All Delhi Government school teachers and principals will be given tablets by the year-end for non-academic works like attendance and tabulation of marks.
The Delhi Government is hoping that by March, when the next exam is held, teachers are also able to start tabulating marks on the tablets and generate report cards.
As per the plan, teachers will mark the attendance of students through android tablets and sms message will also automatically be sent to parents to ascertain whether their wards have attended the classes or not.
An initial estimate of `50 crore has been drawn up and the IT department has been asked to draw up a proper plan for it. There are around 1,024 Government schools in the national Capital.
Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia has asked the Education department to submit a proposal to the IT Department for procuring over 50,000 tablets for teachers and principals. The Government will also provide internet facility to these tablets. In next two-three months, distribution of tablets to teachers will start.
Education department advisor Atishi Marlena said, “School teachers have a long-standing demand for technological intervention to reduce their burden. We will be giving tablets to all teachers, including about 15,000 guest teachers and principals. To start with, they can take attendance on it and if a child is absent, a message will automatically be sent to the parent. Subsequently, we will add more apps to it.”
“We also want to provide teacher training material on the tabs. However, we will roll this out gradually. The Government will be giving a data package as well, depending on how much data will be required for official work,” she said.
According to Marlena, in the second phase, teachers will not be required to enter students’ marks in report cards and instead, they can
do the same on tablets which will reduce non-teaching workload.
“Most teachers complain that they don’t have more time for teaching as they are engaged in data entry or management works, including maintenance of attendance registers, preparation of report cards of students etc,” she said.
Asked about the Cabinet’s nod, she said that there is no need for the same as the Education department has separate Budget for all such things.