The State might boast of bagging various awards in the field of Information Technology (IT), but it has presented a miserable show when it comes to be used by higher secondary schools to furnish data for the Centre's Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) 2014-15 awards.
Class VI to Xth standard students from the schools affiliated to Jharkhand Academic Council, Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and Indian Council of Secondary Education (ICSE) are eligible to participate in the award scheme, launched for all the 28 states on December 13, 2008 by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and implementation started in 2009-10 session.
The problem has cropped up with the Central Government's instruction to send all the entries through online, calling the entire process e-management. Earlier, documents of a student's details were initially sent to District Education Officers (DEOs) and then to State Human Resource Development (HRD) Department which, in turn, would forward details to the Union Ministry of Science and Technology.
However, most of the district schools are unable to make the 'data-entry' due to unavailability of computer or internet connection or electricity. "We have been instructed to ensure the online registrations of interested students by August 3. Since it is a new concept for us, we held a training workshop for nodal science teachers and computer operators on July 15 and 28. But, lack of computer or internet connection has made it difficult for majority of our block and district level schools to enter the details," Ranchi District Education Officer Shiv Charan Marandi said on Tuesday.
He added, "Till July 25, only 40 out of 1539 schools had completed online registration. So, we are making efforts to provide computers and internet connections to those located in rural areas as they are suffering more."