department of J&K and upGrad foundation, a not-for-profit division of Edtech company upGrad, have jointly launched the initiative for providing cent per cent fee waiver to deserving female students for undergoing the high-tech courses. Pertinent to mention here that this initiative will not only be restricted to online courses and scholarship but will go a long way to provide an all-encompassing education experience with added benefits like one-on-one mentoring and learning and guidance through webinars and talks to the girl students of Union Territory. It is expected that the initiative will give a major boost to the Government’s endeavours to provide high-quality education facilities to the girl students of J&K for making them self-dependent and empowered in real sense.
