HRD to launch child tracking system; will identify drop outs

The central government will soon launch a child tracking system to monitor the academic progress of more than 200 million schoolkids.

HRD minister Smriti Irani announced the proposed initiative in series of tweets on Saturday.

Sources at the HRD ministry said the new initiative is extension of another digital initiative called Shala-Darpan which was launched earlier in Kendriya Vidyalaya and enabled parents to keep a watch on their child’s presence in the class, his performance among other things.

Like Shala Darpan this will be a digital platform that will help ministry keep a record on the children’s enrolment and their progress to another class.

In another tweet, Irani said that due to Right to Education, the concept of bridge schools was discontinued “which disabilitated entrance of out of school children into the school system (sic).”

In another tweet she said unlike the days of UPA government when monitoring the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), the programme for achievement of universalisation of elementary education was done annually, her ministry will track it online daily.

“We did mid term review online. This year we shall track SSA daily online. Real time data will help engage productively with states,” she said. Irani also announced that her ministry is developing an expenditure portal that centralises various sources of school education data in India.

She also mentioned a first of its kind portal for Teacher Education Institutions which will ensure transparency and grading. In another message, Irani mentioned said the Shala Siddhi scheme of her ministry will be extended to all schools.