The Union Ministry of Education Dharmendra Pradhan laid out a plan for the nationwide replication of the Gujarat Education Department’s Vidya Sameeksha Kendra (VSK) and every state is ready to implement it from 2022-23.
VSK helps track daily online attendance of teachers and students, undertake centralised summative and periodic assessments of learning outcomes of students, etc.
Anita Karwal, Secretary Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education, in her presentation at the two-day ‘National Conference of School Education Ministers’ urged that “As per the national-level calculation, of the total 25 crore children, child-wise data of 21 crore has already been prepared by states. These need to be connected to all benefits and learning levels of the child. We need to go from the student database to the registry for which we will fund you, this year itself,” She urged states to seek funds to implement the system.
The move to adopt VSK across India comes less than two months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for the same during his visit to VSK in Gandhinagar on April 18.
The national surveillance system will be known as NVSK—NDEAR (National Digital Education Architecture) Vidya Sameeksha Kendra. States such as Assam, Odisha, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gorakhpur district of Uttar Pradesh have already come forward to seek funds for the VSK, she added.
The NCERT will provide the infrastructure and will publish them on its website for all states and Union Territories. States have been advised to partner with local solution partners to configure and customise solutions as per their needs. They could leverage NDEAR-DIKSHA infra further to build new solutions as per their need. The Centre will publish the detailed guidelines and SOPs for NVSK.
The NCERT is also setting up NVSK for monitoring various programmes such as DISKHA, NISHTHA, NIPUN Bharat, NAS, STARS, ASPIRE, PGIs and other indications, Karwal stated.