Advisor to Governor, K Vijay Kumar Friday asked the officials and the experts in the Department of Education to put their heads together and come up with suggestions to further cut the dropout rate at primary and secondary level in schools.The Advisor said this while reviewing the functioning of the Education Department here today. The meeting was attended by Secretary Education Farooq Ahmad Shah, Director School Education Jammu, Director SSA and other senior officials of the department.It was observed in the meeting that there is 10:18 Dropout rate at Upper primary level and 23:04 Dropout Rate at secondary Level. Advisor complimented the officials of the department including the teachers and other field staff for their tireless efforts to increase the literacy rate in the state besides helping in decreasing the dropout rate from schools ate primary and secondary level.K Vijay Kumar said there is always scope for the improvement and asked the experts to come up with innovative ideas so that the dropout rate can further be decreased.
The meeting was informed that there are 23.145 lakh students enrolled in 29335 schools of the state and there is 163390 teaching and non teaching staff including SSA and RMSA Staff working in the department.It was informed that department has got 933 lecturers in various disciplines during 2017 on the recommendations of J&KPSC while 261 placements of PG Masters/ Teachers have been made as In-charge lecturers in various disciplines pending clearance by DPC or PSC besides regularizing the services of 60 lecturers.The department has also referred 2154 posts of teachers and 1296 non teaching posts under direct recruitment quota. The Advisor directed the officials to conduct regular DPCs and expedite the process to fill the indirect quota through promotions to avoid stagnations in the department.
Secretary Education informed the meeting that this year, the department received a financial allocation of Rs 122.05 crore under capex budget which include Rs 70 crore for up-gradation of infrastructure. It was given out that 139 works have been completed by March this year while 174 are expected to be completed by the end of current financial year.The meeting discussed threadbare the issue of SSA teachers, midday meal Scheme, RMSA other financial and physical constraints. The advisor directed the officials to expedite the work on various ongoing projects so that same can be completed well in time. He also laid stress on the proper monitoring mechanism in schools at block-level to bring in more efficiency in the department.The advisor stressed on teachers training and asked the officials to make efforts to equip the teachers with modern teaching techniques using modern gadgets so that the students are benefitted at large.