STATE TIMES NEWS
SRINAGAR: The State Consultation meeting-cum-workshop for third Chief Secretaries Conference on promoting ease of living in schools was held on Thursday at SCERT auditorium here under the chairmanship of Principal Secretary, Education, Alok Kumar. The workshop was organised by School Education Department (SED) for preparing State specific note for 3rd Chief Secretaries Conference, scheduled to be held in month of October-November, 2023 under the chairmanship of Prime Minister of India. Project Director Samagra Shiksha, Deep Raj; Director School Education Kashmir, Tassaduq Hussain; Special Secretary SED, Naseer Wani; UNICEF National Head, Terry; CEOs, DIET Principals, members from Pijam foundation and Pratham also attended the workshop. While chairing the panel discussion of the workshop, Principal Secretary, School Education Alok Kumar interacted with different stakeholders who posed questions on different domains of education like uniform academic calendar, school complex system, smart classrooms, creation of District Advisory council, aligning NEET and JEE as per NEP 2020, besides others. He replied all the questions of students and other stake holders. While replying a query of l student on digital access, the Principal Secretary said that results of the class 10th and 12th stands uploaded on the website through Digi locker. Reacting on the establishment of smart classrooms, he reiterated that, this year more than 1300 Smart classrooms, 1000 ICT labs shall be established, besides Virtual Reality Labs, Astro physics labs and other innovative initiatives are in pipeline. Principal Secretary further said that providing quality education to students, pave ways to further increase their learning outcomes and bridging the social-gender gaps in school education is our main motto. He added that improvement in the manpower, through capacity building and mentorship programmes, ease in schooling shall be ensured. He asked the concerned stakeholders for ensuring equity and inclusion at all levels of school education with a focus on Children with Special needs. He also stressed for reducing the dropout rate to a minimal value among all grades, so that the department may achieve the Sustainable Development Goal, by 2030 as per National Education Policy, 2020, which is the gate way for promoting Ease in Schooling.