Focus Group on Vocational Education holds Consultative meeting at SCERT

SRINAGAR : Vocational Education State Focus Groups (SFGs) held a consultative meeting to finalize the position paper prepared by the National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT) at the State Council of Education Research and Training (SCERT) in Bemina here today.

Eminent expert on Vocational Education, Prof (Dr) Vinay Swarup Mehrtra, from PSS Central Institute of Vocational Education Bhopal joined the meeting via Google Meet.

Dr Poonam Sharma, Assistant Professor, School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, University of Jammu, Ranjeet Singh Manhas, Sr Academic Officer, JKBOSE and Dr Manjeet Singh, Assistant Professor, Department of Tourism and Travel Management, Central University of Jammu also joined the meeting remotely.

Others experts who participated in the meeting included Prof Riyaz Qureshi, Department of Management Studies, University of Kashmir, G.M.Bhat, Joint Director ITI, Bemina Srinagar, Inder Puneet Johar, Assistant Professor, University of Ladakh, Dr Shafquat Ara, Principal Government Women’s Polytechnic College, Srinagar, Er. Imtiyaz Ahmad Shah, Principal Government Polytechnic College, Srinagar, Dr Arif Jan, Deputy Director, JKBOSE , Ali Mohammad Khan, Government Polytechnic College Srinagar, Dr Ravinder Jangral, Co-ordinator Samagra J&K and Nazir Ahmad Wani, DIET Kupwara.

The members held a thorough discussion on the multiple themes in the e-template provided by the NCERT. The questions in the template were distributed among the members as per their expertise and interest.

“We shall be ready with the draft within a few days ready to be uploaded on the NCF tech platform,” Academic Officer, Sheikh Gulzar Ahmad said.

The NCF Committee has appointed chairpersons, member secretaries and members to prepare the position papers. Four NCFs have been laid out by the NEP 2020 on Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE), School Education (SE), Teacher Education (TE) and Adult Education (AE) have been laid out by the NEP 2020.

All states and UTs have been asked to prepare their State Curriculum Frameworks (SCFs) passing through the process of District Level Consultations (DLC), mobile app survey and development of position papers by the State Focus Groups in 25 areas/themes identified as per the NEP, 2020.

SCERT has been nominated as a nodal agency to prepare the State Curriculum Framework (SCF) through a series of consultative meetings involving educationists, teacher educators, resource persons, representatives from Social Welfare Department, parents and neo-literates.