Soon, a database to prevent fake student enrollments

Currently the state is awaiting the security certificate for the portal that will be developed and maintained by NIC, said officials of state education department.

Following the collection of data , the project would be first implemented in a few districts for now from next academic year.

In 2011, a students census was conducted in schools across the state by the state government. During this, many schools most of them located in Nanded were found showing bogus students and drew salaries in the name of surplus teachers.

The census revealed that around 1,40,000 students were bogus, their names were enrolled but they were either going to some other schools or did not actually exist.

It was found that the teacher-student ratio is less than 1:25 and in some places it is 1: 9. A large scale of irregularities were found and a large number of teachers were found surplus hence the state government had stopped recruiting new teachers.

When contacted, Ashwini Bhide, education secretary said, “ This new system will not only help us with details of studying in every district of the state. It will for sure curb major issues of bogus enrollments and help prevent school drop out. However starting next academic year the project will be implemented for a few districts only and the same will extended to the other districts in the next phase.”

No concrete measures were taken to stop enrollment of bogus students since the census in 2011. According to the officials of school education department,  schools will have to first fill in details of every student studying in their schools, the information will be then verified by the survey volunteers, education officers and inspectors following an inspection at the school.

dipti.singh@expressindia.com