Advisor to Governor, Khurshid Ahmad Ganai today called for stepping up efforts for further enhancement in enrollments in schools to achieve cent per cent literacy in the State.The Advisor was speaking at a meeting held to review the progress of centrally sponsored schemes being executed by the School Education Department.Secretary School Education, A. K. Sahu, Director School Education Kashmir, Dr. G N Itoo, Director School Education Jammu, Anuradha Gupta, State Project Director, Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan, Dr Arun Kumar Manhas and other concerned officers attended the meeting.The Advisor, while deliberating upon the means for increasing enrolment in schools, asked the department to evolve an effective mechanism for launch of massive drive in this regard.He directed for fixing school-specific targets to improve enrolment ratio to match the country average of 85 per cent.The Advisor asked the concerned to ensure that the syllabus of every class is set as per the potential and requirement of the students. He also asked the Secretary to coordinate with JKBOSE in this regard.
While reviewing the flagship Samagra Shiksha scheme, the Advisor asked the concerned officers to meet the shortfall in respect of toilets, electricity and drinking water facility in all the 24000 government schools in the state.He further directed for mobilization of resources for schools at community and Panchayat levels especially to meet the requirement of furniture and other paraphernalia. He also asked the Secretary to explore the possibility of extending promissory assistance to school managements up to primary and upper primary level for executing low-cost projects.He also directed the department to decentralize the purchase and procurement of food-grains under Mid Day Meal Scheme (MDMS) on the pattern adopted under Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) for Anganwari Centres.He asked the Directors of School Education to reinforce earlier orders regarding the constitution of committees for inspection and monitoring of MDMS in their respective divisions with directions for submission of regular reports.The Advisor stressed on the implementation of learning outcomes for improving quality of education in the State.