Primary schools fail to upload data on website

Neeraj Bagga

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, May 17

The Education Department has asked all government schools in the state to upload their data on a given website, but elementary schools are facing umpteen problems amid lack of Information Technology (IT) infrastructure.

Most of the 14,500 elementary schools in the state have jumped the deadline of uploading their data as they were supposed to do the same by May 10, said a schoolteacher, who wished not to be named. With a view to chalk out future strategy for elementary schools, online transfer of teachers and other aspects, online data is vital to steer the education of students in right direction.

The information that the elementary schools have to upload includes teaching and non-teaching staff members, number of students enrolled, their bank account details and guardians and UID numbers. These accounts are utilised by the Union Government to directly accrue cash scholarships, like minority scholarship of Rs 1,000 per annum to students, in the state.

Sources say that has been tremendous pressure on the elementary school heads to provide complete online data as early as possible. They said there is no provision to offer financial assistance, men power and technical assistance.

They were asked to take help from the nearest senior secondary schools. However, the latter declined, claiming they were also facing staff crunch and limited IT infrastructure while they are also to meet deadline.

Senior officials of the education department say that former DGSE Krishan Kumar had released about 1,500 computers to elementary Schools in the state in 2008. However, most of these computers are lying defunct in the absence of maintainance and internet connectivity.