Basant Panchami festival celebrated in Jammu Division Schools

JAMMU : Directorate of School Education Jammu celebrated the Basant Panchami festival by organizing a host of events at different levels across all the ten districts of Jammu Division.

The events hosted were cultural variety show, traditional songs, classical dances, poetry recitation, speeches, crafts, drawing & poster-making contests amongst students at schools and offices of Jammu Division via mix mode though majority of the participation was through online mode. Media sharing platforms like Zoom & Facebook were used for presentations & live functions.

The activities were supervised at the district level by the respective CEOs with the help of the members of the team of Cultural & Educational Cells, teaching community, HOIs, ZEOS, ZICCs, & SICCs.

At the Divisional level, Cultural & Educational Cell, Directorate of School Education Jammu organized a virtual cultural program which was broadcast live on various social media platforms of the Directorate and was joined in by thousands of viewers in real-time.

Director School Education Jammu, Dr. Ravi Shankar Sharma graced the occasion with his presence as the chief guest. He spoke about the significance of Basant Panchami and the importance of learning about culture and heritage in the life of a student.

The Director shared that Basant Panchami is not only associated with prosperity and happiness, it also marks a transition in weather and a shift from negativity to positivity. He said that inclusion of co-curricular activities along with cultural promotions is the preferred approach in School Education system according to NEP 2020, so it must be done carefully & diligently.

He said that as the Division has an incredible pool of talent in form of students & teachers, many of whom had already proved their mettle on national & international levels, the stake holders need to take a different approach which not only covers the best performers but should facilitate the average students as well so that they can be trained and be the best at their craft.

The Directorate, with the active and positive association of Districts and zonal level Cultural and Education Cells, is planning to organize at least ten programmes every month to search talent across Jammu Division. Following which the Directorate is also planning to organize a competition on the lines of Kala Utsav which will prove as a fruitful rehearsal for National Kala Utsav festival,2022 and provide a platform to the students to display their talent, he said. A competition both for teachers and students, which will provide platform to both to display their talent is also planned, he added.

He congratulated the team of Cultural and Education cell on their success of program and appreciated and thanked all the stake holders and participants. He also appreciated the ground level performers, respective teachers who were dealing with the students directly as without them the effective implementation of such programs would not be possible.

The program was moderated by Shiva Padha (ZICC), Bhaderwah.