(GIST OF YOJANA) Bridging the Digital Divide

[September-2022]

Bridging the Digital Divide

Context:

The is 200 spread school Zonal education over Resource 200 Centres educational in Jammu and 800 zones Kashmir Cluster with Educational Zones. The UT has 14171 Primary Schools, 6665 Upper Primary Schools, 1194 High Schools, 597 Higher Secondary Schools, two Sainik Schools, 22 District Institutes of Education, two regional Institutes of Education, and 97 KGBVs.
In 2020, due to the pandemic, the education system all over the world was forced to shut down abruptly. In the same manner, the schools in J&K were also closed and the face-to face mode of teaching was shifted to online mode. The closure of educational institutions urged the Government to take up various digital initiatives in school education for continuity of education.

SARAL Android App:

SARAL (Students Accessible Resource and Learning Application) is an App developed by the TT wing of the Directorate of School Education Jammu- The Android App has been developed on the concept of “All-in-One.” It connects students to e-content, which is available on various educational portals like DIKSHA, e-Pathshala, Swayam, e-Vidya Daan, and Swayam Prabha. It also provides students access to locally developed e-content, live classes, activities, and online assessments.
The e-content was developed by various well-trained subject experts. It also provides access to textbooks prepared by the Jammu and Kashmir Board of School Education (JKBOSE). The App is available on the Google Play store under the name “SARAL DSEJ Online Education.” It contains a section on Ministry of Education (MoE) initiatives where links to all major initiatives launched by MOE, the Government of India are available and can carry out assessments as well.

School Tracking & Monitoring System

“Aadharshila”: Aadharshila is a web-based system designed by the Directorate of School Education, Jammu. The system is designed to digitise all the government schools in the Jammu division. The web-based system monitors and keeps track of infrastructure, teachers, and their expertise in teaching. The web portal contains information about students of all the government schools.
This information helps to derive various inferences like “teacher-student ratio, category-wise student details, scholarship details, students without Aadhaar details, etc.,” which helps in proper planning and taking broader policy decisions. The web-based system keeps school-wise records of all interventions funded under state and district sectors.
Samadhan: Samadhan is an online grievance redressal system that aims at increasing transparency and improving the delivery mechanism, especially in school education. The system is designed by DSE and developed by National Informatics Centre (NIC). The platform can be used by parents, students, and teachers to submit their grievances to the system. The submitted complaints will be assigned to the concerned authority for redressal. As per the latest records, the portal has received 1034 grievances out of which 669 were resolved and 319 are in progress.

J&K Education Hub:

J&K Education Hub is a web-based system that is used to host the academic digital content developed by teachers of government schools. The excellent content is chosen to be sent to National level portals like DIKSHA.

This web-based system is a single platform for all digital initiatives of the School Education Department. Jammu Division. The portal was started to make online/distance education easy and simple. Students and teachers can access all digital resources from this single portal. The Directorate organises all online webinars, meetings, and workshops through this hub. The portal has a special section that highlights the achievements of teachers and students.
e-Office at Directorate of School Education. Jammu The e-office at the directorate was started to streamline the office working system with regard to transparency. The e-office is a digital system developed by NIC to make the office paperless. The system was adopted to increase accountability and efficiency' in view of the digitization of files. The movement of files at the directorate is being performed on a digital platform which helps in keeping the track of the status of a file. The status can be checked with a single click. The initiative aimed to make official work transparent and to provide the latest status of any file in a more systematic manner. The Directorate has the vision to implement this initiative in all subordinate offices.
System for Management of Private Schools It is a web-based system that is being used in the management of private schools. It caters to all private schools irrespective of Boards like JKBOSE, CBSE. or ICSE. The system has a provision to grant online registration and upgradation permission to private schools.
Under the digital initiatives, the DSE Jammu celebrated “Digital J&K Week” from 25-31 July 2022, to highlight various IT initiatives undertaken by die government in making J&K digital.

Way ahead:

The Government of Jammu and Kashmir is taking path-breaking digital initiatives to boost the education system and to bring greater transparency to it.
These transformational initiatives in the education sector have been undertaken with the aid of information and communication technology to ease the life of students and to make teaching and learning effective.