Underscoring on raising standards of education in schools, Deputy Chief Minister Mr. Tara Chand called upon functionaries of the department to work with zeal and dedication in imparting their pious duty to spread light of knowledge in the society. He said providing quality education to all is priority of the government and all out efforts have been initiated to ensure that government schools come up to the expectations of present day education requirements.“Education sector is receiving focused attention of the government and school infrastructure at all levels is being improved through prestigious central schemes like SSA and RAMSA, now it is up to the officers of the department to ensure maximum output from these schemes,” he enjoined.Mr. Tara Chand was chairing a meeting to review the implementation and progress of different projects undertaken in the education department, here today.Chief Education Officers of Jammu province attended the meeting and gave resume of activities in their respective jurisdictions.Detailed review of the pace and progress of schemes and projects under SSA and RAMSA were taken and instructions were issued to improve performance of the schools.Stressing on making functionaries of the department aware of various schemes under implementation, the Deputy Chief Minister said that all those involved with the education sector should have up-to-date knowledge about different activities and programs being taken up in the sector, adding that better implementation is possible only when proper awareness is made about ongoing projects and schemes.
He said an education conference should be held at provincial level for making the functionaries of education department aware about various activities and programs of the department.“Detailed exercise needs to be done at different levels by field officers to make both teaching as well as non teaching staff aware about policies and programs launched by the government in education sector,” he added.Mr. Tara Chand directed the concerned agencies to speed up the pace of various works being executed under education department and complete all ongoing construction works of school buildings within the prescribed time frame.He also reviewed the status of utilization of funds under SSA and RMSA and called upon the concerned officers to timely utilize the funds under education sector. He stressed for computerization of the entire education department for ensuring transparency and easy access to the relevant information.He said exemplary initiatives have been taken in the department to clear the backlog of promotions in the department and several actions have been taken during last two months which include, promotions of 6 new Joint Directors, 27 Chief Education Officers, 82 ZEOs, 2041 Lecturers, finalization of seniority list of 1401 Senior Lecturers, 2529 Headmasters and promotion of 81 PG Masters as Lecturers.He said over 20, 000 vacancies have been identified and instructions have given for fast track recruitment by the concerned agencies.“All such steps are being taken to boost the morale of teaching fraternity so that they attend to their duties in most diligent manner and performance of students gets improved, which ultimately results in people reposing faith in the government schools,” he added.