Reform: JK to have SCERT on the lines of NCERT
SRINAGAR: Aiming to achieve excellence in the field of education the administration has given an approval for establishing the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT).
The Administrative Council (AC) which met under the chairmanship of Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha, gave approval to establishment of SCERT by merging State Institutes of Education Jammu and Kashmir.
SCERT, being the apex academic authority of the UT, is mandated to assist and advice the Government in implementation of policies and programmes for human resource development in the field of education, human and child development and national integration, on the analogy of NCERT- the national apex academic authority.
The State Council of Educational Research and Training will also look after various aspects of curriculum development, health & physical education, guidance & counselling and inclusive & special education.
The decision to establish a new body includes revisiting various policy parameters concerning teachers’ education to create a sound institutional infrastructure for both pre-service and in-service training of teachers and for academic resource support to elementary/secondary schools. Additionally, it will also fill up institutional gaps and introduce uniformity in nomenclature despite different academic calendars being followed in sub-tropical and temperate zones of Jammu and Kashmir.
The new body is envisaged to meet the challenges in teachers’ education arising from recent spatial and numerical expansion of schooling facilities at elementary and secondary levels along with corresponding skill enhancement of teachers through proper orientation and training.
SCERT will enable the Department of School Education to train 1.34 lakh in-service teachers through various professional trainings, capacity building programmes, induction courses, contentment enrichment and contemporary trends and techniques for ensuring quality education.
To provide academic and resource support at grass-root level, SCERT will function through existing District Institute of Education & Trainings (DIETS), which have been brought under the administrative control of the former.
In order to make SCERT operational, the Administrative Council assigned the charge of Director SCERT to Chairman JKBOSE, as an interim measure.
In another decision, the AC approved development and implementation of Online Management, Monitoring & Accounting System for Public Works (R&B) Department through Centre for Development of Advance Computing (C-DAC) under the oversight of J&K e-Governance Agency (JaKeGA), Information Technology Department.
The online web based portal envisages digitizing major processes of the Department which will include infrastructure management, human resource management, online project proposals, contractors’ registration and hosting of information regarding contractors ‘details, works executed by them, among others.
The Department will also be required to streamline its end-to-end operations ranging from DPR preparation, tendering, progress, and quality to covering monitoring, billing, payment and maintenance works through the portal.
Once functional, the system will upgrade the present system of manual working to online operations, leading to scientific and efficient management system in the Department. The real-time access to the project specific processes will facilitate critical decision making and will prevent delays in project execution and subsequent cost escalation.
The project will be completed within six months and is expected to go live on 01.04.2021, after two months’ trial run.
The Administrative Council also directed other engineering departments viz. Jal Shakti and Power Development, to follow suit.
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