My School, E-School

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.

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.

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.