Project DIPANKAR – The Child Tracking System

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGAL
School Education Department
Secondary Branch

NOTIFICATION

No. 60-SE(P&B)/10M-9/10 Dated, 18th February, 2011

Whereas the State Government has been considering the need for a computerized system of tracking of a child’s progress from the time of admission to a school at Class I till she/he completes the elementary level of education at Class VIII;

And Whereas such a system of computerized monitoring is expected to provide information on quality and spread of elementary education across the State while at the same time indicating the specific areas of concern on school drop outs and retention;

And whereas under Section 8(f) of the Right of Children to free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 all appropriate Government now has the statutory duty to monitor admission, attendance and completion of elementary education that is up to eighth standard (class – VIII) by every child;

And whereas with this purpose in mind the State Government had requested the National Informatics Centre (NIC) to prepare a Project Report called ‘Dipankar’ for tracking the educational progress of every child throughout the elementary stage and the Project Report has since been submitted by NIC;

2. Now, therefore, the Governor has been pleased to accord administrative approval towards implementation of a Child Tracking Project in the State of West Bengal on and from beginning of the academic session 2011 initially in 4 (four) districts of the State namely North 24 Parganas, Kolkata, Howrah and South 24 Parganas on a pilot basis and to subsequently spread the same across the entire State after evaluation of the result of the pilot. Accordingly details of the Project to be implemented based on the report of NIC is given below:

3. The operation of Child Tracking Project will begin with collection of records of every child admitted to any Government or Government Aided or unaided recognized Private schools in class I from the Academic Session 2011. Basic enrollment data of each child studying between class I would be collected using a prescribed format which is annexed as Form “E” to this Notification and will form part of this Notification. Form distribution would be monitored by WBBPE, DPSC & D.I. of School (Primary Education) in the four districts named above to start with and subsequently in all the districts in the State. The collected data through Form – “E” would be first entered in computers at all Cluster Level Resource Centres in the four districts and subsequently be uploaded into a Central Server of CTS after proper validation and would be updated every six months. It will help the State Government to monitor the School attendance, progress of education and general health status of each child and will help the Government to take necessary follow up action to further strengthen elementary education and basic health requirements in the State. For this purpose the information sheet in Form ‘E’ is to be filled up at the school level partly by the school authorities and partly by the parents of the child. Such information would be in the form of school enrollment details such as year of admission as per the school records and will be filled up by the school authorities. A second set of information would contain the students’ details including name, sex, date of birth, religion, family background of the child including information on address, name and educational background of the parents, social information if the child belongs to Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe or OBC or general, economic backgrounds like if belonging to APL or BPL category, whether physically disadvantaged with specific category and weight and height data.

4. The School Education Department will send printed Form “E” along with instruction sheet to each and every school of the district through District Inspector of Schools and District Primary School Council. Headmaster/ Headmistress of each School on receipt of the Form-E and instruction sheets will take necessary actions to fill up those forms at the time of enrolment of each student in class I and will get the parental and social information filled up and signed by the parent/ guardian and in case they need any assistance to fill up the form will also assist them to fill up every information in the form. Headmaster/ Headmistress of School will also validate and sign the form and arrange to send the filled in forms to the nearest Cluster Level Resource Centre (CLRC). It will be the responsibility of the District Project Officer (DPO) Sarva Siksha Mission as well as the Sub Inspector of Schools posted at the respective Cluster Resource Centre to intimate the location and address and contact no. of every CLRC to each school under their respective jurisdiction. The Sikshabandhus under the Sarva Siksha Mission posted at each CLRC will also visit every school under the circle and collect filled up Form -“E” wherever required.

5. At the CLRC level the concerned SI of schools or AI of schools in charge of the CLRC shall get the data entered in a predesigned software to be prepared by NIC. For this purpose the SI/ AI will take the help of Sikhshabandhus posted at the CLRC or local vendors. The Sikshabandhus or the local vendor entering the data will get an honorarium of Rs. 0.50 per student for the initial entries and Rs. 0.25 per student for each subsequent entries after validation or at the time of six monthly updates. After completion of the initial entry the concerned SI/AI will verify the same with the original data sheet on random basis to find out errors in data entry and will satisfy himself as to the correctness of the data entry. In case of necessity the District Magistrate in consultation with the Chairman DPSC and the DI, Primary may also engage vendors for such data entry after following due financial norms.

6. In a similar manner the attendance and progress of education for each enrolled student will be recorded in Form “Q” by concerned Schools after six monthly intervals. Duly filled up Form “Q” will be signed by Headmaster/ Head Mistress and will be sent to CLRC for data entry. The procedures as laid down in para “4” above will be followed mutatis mutandis.

7. It will be the responsibility of D.I. of Schools (Primary Education) along with SI/ AI of schools to ensure that data for all schools under their respective jurisdiction is prepared in the prescribed format for all recognized schools and collected therefrom and brought to the nearest CLRC for data entry. Once the formats are collected and deposited at the SLRC it will be the responsibility of the District Project Officer (DPO) SSM and the SI/ AI to ensure correct data entry and uploading them in the portal of the School Education Department. Entire process of data collection, data entry and uploading will be monitored at the district level by a committee to be chaired by the District Magistrate with the concerned Additional District Magistrate looking after school education, Chairman, District Primary School Council (DPSC), Karmadhaksha Siksha O Krira Sthayee Samity of the Zilla Parishad, the DI of Schools with the DPO being the Convener of the Committee.

8. Once the data is uploaded in the web portal from the CLRCs it will be the responsibility of NIC to generate different types of MIS reports on drop out, health status, attendance status and progress of education up to each school level as required by the State Government from the system and will place the same before the School Education Department to initiate follow up actions based on such report for improvement of the spread and the standard of elementary education across the State. Back up of the data is to be also maintained at the State Data Centre and NIC will be responsible for data security.

9. Data as generated from the system will be shared with local government bodies like Gram Panchayats, Municipalities, Block and Sub-divisional authorities for enhancing the initiative to bring back the drop outs in the schools.

10. The Governor is further pleased to order that a State level monitoring committee will be formed for overall monitoring, supervision and co-ordination of the Project under the Chairmanship of Chief Secretary, Govt. of West Bengal. Other member of the Committee will be the following:

(i) Secretary School Education Department
(ii) Director, School Education
(iii) Joint Secretary, School Education Department as nominated by the Secretary
(iv) Principal Secretary, Health and Family Welfare Department or his nominee
(v) Principal Secretary, Panchyat and Rural Development Department or his nominee
(vi) Secretary, Minority Affairs and Madrassa Education Department or his nominee
(vii) Principal Secretary, Information Technology Department or his nominee,
(viii) Principal Secretary Women and Child Development and Social Welfare Department or his nominee
(ix) Director NIC and State Informatics Officer
(x) Director, Madarassa Education
(xi) President, West Bengal Board of Primary Education
(xii) President, West Bengal Board of Secondary Education
(xiii) 5 (five) Principals/ Head Masters/ Mistresses of recognized Schools to be nominated by Chief Secretary of which not more than one will be from a recognized unaided school
(xiv) 3 (three) eminent educationists to be nominated by the Minister in Charge School Education Department.
(xv) The State Project Director, Paschim Banga Sarba Siksha Mission (PBSSM) – Member Convener

The State Project Director, PBSSM will also be in charge of project implementation at the State level.

11. The Governor is further pleased to order that the project Cost amounting to Rs. 40.00 lakh as per project proposal of NIC which has already been sanctioned vide GO. No. 394 (Sanc)-SE (P&B) dated 30.3.2010 read with Finance Department U.O. No. 1347 Gr.-B dated 25.3.2010 and which has been kept as deposit with the Secretary, WBBPE will be transferred to SPD, PBSSM who is the Member Convener of the State Level Committee to incur all expenditure in connection with the Project as per approval of the State Level Monitoring Committee.

Sd/- Samar Ghosh
Chief Secretary to the
Government of West Bengal

No. 60-SE dated 18.02.2011