Jammu Septmebr 06:(KNS) Hailing Bharti Foundation for successful accomplishment of the first phase of imparting quality education in 15 schools of Nagrota Assembly Constituency, National Conference Provincial President said the initiative has caught the imagination of academia and students, who crave for expanding the outreach of the programme in the larger interest of the student community.
“I am extremely delighted for having the innovative educational outreach here and hope the effort to continue under the aegis of the Bharti Foundation and with the dedication of teachers, who have indeed put in their best to make the initiative a huge success”, Mr Rana said at the concluding ceremony of the first phase of the programme.
Under the initiative, the adopted 15 schools excelled in all the academic parameters like students’ participation and awards, attendance, life and study skills, board results, teachers’ capacity building, parent-teachers’ meets, faculty enrichment and so on.
“With confidence I can say that the schools have reached the next level”, Mr Rana noted with satisfaction, giving credit for it to the students, teachers and the coordinators of the Bharti Foundation. He hoped the scheme will be extended to more schools in the next phase across the constituency. He also expressed the hope that the education department will be forthcoming in extending all the required support to Bharti Foundation, which has undertaken upon itself the onerous responsibility of improving the quality of education in the educationally under-privileged areas as part of its corporate social responsibility.
He recalled with gratitude the instant agreement of his proposal by the Bharti Foundation in launching the programme in Nagrota Assembly Constituency and ultimately the combined efforts promoted platforms to bring about a discernible and qualitative change in the educational sector. He expressed his gratitude to Mr Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman Airtel for readily agreeing to his request made soon after his election in 2014 and the programme was launched in 2016.
Referring to the key achievements of the past five years, Mr Rana said with a sense of accomplishment that the enrollment in the designated schools swelled to 3246 in 2020-21 from 2618 in 2015-16. The girls enrollment registered a significant fillip from 41 per cent to 51 per cent and the involvement of teachers stepped up from 201 to 926. Average attendance of students increased from 61 per cent to 78 per cent pre Covid 2019-20, he said adding that external participation witnessed manifold increase from 31 to 455 during the past five years with the external awards rising from 10 to 193. This speaks that the contribution of the teachers has been immense, which rekindles the hope that the faculty in the government schools is second to none. The missionary zeal put in by the teaching community and hard work of students have made this day to come, notwithstanding the challenges of the Covid pandemic that put halt to normal activity. Despite that the grit and determination of the Foundation steered the programme to ultimate success, he added.
The Coordinator of the Bharti Foundation Mr Anil Bhat said the Quality Support Program of the Bharati Foundation supported Government Schools to improve the overall quality of schooling experience. As part of the partnership, the Foundation worked with the school leadership and the Directorate of School Education, Jammu to jointly implement interventions that contributed towards enriching the overall schooling experience. Additionally, the Foundation shared best practices and facilitated capacity building for the teachers and school staff.
This programme covered 15 schools falling in 14 Halqa Panchayats of the three blocks of Nagrota, Mr Bhat said.
Prominent among those present at the concluding programme included DDC Dansal Shameem Begum, BDC Nagrota Ch. Rehmat Ali , Som Nath Khajuria , Rameshwar Dutt, Advocate Subash Singh,Prof. Vijay Dev Singh, Balwan Singh , Kulbushan Singh , Omkar Singh, Thoru Ram, Amjad Beg, Yograj Sharma, Darshan Lal, Ashok kumar, Kishori Lal, Joginder Lal, Sunil Thappa Advocate, Ravi kumar, Ajit Thappa, , Hans Raj , Dwarka Nath, Naseem, Madan Shah, Prof. Ramesh Gupta, , Subash Sharma, Ramesh Singh, NP Banathia, Shiv Kumar, Bashir Kohli, Rajinder Kurmar Pithi, and others.(KNS)