Smartclasses setup under the ICT@School and CAL centre schemes of RMSA and SSA respectively clubbed with J&K Knowledge Network and also the large scale High Quality Teacher’s Trainings organized by SSA in 2016 were recognized as national best practices in the two day Northern Region Workshop on Innovations and Best Practices in School Education held at Chandigarh under the aegis of Ministry of Human Resource and Development, Government of India. The objective of the workshop was to provide a platform to the States to showcase their best practices and creative ideas. The workshop was inaugurated by Minister for Human Resource and Development, Prakash Javadekar, and was attended by the Minister of State, Upendra Kushwaha ; Minister for Education Punjab, Aruna Chaudhary; Secretary School Education Department, MHRD, GoI, Anil Swarup; representatives of various State Governments, Non Government Organisations (NGOs).
Saugat Biswas, State Project Director, Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, J&K made detailed presentations on the implementation of the selected best practices. J&K setup Smart classrooms in 440 schools of the State in 2016 with almost 300 schools equipped with 4G internet connectivity for conducting JK Knowledge Network lectures wherein interactive-lectures of experts are organized from remote locations, sometimes from overseas, attended by students of multiple schools simultaneously. J&K also conducted training in e-learning for over 34000 middle school teachers including two teachers each from high schools of the State. J&K is taking ahead the project further in another over one thousand schools in the current year.SSA during the last year covered over 84000 teachers under the refresher training program with a meticulously designed model in collaboration with Simple Education Foundation, despite the turbulent conditions in the Kashmir valley. In addition J&K achieved trainings of over 6000 teachers under inclusive education.
The trainings have been on contemporary pedagogy for which the teaching community has exhibited very positive feedback at various platforms including some articles published in local newspapers regarding the applicability of the module. There have been tangible improvements in classroom culture and lesson planning since the trainings.Tufail Mattoo, State Project Director, Rashtriya Madhyamik Siksha Abhiyaan (RMSA) had detailed one-on-one meetings with the various participating NGOs to assess the applicability of their practices in the State of J&K.Mayur Khaire, Vaibhav Jindal, Prime Minister’s Rural Development Fellows (PMRDFs) working with the SSA J&K and Mainak Roy, Director, Simple Education Foundation also made domain specific presentations in the best practices of J&K. J&K also exhibited various activities of SSA & RMSA of the previous year in the exhibition of States generating interest from all the states present in Inclusive Education, especially Braille Tactile Reader System. The state also got opportunity to interact with various educationists and administrators from across the country.