Govt school enrollment increased from 22 lakh to 24 lakh in 2 years: Union MoS Edu
Srinagar: Union Minister of State (MoS) for Education, Subhas Sarkar Sunday said he was impressed with the functioning of the government schools in south Kashmir’s Kulgam district noting that the connection between the administration and locals was impressive.
Sarkar, who was on a three-day visit to Kulgam as part of the ongoing public outreach programme of the Centre, said J&K was on the path of all-round development for the last three years.
Addressing a news conference at Srinagar, the minister said that he was delighted to see the functioning of the government schools in Kulgam district where he laid a foundation stone of a 100-bedded Gujjar and Bakerwal hostel.
“I was happy to see students doing innovative works besides promoting their culture,” he said.
The minister recalled his interaction with one of the students of a government school in Kulgam and said that the student shared his aspirations and wanted to become an IAS officer.
“When I told the student how he will become an IAS officer, he replied that the concerned Deputy Commissioner was his role model,” he said.
The minister while referring to his conversation with the school children said that the connection between the district administration and locals was very good.
“In other states, if we ask the students the name of their DC, they will not be able to answer as they might not have seen him. But in Kulgam every student knows Bilal Mohiuddin Bhat who has become a role model for the school children,” Sarkar said.
He said that the government school students were doing well in sports and he saw around 1 lakh students participating in different sports activities in the district.
“Even I saw that almost every government school in Kulgam has smart classrooms. This shows the beginning of a new dawn,” Sarkar said.
He said that enrollment in government schools had increased by two lakh during the last two years.
“Two years ago, we had an enrollment of 22 lakh students in government schools, which has now reached 24 lakh. Most of the new students have come from private schools, which is encouraging for us,” Sarkar said.
About the National Education Policy (NEP)-2020 he said that the J&K government had performed well in introducing pre-primary classes in government schools and equipped the schools with state-of-the-art facilities.
“We have introduced pre-primary classes in 9000 schools which have been equipped with student-friendly infrastructure. The enrollment in pre-primary schools has touched 70,000 which is an achievement for us,” Sarkar said.
Briefing about the improvement of learning outcomes of students as depicted in the National Achievement Survey (NAS), Sarkar said that J&K’s Education Department has jumped from 17th rank to 7th rank in the last five years.
NAS is conducted after every five years to assess the learning outcomes of the students.
“In 2017, J&K was at 17th rank and in 2021 it was at 8th rank which indeed is a good parameter. J&K is ahead of many states,” Sarkar said.
He said that the performance of secondary-level students in annual J&K Board exams had increased during the last three years.
“The performance of students in 2019-20 board exams was 75 percent which improved to over 78 percent in 2021. There was exactly an increase of 3.4 percent,” Sarkar said.
He said that J&K was on the path of all-round development noting that more than five lakh tourists had visited the district during the current year.
“Besides the education sector, J&K is witnessing improvement in the execution of projects under MGNREGA as well,” he said.
