Haryana, Dell Foundation team up to improve education system

Pradeep Sharma

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Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 13

The Haryana Government and the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, a private foundation dedicated to transforming the lives of children living in urban poverty through better education, have teamed up to initiate a quality improvement programme (QIP) for the Haryana government schools.

“Under the programme, a statewide management information system (MIS) is under development in Haryana to ensure real time availability of student, school and employee data to the Education Department with the ultimate aim of eliminating repeated field data requests,” Prachi Jain Windlass, Director, India Education of the foundation, told The Tribune.

“Under the MIS, which was formally launched by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar as part of Digital India Week recently, the records of about 22 lakh students are already available online. In fact, the online availability of the student data would go a long way in eliminating the wrong or fake data which is expected to be around 10 per cent thus saving crores spent in misdirected fund allocations,” Windlass asserted.

Under the QIP, which kicked off last year, but went full steam ahead this year, the foundation has pledged Rs 18 crore for three years to supplement the governmental efforts in improving the quality of the education in the schools.

Before the QIP was initiated, there was little feedback on student learning for the government teachers. In fact, the policy of “no detention” under the Right to Education Act (RTE) basically translated into “no assessment and evaluations” taking a toll on the education system in the state.

“Now 18 lakh students from Class I to VIII undertake assessments under the QIP which was being implemented in letter and spirit under the guidance of Principal Secretary (School Education) TC Gupta. The results, which are entered into an online utility development by the department, are discussed during the monthly meetings of department for taking informed action to improve learning levels,” Windlass added.

Meanwhile, Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma regretted that the BJP government inherited an “ailing” school education system from the previous Congress regime. “However, we are committed to bring the standard of the government schools on a par with private schools in Haryana in collaboration with the NGOs and the private sector,” he asserted.