e-Punjab portal exposed drop-out more than one lac students on linkage of Aadhar Cards  

Ferozepur, June 12, 2017: With the entry of students’ data from Primary to Plus Two available on e-Punjab Schools Portal of Punjab Education Department, by linking it with the Aadhar Card, has exposed the alarming figure of dropping of students to the extent of more than one lac.

Statistics from the sources of U-DISE (Unified – District Information System for Education) shows that the total students in government and private schools on roll during 2013-14 were 55,65,146, during 2014-15 the figure increased to 55,93,499, during 2015-16 when the Aadhar Card was linked, it came down to 55,41,399 with dropping  of 52,100 students and during 2016-17 it further gone down to 54,88,692 with loss of students on roll to the extent of 52,700.

However, there was increase in admission of students in 2014-15 (55,65,147) of 28,352 against 55,65,147 during 2013-14.

There are different versions about the dropping of on roll students.  On anonymity, one senior teacher informed that it is due to fact that the instructions were there to enroll all the children in the village in the school, irrespective of their attending the classes regularly.

Another version says, the dropping of students is due to linking of student’s admission with the Aadhar Card and the students who don’t have Aadhar Card could not figure on the e-portal Punjab.

Sources also said that in fact the students were having dual admission in private and government schools also and it could be termed as dummy at one place. 

This has raised number of questions. As to where these children have gone ? Whether they were on roll at one time or not? If not, what efforts have been made to get their Aadhar Card prepared at school level or at the level of education department at district administration level?

Another related question which has cropped up is as to whether these students were being considered as beneficiaries for mid-day meal and other facilities like uniform, books and cycles in the case of girl students or not.

An insider of education department said these entire enrollments were to retain the post of a teacher on the basis of teacher-students ratio.

Due to heavy loading of data, the e-Punjab Portal becomes slow and at the time of start of new academic session, it becomes difficult to update the data even by adopting the odd-even system.  The portal needs better servers to solve this problem, sources said.

The data entry staff has to upload the same data on different portals under different schemes like Aadhar based data on E-Punjab, Pre-matric and post-matric minority scholarships on national portals and rest of the matric scholarship cases on Ashirwad portal. It is wastage of time and man-power.

Education Department official on anonymity said, the issue is already under the lens of the government and factual position will come on surface after detailed investigation to the matter.  However, with the loading of data on e-Punjab portal has put a check on the dual admission of students to get the benefits under Right to Education Act as now when a student get a relieving certificate from one school and he cannot be admitted till the data is shifted to the new school.

However, despite e-Portal Punjab site beneficial to detect any duplicacy, it still needs up-gradation to make it more effective and time saving.