Develop vibrant academic resources for school teachers: DSEL
Srinagar: The Department of School Education and Literacy (DSEL) has stressed on the strengthening of Resource Centres at the block and cluster level of schools and asked the School Education Department to fill all the vacant positions in the Block Resource Centres (BRCs) and Cluster Resource Centres (CRCs) on priority.
In an official communication addressed to the Principal Secretary of School Education Department, the Joint Secretary DSEL, GoI said that the department would come up with a comprehensive framework on the roles and responsibilities of the resource persons and their linkages with other states besides the district level structures.
The Joint Secretary Secondary Education in DSEL, GoI said that BRCs and CRCs had a significant role in ensuring implementation of the National Education Policy, 2020.
“These institutions are the most critical units for ensuring and evaluating the quality of education at the school level constantly and providing timely remedial interventions with this perspective,” he said.
The DSEL has said that the CRCs and BRCs have a role in identifying existing challenges and they were coming up with suggestive measures to improve their overall functioning.
“States and union territories are requested to adopt the framework to help develop the BRCs and CRCs as vibrant academic resource centres for training and onsite support to schools and teachers,” the official document reads.
He has instructed that all the vacant posts at BRCs and CRCs should be filled up on priority. Contrary to DSEL observations, the resource persons in J&K are engaged in dealing with non-academic jobs and are mostly assigned clerical jobs in zonal and district offices.
Such practice by the officers at the zonal and district level has made the role of resource persons completely irrelevant to the functioning of schools.
Samagra Shiksha scheme has been extended up to 2025-26 as per the approval of the cabinet on August 4 this year.
The scheme has been completely aligned with the recommendations of NEP-2020 and many transformative recommendations of NEP-2020 have been made part of the Samagra Shiksha scheme including holistic progress card, child tracking, bag-less days, and focus on Out of School Children (OoSC).
“For this DSEL has released a comprehensive and task-oriented implementation plan for NEP 2020 called SARTHAQ for assisting states and union territories and to ensure time-bound implementation of NEP 2020,” the letter reads.
The DSEL also launched a National Mission on Foundational Literacy and Numeracy Care National initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Proficiency on July 5 this year.
“The move was taken while recognising the crucial role of foundational skills in national development to ensure the universal acquisition of foundational literacy and numeracy,” the letter reads.
The DSEL has said that the move would ensure that every child achieves the desired learning competencies in reading, writing, and numeracy at the end of Grade 3rd by 2026-27.“It is time for us to initiate a proper planning process based on the measurable outcomes so that the scheme can showcase some tangible benefits in the coming years,” the letter reads.
The DSEL has instructed that the planning exercise should be conducted in a decentralised manner involving all stakeholders from the grass-root level to make it realistic, achievable, and accountable.