Maharashtra Initiates Two-Day Student Verification Drive
A two-day initiative has commenced in Maharashtra to verify student enrollment against actual attendance in schools.
The verification aims to ensure accuracy in school enrollment data.
Officials will compare physical attendance with data submitted by school principals.
Concerns over discrepancies have arisen amid investigations into irregularities in teacher appointments.
In a significant move to enhance the integrity of educational data, Maharashtra has launched a two-day physical verification drive across schools starting Friday. This initiative is designed to reconcile the number of students officially enrolled with those actually present in classrooms, addressing concerns over data accuracy and discrepancies in school records.
The verification process involves education officials visiting schools to compare the actual number of students attending classes with the figures reported by school principals on the student portal. Sharad Gosavi, the director of education, emphasized the importance of this exercise, stating that daily attendance registers and admission records, along with data from the UDISE+ portal, will be thoroughly examined.
Gosavi highlighted that officials are required to document their visits with photographs as proof of the verification process. Should discrepancies arise between the actual student count and the reported figures, schools will be mandated to provide formal explanations. Special teams, consisting of teachers from educational centers, are tasked with conducting these verifications, and they must submit their findings by a specified deadline.
This verification initiative comes in the wake of heightened scrutiny regarding the accuracy of school records, particularly as investigations into irregularities in teacher appointments and the Shalarth system continue. In Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar district, the zilla parishad's secondary education department ordered this verification after reports surfaced about discrepancies and allegations of a Shalarth scam, which has raised questions about approvals granted to 742 schools in the area.
The ongoing scrutiny has led to the review of over 1,760 files from the years 2016 to 2019, which have been forwarded to the education directorate in Pune for further verification. This includes 761 files from the primary education sector and 903 from secondary education. A previous special investigation team had already reviewed 10,060 files related to Shalarth ID cases, but no actions have been taken thus far. The current verification drive aims to ensure that the enrollment figures reported to education authorities accurately reflect the actual situation in schools.
