School Reports: Getting a Makeover

While framing the educational policies under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA),
there was a huge requirement for statistical data. The number of schools in a
particular stateboth in the rural and urban areas, number of teachers teaching,
number of students attending schools at the elementary level and so on. For this
purpose, one might have to go through piles of records for days. But now with a
mere click, one can access the entire data regarding the number of schools,
their grade-wise and level-wise enrollment in states, examination results for
the previous academic session for the terminal classes at primary and upper
primary levels, classrooms categorized into good or bad condition (requiring
minor or major repairs by the school), sex-wise enrollment of children with or
without disabilities at primary and upper primary levels, and proportion of
teachers undergoing in-service teacher training during the previous year. This
has been made possible by the School Report Card Distribution System devised
by the National University of Education and Planning (NUEPA) under the umbrella
of District Information System for Education (DISE). The School Report Card
Distribution System collects and disseminates information in a standardized
format from all recognized schools that give elementary level education across
the country. If one visits http://schoolreportcards.in/, then one can locate
schools, search for relevant information based on ones requirement. The
uniqueness of this system has earned itself the sectoral award in education at
the 13th National e-Governance Summit.

Constructive Comparison

An innovative effort like this has stemmed out from the need to make
information available for empirical studies. There is a lot of data floating
around, but fetching the relevant data at the right time has been the main
concern. "Even if there has been a lot of improvement in terms of greater
penetration of education at the grassroots, but managing data still remains the
major problem," says Dr Arun C Mehta, PhD (demographic projections), professor
and head, Department of EMIS.

With the increased coverage of schools under DISE, enrollment at the primary
and upper primary levels of education has increased significantly. The
enrollment has increased from 101.16 mn in 2002-03 to 131.85 mn in 2006-07, and
further to 134.38 mn in 2008-09. The gross enrollment at the primary level (as
per DISE data) is estimated to be 115.31%. Over a period of time, enrollment in
upper primary classes has also shown a consistent increase. From 37.72 mn in
2004-05, it has increased to 53.35 mn in 2008-09. It is clear that based on
these kind of data, SSA can frame policies which can be implemented for the
benefit of people.

Since the last few years, NUEPA had been recording the number of schools with
drinking water facility. Under the policy framework of SSA, Department of
Drinking Water Supply under the Ministry of Rural Development is responsible for
providing rural schools with drinking water facility. Based on the data provided
by the Report Card Distribution System, Department of Drinking Water Supply
has provided drinking water facility in schools and colleges. Now about 88% of
the 1.29 mn schools that impart elementary education in the country have
drinking water facility.

Apart from the quantitative information that helps the policy makers to
analyze the prevalent situation in terms of actual numbers, the online report
cards provide qualitative information along with a descriptive report about
individual schools. The single page online report card is available in seven
Indian languages such as Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi, Gujarati, and
Kannada. Presently, it is being planned to add Bengali and Punjabi to the
language selection option. The descriptive report is available in English. But
work is on to provide it in Hindi.

Efforts and Outcomes

The information related to the report cards is collected annually (in
September) from more than 1.3 mn schools spread over 70,000 blocks in
thirty-five states and union territories. This huge data gets collected,
compiled and computerized at the district level. The state project director is
responsible for the verification and collation of the data before its submission
to the national level authorities. It takes almost five months to consolidate
all the data.

To further improve the quality of data, it has now been made mandatory for
all the states to check the data on 5% random sample basis through an
independent agency each year. States are advised to initiate corrective measures
after the findings of sampling come out.

The report card system standardizes the definition of educational variables
at the national level. The main aim is to eliminate deterring factors such as
lack of co-ordination between multiple agencies involved in the data collection,
lack of understanding of the concept and definitions of educational statistics
and problems in distribution and collection of data capture formats along with
poor dissemination and utilization of data. To add to it, this project involves
the automatic generation of descriptive reports which involve the conversion of
numbers into words.

Ongoing Challenges

Even though the final data compilation and processing is done online, the
initial collection of data at the block level is on pen and paper. This is
because of the lack of English literacy at the grassroots. If the system is
suddenly changed to an online platform of data compilation, there is a
possibility that the system might collapse. Research is being carried out to
make this system GIS based, wherein schools can be traced with the help of maps.
"Designing and constant monitoring of the website that deals with bulk data
which is to be made available to the user as per the requirement in a single
click has been a major challenge," adds Dr Mehta.

Atreyee Datta

attreyeed@cybermedia.co.in