Two Days Northern Region Review Workshop

Chandigarh, 5th May 2018 : A two days Northern Region Review workshop started on 4th May 2018 at Hotel Mount View, Chandigarh which was attended by Senior Officers of the Education Departments NCT of Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, HP, J&K, Punjab, UP, Uttrakhand and Rajasthan.

The workshop was presided over by Sh. Anil Swarup, secretary (School Education & Literacy), MHRD, and was attended by a team of Officers from MHRD, Principals Secretaries / Secretaries of participating states and UT’s, State Project Directors, SCERT Directors, Professors from NCERT, Consultants and Faculty from SCERTs.

Sh. B. L Sharma, IAS, Secretary (Education) while welcoming the delegates stated that the system of education today is not the same as it was a decade ago and probably will not be the same a decade hence. Their is a huge transformation in the system of education making it more inclusive, technology driven and qualitative, enabling it to meet the needs of nation and humanity at large. Workshops like this would act as a catalyst in the transformation which is taking place.

The opening address was given by Sh. Anil Swarup from MHRD whereby he stressed on innovative initiates to be taken by states to raise the standards of education. The main theme of the workshop was ISSE (Integrated scheme of School Education) or the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan which is an integration of SSA, RMSA and teacher education.

There was sharing of best practices from States of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan who have initiated the Diksha portal or Digital Infrastructure for knowledge sharing. These states have started with a digital revolution in the form of ETB’s or energized textbooks, specially designed textbooks with QR codes which can be scanned to have an in depth knowledge from the internet. Almost 200 million books have already been digitized in 05 states with the QR codes. The Diksha would lead to improved teaching in classroom, building digital infrastructure and creation and strengthening of peer learning communities.

Further, there was discussion on implementation of ShaalaKosh, an amalgam of UDISE, SDMIS and Shaala Siddhi. Implementation of restructuring of SCERT’s / DIET’s in accordance with ISSE was discussed in depth. Safety guidelines for schools and sports facilities in schools were also discussed.

Day two of the workshop was again initiated by Sh. Anil Swarup, Secretary (SE &L). He talked of the important role of NGO’s in bringing about a change in education. He gave brief snippets on the commendable work done by NGO’s in certain states, and also called for support of CSR agencies to invest towards the cause of education. The focus was on the working of CSR’s and NGO’s in tandem to get qualitative results.

The day witnessed interactive sessions by around 30 NGO’s working across states in India in the different fields of education, viz vocational education, teachers’ capacity building and development, early literacy and numeracy, Mid Day Meal, technology in education, problem based mathematical learning in place of calculation based learning, pedagogical practices, girl child education, inculcation of reading habits, to name a few.