Tribune News Service Jammu, November 21 ,2017
Minister for Education Syed Mohammad Altaf Bukhari has welcomed the state’s second rank in the education sector, declared in the India Today’s annual ‘State of the States’ ranking.
The state was judged on various parameters, including average student to classroom ratio, transition rate from primary to upper primary, number of girls enrolled in primary, pupil-teacher ratio, dropout rate, number of schools and colleges per lakh population.
The minister, welcoming the ranking given to the state, said the result had been achieved due to the focused attention by the government to the education sector, both in qualitative and in quantitative terms.
The annual exercise takes into account the objective data sourced from the government and other authentic sources to gauge the performance of the Indian states across various parameters in key sectors.
Secretary, School Education, Farooq A Shah, while commenting on the achievement, said the ranking marks a significant improvement for the state, still a lot needs to be done to ensure best possible education at all levels for the state youth.
Listing various initiatives under implementation in the education sector, Shah said the concept of clusterisation was introduced under which clusters of all the schools were made in the catchment area of a higher secondary school and this cluster was made the academic and planning unit. This idea helped in fostering healthy competition between clusters for resource mobilisation and performance.
Speaking about another important initiative called ‘CM Super 50’, a programme to provide free coaching and guidance for entrance exams, including IIT/JEE/AIPMT/CET, the secretary said at least 60 students from these super-50 centres had come out with flying colours for IIT/JEE, NIT-Srinagar, and AMU medical entrance examinations.
Meanwhile, Director, School Education, Kashmir, Dr GN Itoo and Director, School Education, Jammu, Ravinder Singh have also welcomed the ranking.
