HP govt launches review, monitoring mechanism for schools

The Himachal Pradesh government has launched SAMARTH, a systematic state-wide review and monitoring mechanism, to identify problems and challenges faced by schools and find the solution to those.
The state government has been able to review over 5,000 schools, visiting over 11,000 classrooms and covering 2.91 lakh students.
In each school visit, the reviewing officer assesses the school on five parameters -- basic school infrastructure, classroom observations, school management, assessment results and funds utilisation.
In place of the existing lengthy and cumbersome review system, a school visit in the first month is now followed up with meetings on the basis of digitised information, an official spokesperson said.

SAMARTH provides a platform for sharing best practices in education with all stakeholders in the government including teachers, block officers to the principal secretary of education.
Each district is given a list of schools where improvements need to be made across various specific issues.
Block, district and state-level officials review schools as per a pre-determined schedule where the forms are digitised and the data is analysed, the spokesperson said.
The state government has also embarked on a mission for on-time distribution of free textbooks to all students. More than 55 lakh books have been distributed to 6 lakh students in 15,000 schools.