The Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly today passed the grants amounting ₹ 1201489.52 lakh for School Education department, ₹ 881370.63 lakh for Health and Medical Education department, ₹ 450428.15 lakh for Social Welfare department and ₹ 219340.00 lakh for Higher Education department through voice vote.
The grants were passed after a two day detailed discussion in the house.
Winding up the discussion on Demands for Grants, Minister for Health and Medical Education, Social Welfare and Education, Sakeena Itoo, welcomed the suggestions given by the Legislators regarding functioning of the departments under her charge.
She said that the Legislators have spoken about various aspects of School Education, Higher Education, Health and Medical Education and Social Welfare departments. Their suggestions about these sectors will definitely guide the government in addressing the challenges and bringing improvements, wherever required.
Sakeena assured the Legislators that her team will examine the valuable suggestions put forth by them for implementation. She added that efforts would be stepped up to address the issues they have raised during the discussion of Demand for Grants.
While speaking regarding the School Education sector, the Minister said that education is one of the most important sectors upon which the foundation of a nation depends. “Under the visionary leadership of late Sher-e-Kashmir Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, education sector was given prime importance”, she stated.
She also expressed gratitude to Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, that despite all financial limitations as Finance Minister, he kept extraordinary budget provisions for education sector. She added that this budgetary support will help in improving the quality of education across Jammu and Kashmir.
Reflecting on achievements of school Education sector, Sakeena said that J&K has a distinction of having free education upto university level. She informed the house that J&K has a vast network of 18,724 government schools and 5517 private schools which helped J&K to achieve literacy rate of 77.3%, very close to the National level literacy rate of 77.70%. “Under UT Capex, Samagra, Rs. 739 crore have been approved for infrastructure development which included new school buildings and additional class rooms”, she said.
She also informed the house that after the present government took over, in its first Cabinet meeting, the November session was restored on public demand for the larger benefit of students and parents.
“In order to equip the students with latest methods of education, ICT Labs, Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs) and Smart Classrooms have been introduced, which is helping our students to compete at National and International level.
During the current budget, a provision of 600 ICT labs, 2000 smart classrooms and 500 ATLs has been kept to encourage innovation and scientific temperament among the students”, she informed.
The Minister also informed the house that for the benefit of students in remote areas and students belonging to migratory population, 1859 seasonal centres are being run across J&K. She further said that due to various initiatives of the department, students in government schools have been doing very well as is reflected in the board exams. “During last year exams, most of the top positions in all the streams have been achieved by the students of government schools. Even in professional competitive exams, the pass outs of government schools have done tremendously well ”, she informed.