Uttar Pradesh has identified 12 areas for digital intervention in schools: Basic education secretary

LUCKNOW : Following protests by government school teachers across Uttar Pradesh last month, the state’s basic education department – responsible for school education for Classes 1 to 8 and appointment, transfer and posting of teachers in government schools – has put its order mandating digital attendance of teachers on hold. It will form an expert committee to look into the issues of teachers. The department caters to 1.92 crore students.

The digital attendance system is one of 12 areas in public schooling identified for digital interventions, MK Shanmuga Sundaram, principal secretary of basic education told Careers360 . He spoke about the functioning of schools, new schools and initiatives, teacher recruitment, efforts to provide ‘quality education’, involvement of the private sector and more. Edited excerpts below.

How has your experience of working as principal secretary of Uttar Pradesh’s basic shiksha been?

I have been working as principal secretary of the basic education department since the last 10 months. It is a very engaging department and it is very nice to work here. This department is about the welfare of students who are the future of our country.

In that way, it is my privilege and prestige to work in this department.

You had earlier worked with the vocational education and skill development department. How are the two departments different?

Even though both departments deal with students, their functions are different.

At the vocational education and skill development department, we were dealing with the industrial training institute (ITI) students . The department has an important entity called UPSDM (Uttar Pradesh Skill Development Mission) through which a lot of training programmes are conducted to make students skillful and job ready.

At the basic education department, we are looking at school education up to Class 8. We deal with a huge number of schools and teachers. There are more than 1,34,000 schools and over 6 lakh teachers. We deal with a lot of day-to-day problems and issues to ensure quality education.

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What are the major challenges and immediate focuses for the basic education department?

Infrastructure facilities in schools have been our major challenge. Honourable CM sir introduced Operation Kayakalp few years back to improve school infrastructure. Our immediate priority and focus is providing better infrastructure facilities to schools.

Our second priority is providing quality education – not only through government intervention, but also through private and NGO intervention.

We are also launching three key flagship programmes in order to provide quality education and infrastructure.

Under the first scheme, we will be setting up ‘CM Composite Schools’ in 57 districts – one in each district as 18 districts are already covered with Atal Awasiya Vidyalayas. These composite schools will be established by the end of 2025 and will have classes from 1 to 12. They will house 2,000 children each and so, it will be model schools in Hindi medium.

Under the second scheme, we will be setting up ‘CM Abhyudaya School’ by upgrading one school each in all 75 districts with a fund of about Rs 1.43 crore. These schools will have smart classes, science labs, computer labs and libraries. These schools will be operational from March 2025.

Under the third one, we are implementing the central government’s ‘PM SHRI’ school scheme . There are 1,717 UP government schools which will be upgraded as part of the scheme. These schools have received 60:40 funding from central and state governments.

Are you implementing the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 in government schools ?

We are implementing the national education policy in letter and spirit in all schools. From this academic session, 2024-25, we have provided National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT) books to Classes 1 and 2 students. We will probably be providing NCERT books to Classes 3 and 6 students from next academic year.

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Why not for Classes 4 and 5?

The NCERT books for Classes 4 and 5 are under preparation. There is a committee that prepares books for the different classes. Since books for Classes 3 and 6 are done, we plan to distribute them next year onwards.

The NCERT sends us the syllabus, and within the prescribed format, we make some changes to prominently highlight UP’s geography, culture, and history. Then we send them back to NCERT for approval, following which we print and distribute them.

Have English medium schools reverted to Hindi medium?

There are 15,000 English medium schools in the state. Teachers in these schools have been selected on the basis of a test and their capability to handle English-medium students.

The confusion over the closure of these schools started due to some misinformation that only Hindi medium books will be given to schools from this year. It is true that Hindi medium books will also be given to supplement the English medium books but teaching will be in English. And schools will receive English medium books too.

As most of the children in the basic education department schools are from rural areas, they face problems in understanding or conversing in English. For them, the teacher will be talking in English, but will be using Hindi words too.

Teachers will teach primarily from English-medium books, but in case of doubt, they can also refer to Hindi-medium books.

Has the government collected any data on the impact of the English medium schools?

We have Academic Resource Person (ARP) and State Resource Group (SRG) in all districts who visit schools and give us feedback. That feedback is recorded in our electronic platform Vidya Samiksha Kendra, established last year at the directorate of basic education department in Nishatganj, Lucknow.

We have identified the best teachers in every district who have been designated as ARPs and SRGs. They don’t get any extra salary. They visit 10 to 12 schools every month to check whether teaching is proper and qualitative. So far, they had not given any adverse feedback about the English medium schools.

Parents and stakeholders can also report their issues to Vidya Samiksha Kendra through phone calls. A team of Vidya Samiksha Kendra will contact the school management and the issue will be addressed immediately. It is one of the iconic and state-of-the-art facilities.

What was the need to launch a digital attendance system for teachers? Why has it been withdrawn ?

There are 12 areas which require digital intervention, including digital attendance. However, teachers thought that they were being targeted . They raised several concerns and wanted to discuss the issues with us and after a thorough discussion with teachers associations, the government has decided to put it on hold.

Soon, we will form a larger committee that will look into the concerns. The committee will have people from the private sector also, which means experts in the education field.

Was there any data to suggest that the teachers were continuously absent or coming late to school?

There was no such data.

Apart from digital attendance, what are other areas which have been identified for providing digital intervention?

There are a total of 12 areas which have been identified for digital intervention

• Attendance register

• Admission register

• Class-wise students’ attendance register

• Mid Day Meal (MDM) register

• Consolidated free material distribution register

• Stock register

• Income-expenditure and cheque issue register

• Meeting register

• Inspection register

• Letter and communication register

• Children census register

• Library and sports register

Teaching job aspirants are demanding a new Primary Teachers (PRT) recruitment drive. When will the department advertise vacancies ?

We are carrying out a Samayojan (adjustment) drive to adjust schools with surplus teachers to ones with a teachers’ deficit.

New teachers will be recruited through recruitment drives only. The state government has formed Uttar Pradesh Education Service Selection Commission which will be conducting the new teachers recruitment drives. Every year, at least 2,000 to 3,000 teachers retire and we have to fill up those vacancies.

Earlier we used to fill the teacher vacancies through the department but now it will be done through the commission. We will send the teachers vacancy data to the commission and it will conduct the recruitment drive.