JK to have SCERT on the lines of NCERT, DIE&Ts to be under its control

Srinagar: The Administrative Council (AC) which met under the chairmanship of Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha, gave approval to establishment of State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) by merging State Institutes of Education Jammu and Kashmir.
SCERT, being the apex academic authority of the UT, is mandated to assist and advice the Government in implementation of policies and programmes for human resource development in the field of education, human and child development and national integration, on the analogy of NCERT- the nationalapex academic authority.
The State Council of Educational Research and Training will also look after various aspects of curriculum development, health & physical education, guidance & counselling and inclusive & special education.
The decision to establish a new body includes revisiting various policy parameters concerning teachers’ education to create a sound institutional infrastructure for both pre-service and in-service training of teachers and for academic resource support to elementary/secondary schools. Additionally, it will also fill up institutional gaps and introduce uniformity in nomenclature despite different academic calendars being followed in sub-tropical and temperate zones of Jammu and Kashmir.
The new body is envisaged to meet the challenges in teachers’ education arising from recent spatial and numerical expansion of schooling facilities at elementary and secondary levels along with corresponding skill enhancement of teachers through proper orientation and training.
SCERT will enable the Department of School Education to train 1.34 lakh in-service teachers through various professional trainings, capacity building programmes, induction courses, contentment enrichment and contemporary trends and techniques for ensuring quality education.
To provide academic and resource support at grass-root level, SCERT will function through existing District Institute of Education & Trainings (DIETS), which have been brought under the administrative control of the former.
In order to make SCERT operational, the Administrative Council assigned the charge of Director SCERT to Chairman JKBOSE, as an interim measure.