Fadnavis govt has decided to put into practice a Aadhaar-based unique child education tracking system in the age group of 6-14 years.
Written by Sandeep A Ashar , Dipti Singh | Published on:May 11, 2015 3:45 am
The Maharashtra government is looking to track its nearly 1.6 crore school students as it plans to improve the quality of education in the state.
In the wake of a survey that shed light on the poor quality of primary education and the high dropout rates in Maharashtra, the Devendra Fadnavis government has decided to put into practice a unique child education tracking system, using the Aadhaar identification number of all the nearly 1.6 crore students in the age group of 6-14 years.
Nand Kumar, Principal Secretary, School Education, told The Indian Express that the new system would be rolled out on May 22 and would be applicable to both public and private schools.
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Over 90 per cent population in Maharashtra has already enrolled for Aadhaar, according to official figures.
In January 2015, the Annual Status of Education Report, a nationwide survey carried out by education advocacy group Pratham, had found that learning standards in state’s schools were poorer than most other states in the country.
The NGO that surveyed over 788 primary schools across the state had found that seven out of ten Class VIII students could not carry out basic subtraction and division of numbers. Further, 80 per cent students in Class VIII could not read Class II textbooks.
Desperate to improve its skewed education development index, the state government is now banking on this child tracking system to deliver results.
A senior government official said under the new system developed with the assistance of National Informatics Centre, the government planned to maintain annual records of all schoolgoing children, including their basic profile, their academic performance, and details of incentives or benefits provided to him/her, if at all, by the government.
Besides helping the government curb misdirected benefits and grants — a probe had earlier revealed rampant bogus enrollments in state schools — Nand Kumar said the government planned to use the new system to track the performance of each child.
“We have no means currently to map whether an enrolled student is getting the desired education in schools. The new system will allow us to track their performance regularly,” the senior bureaucrat said. He added that plans were also afoot to start common tests in mathematics and language subjects for evaluating a child’s progress.
The state government, which will also involve a third party agency to audit performance of schools, has said the school administration will be held accountable for under performance of students in such assessments.
With a high dropout ratio in schools also adversely impacting on primary education in the state, the Maharashtra government has also decided to club the system with a survey to identify “out-of-school” students across the state. “This survey will be launched on June 20. We plan to track even such students with Aadhaar numbers,” Nand Kumar said.
Elaborating, he said, “Once the student’s data is fed into a central data monitoring system through Aadhaar, he or she will be enrolled in a nearby school. It would be the responsibility of the school then to impart education to such kids.”
According to official figures, over 2 lakh children in Maharashtra are estimated to be “out of school”. Of this, about 1.18 lakh students are students, roughly 59 per cent are such who have never gone to school, whereas the remaining 0.82 lakh are dropouts.
More worrying fact for the government is a very high dropout ratio among girls leaving studies after primary education. Official figures reveal that about 21 per cent girls drop out of school before passing their class X.
Taking a stern view of the state of education in Maharashtra, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had earlier directed the department to take concrete steps to improve the state’s overall ranking in the education development index.
The state government has also set an ambitious target of bringing down the girl dropout ratio in Class X to 5 per cent before 2020.
Educationist Basanti Roy, who is also a former secretary of the Mumbai division of the state education board, however, felt that the state government must first fix the problem regarding poor standard of teachers in schools. “Inadequate number of teachers in government schools, and poor quality of teachers in private schools are the main reason Maharashtra fares poorly in education.”
Educationist Basanti Roy, who is also a former secretary of the Mumbai division of the state education board, however, felt that the state government must first fix the problem regarding poor standard of teachers in schools. “Inadequate number of teachers in government schools, and poor quality of teachers in private schools are the main reason Maharashtra fares poorly in education.”
Sunita George, principal, Vibgyor High School in Mumbai’s Goregaon, welcomed the initiative but said the government must use it to take some concrete steps.
