What for ?
For initiating a momentous
reform , not attempted by any country in the entire World
Can you be more specific ?
Sure . Take a very close
look at the following news report :
Just
a few clicks away: Pan-India school data
What if with a few clicks on computer, one could
pinpoint :
Ø why students in a particular school in Bihar are
doing poorly in Mathematics or
Ø why the attendance of girl students is
consistently low in schools in a particular block in Maharashtra, or
Ø whether a mid-day meal was served to all children
in a district in Assam or not?
The education
ministry's 100-day plan looks to answer these questions and several more to take
stock of the true health of our schooling system through its pan-India
Vidya Samiksha Kendra (VSK) network.
The aim is that within 100 days every state will have its own VSK
centre linked to the national VSK and
parameters like student and teachers' attendance will be digitally available on a real-time basis across all states on a GIS dashboard.
Reason and benefit
The VSK is envisaged as a data warehouse of sorts, soon to be linked
from New Delhi to every single
school over time - government to private, across states - so as to generate comprehensive and interactive data
analytics that can enable data-driven policy
interventions and
customised decision-making in the schooling system.
"What
this essentially means is that policy decisions taken at the state level or
even central level can now be based on accurate, verifiable and real-time data parameters that can be interpreted
for various policy interventions from administrative to learning levels.
For
instance, a low student
attendance in a
particular district clearly points to a need for checking up.
A high
absence of a science teacher can help understand lower STEM learning levels in
a school," an official associated with the national
VSK centre told ET.
The wheels are moving fast to keep the 100-day
deadline.
So far, 29
states and Union Territories are already on board, either having launched their own VSK centres or in the final stage of doing so, ET has learnt. The
remaining states are being nudged continuously to join in by next month.
ET gathers that Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and
Telangana have recently came on board and Karnataka, Rajasthan, West Bengal,
Ladakh and Lakshadweep will join next month, closing the loop.
The education ministry will be holding marathon
orientation sessions and regional reviews through June and July in line with
the August 15 deadline. But that is not all.
Attendance data apart, the government's VSK network is aiming at adding on several
layers, including :
> data on school enrolment/dropout from its
U-DISE database to school accreditation,
> teacher
training,
> student performance assessments,
> NCERT's National Achievement Survey,
> PM-Poshan mid-day meal scheme and so on.
How many Schools / Teachers / Students,
will mark their “ ATTENDANCE “ every morning ?
As
per government data, as of 2022 , India had :
Ø 15 lakh schools ( of which 12 lakhs are located in 6.4
lakh villages )
Ø 96 lakh teachers
Ø 26 CRORE Students
All
of them will mark their ATTENDANCE , every morning ( I suppose, using some
BIOMETRIC ATEENDANCE DEVICE – BAD ) , linked to a CENTRAL NETWORK
This is a MIND-BOGGLING reform, whose
many benefits are listed in the news report
Could this ( Centralized Attendance
Marking System – CAMS ), be extended to all of the WORK-FORCE in India (
whether working in factories – offices – fields – homes – organizations –
businesses etc ) ?
Emphatically
YES . I recommended such a detailed CAMS in my following 8 YEAR old email :
Ø From BAD to
MAD ………………………………………… 01 June 2016
If extended as suggested by you , what
BENEFITS can accrue to our Economy ?
From
my old email , I reproduce some of those benefits :
# For employees , no need to
file a separate annual Income Tax Return
# Direct deposit of PF / TDS amounts into bank
accounts of Govt Depts
# Direct Benefit Transfer ( DBT ) to every Employer
for Stipend Subsidy ,
based on number of total trainees / apprentices employed
# Total number of
employees in India ( category / region / industry )
# Employment Density ( Industry wise / Region wise /
Skill wise etc )
# Net Employment Growth Rate ( weekly - monthly /
Industry-wise )
# Co-relation with no of persons graduating at
various levels
# Data about those Unemployed ( " Graduating
" less " Employed " )
# Overtime Statistics
( Use / Abuse )
# Work-hour Analysis ( Ave hours / week - month )
# Wage / Salary Rates
( Rs per hour ) - Industry wise / Region wise
( of great interest to Foreign Investors looking to bring down
manufacturing costs , by outsourcing to India / manufacturing in India )
# Compliance with labour laws / tax laws / Apprentice
Act etc
# Job Market Forecasts through
BIG DATA ANALYTIC ( region / industry )
# Demographic Profiles of employees (
Rural to Urban migration )
# Per Capita Income
Growth for persons using MAD app ( MOM / YOY )
# Changing composition between Blue Collar and White
Collar employees
Then there could
be many other benefits not envisaged now
Here is an
opportunity for :
* Manufacturers of Smart Phones
To shrink stationary / bulky / common , bio-metric devices to mobile /
small / personalized / hand-held devices
{ Remember ? If you don't make yourself obsolete , someone else will
}
* Tech Start Ups
To come up with the Mobile App ( MAD ) / Technology Platform
* NDA Government
To implement what Shri Narendra Modiji
said on 15 July 2015 :
" If China is like a manufacturing factory of the World , India
should
become the human resource capital of the World .
That should be our target and we should lay emphasis on that .
We
should have a futuristic vision and prepare plans for the next ten years
"
MAD could well be an important element of that
" JAM PLAN
" !
With
regards,
Hemen
Parekh
