Secretary DSEL expresses concern over low enrollment in Govt schools across JK

Posted by admin_kas on 2025-09-30 20:24:15 |

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Asks officers to strengthen standards of school education, addressing infrastructural gaps, efficient human resource management and mainstreaming out-of-school children

Muhammad Adnan

Srinagar, Sept 30: Union Secretary Department of School Education and Literacy (DoSEL), Sanjay Kumar  Tuesday expressed concern over the low enrollment in government schools as compared to the private schools functioning across Jammu and Kashmir.

Sanjay Kumar while taking a detailed review of the J&K School Education Department (SED) along with a team of senior officers at SKICC here issued directions to further strengthen the standards of school education in J&K and laid special stress on addressing infrastructural gaps, efficient human resource management, and mainstreaming out-of-school children.

Sanjay Kumar stressed for coordinated efforts by all stakeholders to ensure quality education and holistic development of children in Jammu and Kashmir.

During the review, Union Secretary highlighted the issue of student dropouts and directed officials to ensure that no student leaves school before completing Class 12.

He also emphasised the robust functioning of pre-primary schools and called for large-scale enrolment of children in kindergarten classes.

Secretary DSEL expressed concern over the comparatively low enrolment in government schools as against private institutions and directed officers to take measures to make government schools the “prime centres of learning and career development.”

He called for a massive increase in student enrolment in government schools and directed the department to ensure quality education through vocational and skill-based learning across all institutions.

Sanjay Kumar also instructed the department to reconsider the board examination of class 11 and asked JKBOSE doing away with it.

He encouraged for carrying out sustainable infrastructure up gradation to facilitate at all government schools for education.

The meeting was attended by Secretary JK SED Ram Niwas Sharma, Director General School Education Kashmir GN Itoo, Director School Education Jammu Dr. Naseem Choudhary, senior officers from various wings of the Education Department including Samagra Shiksha, JKBOSE, SCERT, and Directorates of School Education Kashmir and Jammu were present in the meeting.

At the outset, deliberations were held on the proposal for establishing a Regional Office of CBSE in J&KK. Among other agendas, adoption of curriculum as per NEP-2020 across all classes, Capacity building of teachers on NCF, CBSE curriculum, assessments, and conduct of board examinations, School education indicators of J&K, presented by DoSEL were also discussed.

Earlier, a detailed review on implementation and progress under Samagra Shiksha & PM SHRI and other schemes was also held.

He also reviewed progress under PARAKH and High-Powered Committee (HPC), Digital interventions including DIKSHA, VSK, and PM e-VIDYA channel usage.

Union Secretary reviews functioning of DIET/ITEP institutions in J&K and stressed on capacity building of teachers under various training courses.

Senior Officers accompanying the Secretary included Anand Rao Patil, Union Additional Secretary Digital Education; A Srija, Economic Advisor, DoSEL; Pankaj KP Shreyaskar, DDG Statistics; Harikumar Janakiraman, Director Digital Education; Sreekala P. Venugopal, Director, UT; Ram Singh, Deputy Director, DoSEL, Abdul Momin, TSG Consultant J&K, DoSEL.

Dinesh Prasad Saklani, Director, NCERT, Rahul Singh, Chairperson, CBSE, Pankaj Arora, Chairperson, NCTE, Akhilesh Mishra, Chairperson, NIOS, Indrani Bhaduri, CEO and Head, PARAKH were present on the occasion.