From Whatsapp to web portals, in an endeavor to curtail the dropout rate and to enroll maximum students in government schools to provide them with quality education, Jharkhand Education Project Council (JEPC) has planned series of events to better education standards in Jharkhand.
With Statehood Day around the corner, JEPC will unveil online web-portal e-vidya vahini, the real time monitoring system to keep student educational records for future references. The database prepared initially with the assistance of IT department will be utilised for officially purpose only.
“Through e-vidya vahini approximately 40,000 government schools across Jharkhand will be linked up with the software. School authorities will now have to feed in all details of admission, attendance of students and teachers, mid-day meal inputs, academic records of candidates including the details of BRPs and CRPs. The master portal will be made accessible to all the respective parents later on,” said, Project Director, JEPC, Mukesh Kumar.
The department is gearing up to initiate ‘Zero Dropout Panchayat’ from November 15. The concept is to sensitize all Gram Panchayat heads to curb dropout rate among the children falling in the age group of six to 14 years in their respective areas.
“The theme of this year programme is ‘Zero Dropout Panchayat’ as well. The performance of each panchayat will be minutely assessed and those giving remarkable results will be felicitated as DSE of the year, Mukhiya of the year and so on under this innovative programme,” Kumar pointed out.
On the Statehood Day, the power of Child Cabinet (Bal Sansad) will be witnessed as approximately 8000 Government school children will actively compete with their counterparts in a programme titled ‘PM Sammelan’ covering different topics.
likewise, taking another leap in e-governance and to significantly utilise the accessibility, power and approach of various new media platforms, the department on November 8 will begin ‘Whatsapp’ service. This is a unique effort to ensure active participation of public in helping the State government to ensure zero dropout rate plan.
“Two ‘Whatsapp’ numbers will be released on November 8. With this every responsible citizen can now click pictures of all such kids playing during the school hours (8 AM to 2 PM) mentioning the locations. Taking clue government personnel will inspect the place as mentioned by the sender and take suitable step accordingly,” added Kumar.
Also, targeting the slum dwellers the council is all set to start the concept of ‘Pankh’ which symbolizes (Pandhna Ab Nahi Kathin Hai) from November 8 under the central government scheme of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), 2002. Here too denizens will be keenly engaged through face book and other social networking sites. All volunteers under the project will be officially recognized by the State Government and will have to lend their services for at least one hour in their selected locality, Kumar said.
As per the 10th Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2014, 4.3 per cent of children between the age 6 and 14 years in State were not enrolled into school or had dropped out from school in 2014. In 2014, the number of children not in school between 7 and 10 years is 3.4 per cent and between 11 and 15 years is 9 per cent.