CM inaugurates Smart Classrooms, upgraded model schools Hails J&K Bank for making quality intervention in education sector
Srinagar, Oct. 13: In a significant development that can turn a new leaf in the education system of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed inaugurated the two model schools equipped with state-of-the art Smart Class facilities in South Kashmir today amid huge enthusiasm. The two government schools viz Govt. Boys Higher Secondary School, Bijbehara and Government Girls Higher Secondary School, Ranibagh, Anantnag, have been developed and upgraded by the J&K Bank as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility to lend its support to the Chief Ministers Model School Programme.
Those present on the occasion included Member Parliament Mehbooba Mufti, Minister for Public Works and Floriculture Syed Altaf Hussain Bukhari, Minister for Horticulture, Hajj & Auqaf Abdul Reham Veeri, Chairman & CEO J&K Bank Mushtaq Ahmad, Secretary School Education Shalin Kabra, Director School Education Dr Shah Faisal, local MLAs and MLCs, heads of various departments, officers of J&K Bank, teachers and students of the two model schools.
Expressing his gratitude to J&K Bank, Chief Minister said, “I am thankful to Chairman J&K Bank for having lived up to his commitment of making quality interventions in education sector”.
“I feel delighted to see that J&K Bank has not only equipped these schools with Smart Classes and high tech computer and science labs but they have gone beyond by providing and upgrading some critical infrastructural facilities”, he added.
He expressed hope that teachers and students would put in their best to make use of these facilities to set the tone for making a positive change in education system to ‘ensure a better tomorrow for all of us’.
Stating that mankind had made immense strides during the course of history, he said that times have changed and continue to change, thereby throwing new challenges with each passing day. “We are living in a different world where new wars would be based on competition of human resources and technological advancement”, he said.
Reiterating his commitment to making radical changes in the education system, he said that the concept of smart classes cannot remain confined to few schools. “We are thankful to J&K Bank and some other private players for having joined us to take the education in the state of Jammu and Kashmir to newer levels of excellence.
Mehbooba Mufti, Member Parliament, in her address stressed on the need to strengthen the efforts aimed at streamlining the education system in the state. “Children of our state have a better IQ than their counterparts in the rest of the country but what is needed is to channelize all resources to exploit and nourish the talent”, she stressed.
Commenting on the initiative, Mushtaq Ahmad, Chairman & CEO J&K Bank said, “Education, as we experience throughout our lives, is the key to mental, social and cultural development of societies. Only educated societies survive the challenges of change. Thus in every forward looking society education exacts major resources in terms of human, financial and social capital”.
“This is the basic idea of our engagement with education through our Corporate Social Responsibility. As means to socio-economic empowerment, education receives a substantial part of our CSR funds”, he added.
Notably, these classrooms offer state-of-the-art teaching-learning experience which includes every possible instruction and assessment element required by the teachers and student in class. The setup for these two selected model schools includes two Smart Classrooms and One Computer Lab cum Smart Classroom, high-tech Science laboratories, apart from other infrastructural facilities.
The Bank has added value to the upgradation by providing these classrooms with the same equipment and rich content subscription as available in the top schools of the country. The content input includes comprehensive problem solving and question-answer package of both NCERT and CBSE syllabi. Moreover, the software package comes with inbuilt flexibility to change/ upgrade in case there is some change in curriculum of the students. In that sense it is a complete package.