SRINAGAR: With over 2.6 million students enrolled across 24,137 schools in Jammu and Kashmir and a per-student expenditure nearing Rs 1 lakh annually, Chief Secretary Atal Dulloo on Friday reviewed the performance and reform measures of the School Education Department, stressing quality education and teacher accountability.
Chairing a detailed meeting attended by the Secretary, School Education Department, PD Samagra Shiksha, Directors of School Education (Jammu/Kashmir), Secretary JKBOSE and others, Dulloo emphasised that the department’s substantial financial allocation, Rs 11,356.43 crore for FY 2025-26 and Rs 13,492.27 crore as overall approved budget, must reflect in improved learning outcomes and teaching standards.
The Chief Secretary said that no infrastructure or technology initiative can succeed without teacher commitment. “Teacher efficiency is non-negotiable. Salaries must be directly linked to attendance and lawful leave,” he directed, calling for the use of IT tools to monitor punctuality and classroom presence. The JK Attendance App, a face-recognition based system, is currently used by 1.14 lakh employees.
Dulloo also asked senior officials to conduct regular surprise inspections—both physical and virtual—especially in remote schools to ensure staff accountability. He directed the IT wing to create a dashboard for daily tracking of ICT and smart classroom infrastructure usage. The UT currently has 1,420 CAL Centres, 2,036 ICT Labs, and 4,272 Smart Classrooms in operation.
Highlighting vocational education, he noted that over 1.41 lakh students from classes 9 to 12 are enrolled in 15 vocational trades. He directed the department to assist these students until they find placements.
Pre-primary education was also discussed, with Dulloo stressing groundwork before merging education with childhood care under the ECCE model. Pre-primary classes are scheduled to begin in 15,550 schools, with 13,804 AAYAs/helpers already engaged.
The Chief Secretary reviewed progress under schemes like PM SHRI, Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas and Girls Hostels. It was revealed that 396 schools in J&K have been selected under PM SHRI.
Secretary School Education Department, Ram Niwas Sharma, informed that JK has a literacy rate of 77.3% (NSO 2017), and is divided into 188 Education Zones—97 in Jammu and 91 in Kashmir. Of the total 24,137 schools, 18,724 are government-run and 5,413 are private or other institutions. Total student enrolment stands at 2,617,817—1,356,838 in government and 1,260,979 in private institutions.
The Vidhya Samiksha Kendra has been fully operationalised in Jammu to support data-driven decisions. Four educational chatbots—Smart Attendance JK, JK Study Buddy, Field Monitoring Bot, and JK Parent Pulse Bot—are already functioning from the centre.
