National Policy on ICT in School Education

Empowerment through Education

Rajeev Singh
Oracle India Private Ltd., Block-1, DLF Corporate Park, DLF City Phase – III, Gurgaon
E-mail: rajeev.x.singh@oracle.com

Abstract – One of the largest countries in the world in terms of population has one of the lowest literacy rates in the world. Such low literacy rate can be one of the major hindrances in the growth of Indian economy. Education has always been one of the areas of concern for government and in recent years the government has given a major thrust to increase the literacy rate in the country.

Education is a key component in the conceptualization of the 11th Five Year Plan and hence the need for the Student Data. The volume and inter-relationships of this information for performing Educational Planning would necessarily have to be managed through ICT. This paper makes an attempt to articulate how Strategic ICT solutions like “Student Data Hub” could address the planning issues in a transformative way.

Index Terms – Student Data Hub, Integrated System.

I. INTRODUCTION

In recent years, the Government of India has done commendable work in the field of primary and higher education. Despite some good work over past 50 years by the governing bodies, the literacy rate is dismally low at 61%. The country, which ranks 2nd in the terms of population and is one of the fastest growing economies, ranks disappointing 144th in ranking of countries based on literacy rate [1].

“Education is the most critical element in empowering people with skills and knowledge and giving them access to productive employment in the future. The 11th Plan should pay special attention to this area. An ideal we should strive for is that all children should be able to get as much education as they are capable of getting, irrespective of their parents’ ability to pay.” [2]

One of the main reasons for low literacy rate despite constant thrust from government is inability to track a student’s progress. If there is a consolidated place where all the student information is available then it becomes easier to analyze the performance of various initiatives taken by Ministry of HRD.

Some of the major objectives that are important and are in line with Planning Commission’s objectives are mentioned below [2]:

1. Education for Poor

a. Not just enrolment but quality education
b. Sharp reduction in drop-outs

2. Inclusion of excluded groups – SCs, STs, OBCs, Minorities and Girls

3. Development of national standards and norms for educational and learning levels

4. Active participation of community in management of schools – move from highly centralized system to a decentralized system

5. Assisting disadvantaged children

6. Universalization of Secondary Education for the knowledge driven world

7. Removal of disparities in education and skills

8. Accountability for delivery of education – both public and private

9. Merit-cum-Means based loan and scholarship programs through banking system and other agencies 10. Student data validation for admissions, testing and grading – both domestic and migrating

11. Ensure continuous and growing supply of quality manpower to the services sector and industries

12. Increase Technical/Vocational Education and Skill Development

13. Increase adult literacy through continuing education programs

14. Enlarging the pool of scientific manpower – identify and nurture bright young students to take up higher studies for pursuing scientific research as a career. Each of the objectives enumerated above requires capturing of Student Data and the Allied Information about the Student throughout his/her “educational lifecycle”.

II. TRANSFORMATIONAL AND STRATEGIC ICT SOLUTION

One of the most strategic and transformative mechanisms to build ICT solution for Educational/Student Database would be to put in place a “Student Data Hub”. This is a framework that is readily available and can be deployed with relative ease to provide a single source of truth on Student and Educational Information.

A. A Vision for Future

The “Student Data Hub” can assist the Planning Commission and various Stakeholders to understand the lifelong education of:

1. The entire student population
2. Across all sectors
3. Past, present and future
4. With a complete longitudinal profile
5. Integrated with all administrative systems, institutions and agencies
6. And leverage this for learning, analysis, planning and administration of the Indian Education System

B. Potential of Student Data Hub (SDH)

With a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) enabled Student Hub in place the Planning Commission is positioned to:

1. Address today’s administrative and planning priorities with “real-time” accurate information
2. Provide Inter-agency collaboration
3. Realise the vision of support for lifelong learning across all dimensions
4. Provision every student with an Individual Student iPortfolio – his or her educational passport

C. Extending Organizational Knowledge and Capabilities Over Time

The Student Hub represents a unified view of the entire student population, past, present and future.

1. Tracing student and cohort progress and achievement:

Across the educational system

Across individual schools and institutions

Across time

2. Key Performance Indicators can be tracked:

At a point in time, e.g. student participation and performance by any educational level, institution type or institution.

Demographics, e.g. participation and performance by age, ethnicity/mother tongue, gender, socio-economic factors.

D. Basis for Intelligent Analysis

The Student Hub is not a point in time analysis or snapshot- based, it is:

1. Live, integrated and up to the moment,
2. Readily correlated across multiple systems,
3. Holistic, covering the entire country’s education system and every student participating in country’s standardised events regardless of the institution
4. A foundation for later trend, projections and statistical analysis based upon a continuous education process and educational lifecycl

III. DETAILS OF STUDENT DATA HUB

A. Transaction in Student Data Hub

Student Data Hub (SDH) is a consolidated database of student information from all over the country. The following steps show how a student data is entered in the system:

1. SDH administrator registers a new student in SDH
2. The system triggers a ‘new student created’ event
3. The system creates this as a record
4. SDH does duplicate check, address cleansing, and master record creation
5. New Student Record is Approved
6. Other related systems are updated with this change or new student record

B. Technical Capability

The Student Data Hub provides the following capabilities for the better management and analysis of student data:

1. Extensible & configurable data model and relationship management

Define the elements and relationships relevant for Indian educational needs

2. Consolidate Student (master) information into a single point of truth

Non-disruptive to existing systems and processes

3. Clean and enrich Student data

Data Quality Management (DQM) Tools to identify & eliminate duplicates based on robust pre-seeded algorithms and data transformations

Integrated Enrichment Capabilities to create or enhance student records with pre-built integration

4. Builds intelligence implicitly over time

Hub to spoke application cross reference

Blended Student records

Drill down into federated transactions

5. Synchronize student data across the whole ecosystem

Figure 3: The revolutions in IT Architecture that provides a genesis to the concept of “Student Data Hub”

IV. KEY BENEFITS

Apart from the enablement of an Educational/Student Database towards the objectives of the Planning Commission enumerated earlier, the following benefits are noteworthy:

A. Consolidate

Addresses more complex questions providing perspectives upon the student populace that may currently be almost impossible to provide.

A central point of integration for all student related information in target systems.

B. Flexible and Adaptable

Readily adapts and extends to support evolving governmental priorities and capabilities.

Addresses the overarching enterprise need to understand, plan and manage activities as they relate to the entire student populace.

C. Standardise

A standard architecture for creation of key student data uniformly and reliably managed across a number of target systems.

Uniform data quality management across all student related events.

D. Future Proof

Modern, open-standards based architecture, readily scaled to meet future demands and interoperability with existing systems, external agencies and future developments.

E. Cost Savings

Elimination of capital and operating expenses associated with systems that can be decommissioned

Reduction in development and operational costs associated with extracting and manipulating data from multiple systems for the purpose of reporting and analysis

Reduction in administration costs associated with maintaining interfaces to multiple systems.

V. CONCLUSION

The SOA enabled “Student Data Hub” is a standardsbased, open architecture, interoperable framework that can be leveraged extensively for providing a Single Source and a Single Version of Truth about the Student and Educational Data. The deployment can be planned on any desired scale and can subsequently be scaled up for unlimited inclusions. The framework has found use in a developed nation and can be replicated in India with planned study and scope.

REFERENCES

[1] United Nations Development Programme Report, 2005

[2] “Towards Faster and More Inclusive Growth” An approach to 11th Five Year Plan, Planning Commission, June 2006.