HRD ministry to brush up image

MAPPING SOCIAL SECTOR

Ministry of human resources development, which was recently criticised by the Comptroller and Auditor General for poor implementation of the sarva shiksha abhiyan, has decided to clean up its image.

The ministry today announced plans to monitor the scheme through progress reports on against key monthly indicators and more detailed quarterly progress reports by state agencies.

It said a computerised educational management information system (MIS) would give annual school-based data while 41 national social science institutions would carry out field visits to appraise the implementing agencies.

But several NGOs have objected to the NCERT surveys, which are conducted every three years to measure the pupil achievement levels.

Pratham, an NGO on education says the NCERT gets these surveys done through school teachers, which make them ineffective. "Teachers cannot be expected to blame themselves,'' says Ashish Sharma, the Pratham coordinator for Uttar Pradesh.

The step comes two days after the ministry decided to take similar steps for the mid-day meal scheme. It had said on Monday that quarterly reports would help it monitor the meal scheme.

There was also a move to set up an MIS to digitise information on the scheme, it had said.

The steps, however, have their critics. Officials say states do not send quarterly reports. As for the MIS, the National Informatics Centre and the IT Ministry, which are supposed to implement the system, are clueless about it. The Centre has also not discussed the matter with states, sources say.