On the initiative of Minister for Education, Naeem Akhtar, VEC Day was observed throughout Jammu and Kashmir today to formally constitute Village Education Committees for the schools under Sarva Shikhsha Abhiyan (SSA).During the day-long campaign hundreds of VECs were constituted in the State. Each VEC has local Panchayat representative, Headmaster of the school, representative of local Self Help Group, local educationist, local parents and other eminent locals as its members.
“The objective of constituting VECs is to encourage synergetic government-community partnership to achieve the objective of universalisation of elementary education,” said Akhtar adding that unfortunately no effort was made in the past on this front.The Minister said the the constitution of VECs is aimed at giving community ownership to educational institutions as it functions as a part of the social system.
“VECs play significant role in micro-planning, they prepare the school development plan including requirement of buildings, toilet and drinking water facilities,” he said and added that VECs play major role in bringing positive attitudinal change in people towards education and in mobilizing the community and motivating parents/guardians to send their children to schools, especially girls and children from disadvantaged groups.They will be also responsible for school construction and maintenance, purchase of materials, school mapping and micro-planning exercise, preparation of Village Education Plan and monitoring the school management as well as teacher performance, he said.
Identifying the needs of schoolsHe said the VECS would be conducting periodic meetings to ensure cooperation of the community in smooth functioning of the local educational institutes, assist the Headmaster in transparent and effective utilization of grants released to schools, monitor enrolment of all school-age children and ensuring cent percent completion of elementary education of all children, monitor academic performance of children, attendance and quality of education, involvement in appointment of Education Volunteers (EVs) for EGS and Alternative and Innovative Education centres as per guidelines and directions of District Education Committee and monitor functioning of EGS and AIE centres.The Minister expressed gratitude to the District Administrations of all the districts and the officers/officials of the Education Department for their efforts in making today’s campaign a successful event. He said more such campaigns would be organized in coming days to institutionalize the mechanism of VECs in the State.