First Executive Committee meeting of Samagra Shiksha was convened by Saugat Biswas, Secretary School Education, UT Ladakh also the Chairperson, Executive Committee, Yountan Society on June 1.

Yountan Society was registered as the State Implementing Agency of Samagra Shiksha in Ladakh.

Saugat Biswas said that the UT Ladakh is committed to ensuring school education reaches every child stressing on quality education. Expressing concern over the issue of fall in the number of enrollment in government schools lately in Ladakh, he directed the Chief Education Officers of both the districts to conduct tracking of the students of a particular zone for analysis purposes. They were further directed to visit all under-construction locations and stressed them to complete the construction before the onset of winter. 

In the wake of the closure of schools due to lockdown triggered by COVID-19 pandemic, he further directed the CEOs to ensure delivery of school books to the students at their door-steps.

Saugat Biswas raised the non-reception of the salary of the department for 2019-20 to the Secretary, Ministry of Human Resource Department (MHRD), New Delhi, V K Verma. It was informed that the fund has already been released to the J&K Government with instructions to transfer the UT Ladakh share.
  
Concerning the Children with Special Needs (CWSN), Saugat Biswas gave directions for the identification of these students with the help of the village/community level public representatives for accurate data. He also gave directions for the identification of disadvantaged groups for providing them the opportunity of access to school education under the Right to Education (RTE) norms.
 
 
The annual Plan proposal of the society was discussed and presented for the approval of the Chairperson of the Committee. The proposal includes the provision of providing tablets for study to students, education opportunity for girls of the weaker section under Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV), provision of 50/100 bedded hostels for both boys and girls, salary component of the teachers and trainers, up-gradation of classes, strengthening of schools whereby necessity such as clean drinking water, additional classrooms, computer room, library, and others.

In the innovation component, the proposal was made for the orientation programme, career counselling, IIT and NEET coaching, Super 50 classes, virtual lab, and IT spot among others. The proposal also included the installation of water-purifiers in every school. In the supplementary section, the committee proposed Teacher training, various types of grants, Rashtriya Awishkar Yojana whereby competitions will be held at Block and District levels, among others.  
  
The Union Budget, 2018-19 has proposed to treat school education holistically without segmentation from pre-nursery to Class 12. Samagra Shiksha - an overreaching 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).