A first of its kind two-day refresher training for Engineers of Sarva Shisha Abhiyan was organized by the directorate of Sarva Siksha Abhiyaan, J&K at the Institution of Engineers in Jammu. 98 Junior Engineers (JEs) and Assistant Engineers (AEs) have registered participation in the workshop. Principal Secretary to Government, Department of School Education, Shaleen Kabra inaugurated the training program and interacted with the engineers. He emphasised the need for constructing safe school buildings keeping in consideration natural disasters and commended the SSA for organising the training programme where all necessary topics have been covered.Saugat Biswas, State Project Director, SSA while speaking on the occasion highlighted the importance of the two day training and urged the engineers to take back maximum learnings from the workshop. “The workshop is designed to help engineers learn the latest techniques in construction alongwith the basics for refreshing the knowledge.
He informed that the training would include Construction Quality Control, Checking of key construction material, Necessary precautions required to be taken during mixing and laying of concrete, Selection of site, building locations, Sharing of experiences & best practices of SSA, Himachal Pradesh. NABCONS has recently prepared a status report of SSA buildings as third party monitor, which shall also be presented in the training” he informed.An important aspect of the workshop is to keep child in school at focus. SPD SSA further informed that a session on Building as Learning Aid (BaLa) techniques and utilization of space from National Expert on BaLa has been scheduled. Keeping in mind the high disaster vulnerability of the state, Mr. Rajendra Desai, Joint Director of National Centre for Peoples’ Action for Disaster Preparedness (NCPDP) shall be sharing the experiences and study of J&K in the aftermath of 2005 earthquake. Moreover, for Cost effective solutions using Local Material and Modern Construction technique such as Pre-fab structures, National Institute of Rural Development & Panchayati Raj, Hyderabad has been involved in the workshop. Calling it as a first of kind workshop by SSA, the participants felt that such workshops should be held regularly.Ms. Babila Rakwal, Director School Education Jammu, was also present along with Executive Engineers of SSA, Ramakant Sharma and Rajinder Kundal.