VIKAS SHARMA
JAMMU, MAR 11: The District Institutes of Education and Training (DIETs) in the Union Territory (UT) of Jammu and Kashmir will be developed as vibrant institutes of excellence for the teachers’ training which will be re-envisioned through innovative pedagogy, curriculum transaction, continuous professional development, dipstick surveys, and ICT implementation very soon.
As per the Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) data there are a total of 28805 schools (including both government and private) in J&K UT and the total enrollment stands at 2718644. The total strength of Teachers in the UT is 167106.
The announcement in this regard was made by Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs, Nirmala Sitharaman recently wherein she laid focus on teachers’ training and reading culture to help plug learning gaps across the country.
While giving stress on Teachers’ Training, the Finance Minister said that teachers’ training will be re-envisioned completely. She also announced the setting up of a National Digital Library for Children and Adolescents for facilitating availability of quality books across geographies, languages, genres and levels, and device agnostic accessibility.
The Minister informed that states will be encouraged to set up physical libraries for them at panchayat and ward levels and provide infrastructure for accessing the National Digital Library resources. To build a culture of reading and to make up for pandemic-time learning loss, the National Book Trust, Children’s Book Trust and other sources will be encouraged to provide and replenish non curricular titles in regional languages and English to these physical libraries. Collaboration with NGOs that work in literacy will also be a part of this initiative.
However, the Academicians and education stakeholders have welcomed this much needed initiative regarding the up-skilling of teachers and adoption of new-age innovative pedagogy. The educationists stated that it will fast-track the recovery in learning levels that receded alarmingly during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“This is the need of the hour given that the importance of teachers and the need to upskill them has become paramount in the post-pandemic world especially in J&K UT,” said the school education experts. The focus on pain points, such as teachers’ training and the revival of DIETS, has raised hopes among all the stakeholders. One of the chief points that stood out was the announcement to revive the DIETs and establish them as centres of excellence”, the school education experts said.
“This is a step in the right direction amidst the rising concerns over the learning levels that came undone in 2022 — in several cases, lower than even levels recorded a decade back. “Only a robust army of well-qualified and professionally-trained and competent educators can help make the recovery of the losses”, they added.
