Education department’s new guidelines: Schools may be inspected thrice in a year

The state education department is looking to introduce major changes to the inspection process for schools after discovering several issues pertaining to the information

The state education department is looking to introduce major changes to the inspection process for schools after discovering several issues pertaining to the information previously collected by its officials.

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In the draft guidelines released recently, the department proposed that schools will undergo three rounds of inspection every year and will have to fill out the details on the Unified District Information on School Education (UDISE) system.

“While school visits do take place every year in all the districts, it is not reflected in the data entered in UDISE. Similarly, there seems to be no follow-up on what has been observed in these visits and whether these schools have improved on those points,” read the draft prepared by the Maharashtra State Council for Educational Research and Training (MSCERT).

As per the draft, school visits will be conducted at least thrice a year. For 2019-20, the first visit is scheduled to be conducted in October-November, followed by the second visit in December-January, and the third in February-March.

The changes have been suggested to ensure the education department adheres to the norms laid down by the ministry of human resource development (MHRD) under the governance and management indicators as part of the School Education Quality Index (SEQI).

Prashant Redij, spokesperson for the Mumbai Principals’ Association, said that while inspections are important, their burden should not be borne by the schools.

“Does the government have enough officials to conduct these many visits? Almost 70% of the administrative posts are vacant, and the implementation of such a system would not be possible with such few people,” Redij said.

MSCERT officials said this was only a draft and they would consider suggestions and objections before implementing it.

“It [the draft] is not a final version and is subject to changes,” said an MSCERT official, who did not wish to be named.