J&K requests Ampersand Group Eduspark to invest in education, skilling projects

Srinagar, Jul 9 : After successful conclusion of five-day long online teacher training programme for Early Chilhood Education, the Jammu and Kashmir Government has requested Ampersand Group Eduspark to invest in education related and skilling projects across the Union Territory (UT).
A spokesperson of the group told UNI on Thursday that Ampersand Group, an end-to-end school management services provider successfully concluded the five-day online Professional Development Program in Early Childhood Education under the Samagra Shiksha on a pilot basis The teachers who participated in the training hailed from Anantnag, Bandipora, Baramulla, Budgam, Ganderbal, Kulgam, Kupwara, Pulwama, Shopian, and Srinagar, she said.
The pilot project which had the participation of 40 teachers across 40 schools was led by Dr Reeta Sonawat, Director, Academics and Training, Ampersand Group who specialises in the Early Childhood Education (ECCE) programme covered modules such as child development, special needs, safety practices in school, and curriculum planning among others. She said that the teachers were told to give students the freedom to explore, experience, experiment, and discover things at an early age.
The program is highly scalable and can be expanded to the teachers across the state at any given point of time ensuring timely up-gradation of skill-sets and training mechanisms.
Dr Asgar Hassan Samoon, Principal Secretary to the Government School Education Department, Government of Jammu & Kashmir, lauded the efforts of the Mumbai-based Ampersand Group’s company Eduspark during the online valedictory session for taking the initiative by reaching out to the Government of Jammu & Kashmir and showing interest in developing pre-primary education through modern methods of learning.
Dr Samoon interacted with a number of teachers through video-conferencing requested similar learning sessions for teachers across the state. He urged that school education has to look into several aspects like cogitative, social, and emotional growth of the child to create holistic development at the pre-primary years of schooling.
“Primary years of a child are the most important as most of the development takes place there. We need to train our teachers in the latest techniques using innovative ways and make education more ‘child-oriented’ as they will be the foundation for the future of the country. We are looking for a long term partnership with Ampersand Group and want to do similar projects on a larger scale,” said Dr Samoon.
Director, School Education, Government of Jammu & Kashmir Younis Malik, said suggested that the existing infrastructure including that of DIETs and SIEs can be utilized for conducting such training on larger scales in future after the prevailing conditions improve. “While we speak about Right to Education, we should focus more on Right to Quality Education to make our grassroots education stronger.”
Dr Arun Manhas, Project Director, Samagra Shiksha, Government of Jammu & Kashmir said, “I thank Ampersand Group and Director School Education, Government of Jammu & Kashmir for the cooperation and coordination rendered to make this programme a success and hope to emulate the same in different parts of the state.”
Speaking on the occasion, Rustom Kerawalla, Founder & Chairman, Ampersand Group said that the focus should be on empowering the people of the state through such programmes under Public- Private Partnership model and create entrepreneurs by ensuring community participation.
“We have to empower the people, and ensure community participation under the Public-Private Partnership model and develop the locals to become entrepreneurs so they can open their ECCE centres while we give them online training and support. We are looking forward to a long term association with the Government of Jammu & Kashmir and look to scale up projects on online and offline education, teacher training and skill development across the state,” said Mr Kerawalla.
About Ampersand Group: Ampersand Group is a global leader in providing complete solutions in school operations and end-to-end school management services to private institutions and government-run Public-Private Partnership projects in several developing nations across the world. The Ampersand Group was founded in 2004 by Rustom Kerawalla, a renowned Edupreneur with a vision to transform the educational ecosystem through consistent innovation and use of emerging technologies; to build a modern preschool and K12 education systems, which are equitable and accessible to all.
The Group showcases its excellence in the K12 education through its flagship brand - VIBGYOR Group of Schools, a state-of-the-art institution built with a vision of providing high-quality education to young minds for their holistic growth in today’s times. Today, Ampersand is also one of the leading PPP partners in the national government’s endeavour of transforming its Anganwadi and Balwadi’s. The group is currently responsible for providing nearly 700 municipal Balwadi’s in Maharashtra with innovative interventions such as theme-based lessons, usage of new-age technology and a structured age-appropriate curriculum, while targeting multi age-group students.
About Samagra Shiksha: The Union Budget, 2018-19, has proposed to treat school education holistically without segmentation from pre-nursery to Class 12. Samagra Shiksha - an overarching programme for the school education sector extending from pre-school to class 12 has been, therefore, prepared with the broader goal of improving school effectiveness measured in terms of equal opportunities for schooling and equitable learning outcomes.

It subsumes the three erstwhile Schemes of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) and Teacher Education (TE). This sector-wide development programme/scheme would also help harmonise the implementation mechanisms and transaction costs at all levels, particularly in using state, district and sub-district level systems, and resources, besides envisaging one comprehensive strategic plan for the development of school education at the district level.
The shift in the focus is from project objectives to improving systems-level performance and schooling outcomes which will be the emphasis of the combined Scheme along-with incentivizing States towards improving the quality of education.