The Jammu and Kashmir government is yet to start the admission process of the students under Right to Education (RTE) Act that enables free and compulsory education to all learners between the age of 6-14 years, Ministry of Education (MoE) said.
In a recent Project Approval Board (PAB) of MoE the authorities said, “Union Territory (UT) of Jammu and Kashmir is yet to initiate the process of admission under Section l2 (1) (C) of RTE act 2009.”
In the meeting, the Government of India (GoI) said that the RTE was not applicable in Jammu and Kashmir before the abrogation of Article-370.
The minutes of meeting released by the MoE reads, “RTE act 2009 was not applicable in the State of Jammu and Kashmir. The RTE act 2009 became applicable only with the enactment of the Jammu and Kashmir reorganization act with immediate effect from August-09 2019.”
Pertinently, under the section 12 (1) (c) of the RTE act 2009, all specified category or private schools are supposed to preserve at least 25 percent of their seats for the admissions of students belonging from Economically Weaker Section (EWS).
The Jammu and Kashmir government was asked to expedite and ensure timely transfer of funds to State Implementing Society (SIS).
With regard to the development in the education sector, the MoE said Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) labs in remaining high and higher Secondary Schools have been considered and approved by the PAB for 408 schools in 19 districts including aspirational district
The GoI further said that the present situation of C0VID-19 has presented new challenges for face to face teacher training and also several opportunities to innovate, revamp and technology integration in in-service teacher training and has decided to give trainings online.
“It has been decided that this year remaining training of ‘National Initiative for School Heads and Teachers Holistic Advancement (NISHTHA) at elementary level and NISHTHA Phase-II training at Secondary level will be conducted online by the NCERT by using high quality professionally made e-content following the four quadrant approach consisting of video, text, self-assessment and learn more,” MoE said.