By: Sudarshan Ramabadran
In order to curb drop out ratio and get to the root of
identifying the reasons for student’s prolonged absence from schools, the Kutch
primary education department has launched an initiative - My School, E-School.
The initiative which is into its third year running has
contributed to principals having direct access to track the attendance details
of their respective students and teachers. The project as a pilot was
implemented 3 years back in Kidana girl’s primary school in Gandhidham taluka
in Kutch. The school has a strength of 459 children and
the school authorities feel that by keeping tab on the attendance of children
on a regular basis has helped them identify dropouts.
“Students from families living below poverty line come here
to study and it has taken immense efforts to go out to their houses and
convince them of the benefits of education during the annual Shalapraveshotsav
conducted by the Gujarat government. So now that we have the enrolment, it was
our duty to contribute to retention as well.”, said Dilip Patel, Principal of
the school.
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| My School, E-School |
The modus operandi involved in ‘My School, E-School’ is
quite simple, teachers are requested to fill in the attendance in a given
format soon after they have taken the attendance in class manually. This
process Dilip believed contributed to teachers as well as the principal to be
in the know of the attendance of their class and in specific their own
students.
“It is the responsibility of the respective class teacher to
feed in their ensures we monitor the attendance of teachers as well. Once we
have got the attendance details for a week, we check those students who have
been regular absentees and manage to find out the reason with the help of their
respective class teachers.”, explained Dilip Patel.
If on noticing cases where students have been regularly
absent, the teachers reach out to the parents of the children as they have
struck a rapport with them through Shala Praveshotsav.
“Recently we did have three students who did not come to
school for more than 3 months, we reached out to their parents and convinced
them how essential it is for their children to attend school. Since they were
already aware of us as a result of Shalapraveshotsav, things were a lot easier.
That is undoubtedly one of the advantages of this system that we immediately
reach out to their parents if in case of prolonged absence from school as we
are tracking day in day out.”, said Mansi Patel, a computer teacher in the
school.
Neha Jane, an English teacher in the school said that they
catch hold of at least 4-5 cases in a month, where teachers go and interact
with their parents and persuade them to ensure children don’t miss regular
school. A log in access is provided only to the principals as he or she can
regularly monitor what the teachers are feeding in. Having obtained training to
operate the software of ‘My school, e-school’ from the Kutch district primary
education authorities, Dilip Patel has taken the responsibility to train all
his teachers in the school.
“Teachers who have a hang of operating computers and are
comfortable doing so lend their hand in training others.”, said Dilip.
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| Online Portal of My School, E-School |
Dilip also explained that another interesting aspect of ‘My
School, E-School’ is the fact that it also provides for infrastructure and
other administrative details of the schools to be fed in. “I think it is one of
the best ways to keep a record of what facilities the school has. It also
provides the authorities with the knowledge of what is lacking in the school.
For example, we may see that my school has an R.O. ( Reverse Osmosis ) plant,
through this we can check if that particular plant is operational or no. The
authorities will also be able to check if there are sufficient toilets in the
school. All this is just made possible with the click of the mouse.”, he said.
Speaking about seeing visible results, Dilip Patel said that
as a result of having an effective system like this school authorities are
noticing reduction in drop out ratio. ‘My School, E-School’ has been
implemented in 124 primary schools in Kutch by the district primary education
authorities in partnership with corporate organisations like Adani, Wellspun
and Care India who are willing to come forward and support the cause through
their corporate social responsibility.
This article originally features in the book 'Good Governance : People's Voice which has been published by the Commissionerate of Information.
