Minister for School Education, Hajj and Auqaf and Tribal Affairs, Chowdhary Zulfkar Ali today impressed upon the officers of Jammu and Kashmir Board School Education (JKBOSE) to expedite the process of switching completely to the digital work culture.Reviewing the functioning of the Board, the Minister said the entire Board functioning should be digitalized. Instead of following orthodox methods, it is important to switch over to paperless working culture, where official documentation, including student registration, examination forms, issuing of roll number slips, and passing certificates, would be done through digital mode, he said.The Minister said the Board needs to develop a mechanism where they can provide username and a password to all the heads of the departments of schools, who can themselves, check the form received online and if required can do the needful editing.Minister of State for School Education Shakti Raj Parihar, Secretary School Education Farooq Shah, Chairperson J&K State Board of School Education Professor Veena Pandita, Director Academics Farooq Peer, Joint Secretaries BOSE, Deputy Secretaries BOSE, were present in the meeting.To put a complete stamp on unfair means, Zulfkar Ali directed the concerned that all secondary and higher secondary exams shall be conducted under camera surveillance, adding later papers evaluation should also be done under camera surveillance.
During the meeting, the Minister also directed for building a separate building for evaluation of papers so that they will have a proper infrastructure to work in without having any external interference to disturb them.Reviewing the content produced by the Board, the Minister said the books prepared and published should be able to connect a student with latest market trends. He also stressed on the need to incorporate local and relevant chapters like Kashmiri art and culture, Kashmiri music, lifestyle and fine arts.The Minister also impressed upon concerned to ensure that uniform curriculum should be adapted by all schools, including private ones. He explained that uniformity will put students from the humble background at par with the students coming from high strata of society.During the meeting, the Minister was informed that the Board is preparing new books with the best content after organizing a rigorous exercise of holding more than 15 workshops, seeking the opinion of subject experts, researchers and people from civil society.It was revealed that for publishing of books the Board opts for national level tendering.