Indifference: SCERT still remains a dream as officials display lack of interest
Srinagar: Bellying the tall claims of J&K government to revolutionise the education sector in J&K state, the authorities in school education department have failed to make SECRT functional in the state.
The department has failed to set up the institute here despite the funds sanctioned by the (MHRD).
An official said the government was supposed to make State Council of Education Research and Training (SCERT) functional in state last year but the program was shelved for unknown reasons.
“MHRD has sanctioned Rs 30 crore under teacher education scheme, Rs 1.20 crore was released for strengthening of physical infrastructure in DIET institutes as per the requirement of SCERT besides Rs 58 lakhs were sanctioned for technological intervention in these training institutes,” the official said.
He said the funds remained unspent as the government failed to shift from SIE to SCERT in the state. Pertinently, J&K is the lone state which is without its own SCERT.
“The government doesn’t need to build new infrastructure to make SCERT functional in state but has to upgrade existing infrastructure in DIETs and SIE. But still the department is not doing it,” the official said.
Under the prevailing system, the District Institutes of Education and Trainings (DIETs) are supervised by State institute of Education (SIE). “But once SCERT is in place, then all DIETs will be under its amb and there will be more accountability in the work culture of these DIETs as well,” the official said.
The official said that after SCERT becomes functional all the DIETs will be linked with it for over all control and academic monitoring in the schools.
“As of now the state is not getting funds under various components from MHRD due to the failure of state authorities to establish SCERT,” he said.
Pertinently, the government in the past had sent a team of officials to attend training programme related to functioning of SCERT in the state. The team was supposed to submit their feedback and recommendation to the state regarding the establishment of the institute in the state. “But nothing happened on ground so far,” the official added.
The SCERT is an autonomous body, recognized by National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE), for admission, curriculum construction, course conduct, guidance, examination and certification of pre-service training program in the area of pre-primary teacher education and elementary education.
“The basic objective of SCERT is to match the quality of education and academic standards with private schools,” the official said.
Commissioner Secretary School education department, Sarita Chauhan didn’t respond to calls from this newspaper.
KV Correspondent
