In a first, DSEJ hosts cultural conclave of kindergartens

Jammu/May,4: In a significant move, Government has decided to establish 800 more kindergartens in the state run schools to expand the outreach of preschool facility to maximum number of children.
“In view of the huge public response and tangible results obtained with the introduction of Kindergartens, it has been decided to start nursery classes in more 800 government schools”, Minister for Education, Syed Mohammad Altaf Bukhari announced here Thursday.
The Minister was speaking at the Cultural conclave of Kindergartens   hosted by Directorate of School Education, Jammu in the sprawling auditorium of the Teachers Bhawan Gandhi Nagar.
The event witnessed participation of children drawn from 17 government and private kindergarten of Jammu district and one school of Rajouri district.
Speaker Legislative Assembly, Kavinder Gupta and Minister of state for Education and Culture, Priya Sethi also attended the function.
Giving details, Syed Altaf Bukhari said the Kindergartens in the government schools would be run in collaboration with the Social Welfare Department.
“The initiative of starting the preschool classes in some of the selected schools of the state in the first phase has borne very good results. Realizing the need for extending the crucial facility to maximum number of our children the state has decided to cover 800 more schools in convergence mode with social welfare department”, Altaf Bukhari said.
He said education department is working out the modalities to establish these pre-nursery schools.
Appreciating the scintillating performance by the Government kindergarten children, he said the show reflected the great success of the initiative in a short span of few years. He also hailed the teachers for putting in their best efforts to prepare the children to face such a huge audience.
Speaker J&K Legislative Assembly, Kavinder Gupta, in his address, called upon the teachers to give their best to children and make them real assets for the state and country.
“I have great respect for teacher because they are the real nation builders. Every individual owes a great deal to teachers for his success in life” speaker said while advising the teaching fraternity to never let down the dignity of their profession. He also stressed on teaching local languages in schools and said losing connect with own heritage does no goes well when it comes to the overall development of children.
He also hailed the introduction of pre-school classes in government schools as a great move. He hoped that the education will touch new heights in the leadership of the team of the present Ministers heading the department.
Minister of state for Education, Priya Sethi described the kindergarten concept as a major step towards achieving new heights in school education.
“It has been observed that most of the parents prefer to send their children to study class 11 and class 12 in government schools and sometimes it becomes difficult for the management to cope with the rush. This is not happening at primary and elementary level and I think not having preschool facility in state run school is the main reason for this. The starting of Kindergarten in maximum government schools will definitely fill this gap in the pre-secondary education and the major beneficiaries will be the children of rural areas and small towns, where such facility is not available’, she asserted.
Expressing optimism, she said with this move the Jammu and Kashmir would achieve new highs in the education ranking among the state of the country, which is presently not so good. She said    Thursday’s event has great significance as it provided children of government and private schools to share a platform and interact with each other.
“We want to come out of the closed door approach by bringing government and private schools closer. This can be done by facilitating regular interactions between the teachers and children of the two set ups to help them share experiences and learn from each other”, she added.
Highlighting the importance of intimating children with their culture and heritage, she said in future such programs would be made a regular feature.
The Minister also called upon the teachers to work with same spirit and ensure the successes of the kindergartens in the government schools.
Earlier, Director School Education, Ravinder Singh, in his welcome address spelled out measures for further strengthening of pre-school embellishments in the government schools.
The program was witnessed by a huge audience comprising students, parents, teachers and senior officials of education Department.