Schools sans annual improvement plan

Vikas Sharma

Tribune News Service

Jammu, March 22

The Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir is among 13 states and Union Territories where schools are yet to formulate the annual School Improvement/Development Plan to cover the areas of physical access, enrolment, infrastructure, teaching information and student learning levels.

This has been revealed in the School Education Quality Index (SEQI) report of the National Institute for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog.

Every school must formulate an annual School Improvement/Development Plan (SDP) as part of its monitoring and assessment strategy. The responsibility of developing the SDP lies with the School Management Committee.

The report stated that at least 90 per cent of the schools in 19 states and UTs had created SDPs. In contrast, 13 states and UTs, including J&K, did not report any schools which had formed SDPs.

The other states and Union Territories without the SDP are Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Manipur, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Assam, Daman and Diu and Lakshadweep. The states and UTs with the SDP are Assam, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Odisha, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Delhi, Puducherry and Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

The Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir also lags behind in self-evaluation. The National Programme on School Standards and Evaluation, which is driven by the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, aims to help elementary and secondary schools carry out self-evaluation to improve education quality and management.

The date from SEQI revealed that J&K was among seven states and UTs where the schools were yet to initiate the self-evaluation process. Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Meghalaya and Lakshadweep have also not started the process.

As per the Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE), there are around 28,714 schools (both government and private) in J&K. Of them, 14, 716 are primary schools only, 10, 141 are primary with upper primary, 494 are primary with upper primary, secondary and higher secondary, 134 are upper primary only, 95 are upper primary with secondary and higher secondary, 2,732 are primary with upper primary and secondary and 402 are upper primary with secondary.