Educators struggle with multiple Apps in single edn system

Burden with 38 online Apps

Many Apps for 1 edu system

Lokmat News Network

By Mehboob Inamdar

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: School teachers in the State are increasingly burdened by the growing number of apps and portals mandated by the Education Department, with frequent data entry and updates cutting into valuable classroom teaching time.

With the post-COVID situation, the Central Government is emphasising the digitisation of the education system. The State Government embraced the initiatives of the Central Government in the education system.

So, various Apps and portals were developed to improve efficiency, transparency and accessibility of services. Both the Education Department of the Central and State Governments introduced various applications and portals for seeking details and data and reducing paperwork.

School staff, specially teachers, have to update schools, teachers and students' data, students' online audit, test reports, attendance, training, scheme information and photographs. They have to provide details as and when required and this has become a daily routine for teachers.

Teachers across the State are currently burdened with nearly 38 different Government apps and online reporting systems, which have severely affected their primary duty- teaching students.

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Names of apps & portals

Names of some of the Apps and portals are as follows;

Saral, Shalarth, U-DISE Plus, Mid-Day Meal App, Prerna App, Maha DBT, DIKSHA, Read Along, NIPUN Plus, Shraddha, OLAS, Samarth Portal, iGOT Karmayogi, NIPUN Teacher App, MahaSchool, Khan Academy, SWAYAM, Shiksha Setu, Swachh Survekshan, Skill India Portal, e-Samvad, HRMS, MDM Attendance, Shiksha Sahayak, Shiksha Sankul, e-Library, School Safety App and Shiksha Samvad.

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Against spirit of NEP

When contacted, Sajid Nisar Ahmed, founder of the Akhil Bhartiya Urdu Shikshak Sangh (ABUSS), said that teachers are required to enter data on dozens of Apps and portals.

“Uploading attendance, reports, training details, student test data, scheme information, and photographs on these apps has become a daily routine for teachers. This situation goes against the spirit of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020,” he added.

A teacher from a private school, Kailas Patil, said that there is no time, from morning to night, when one would be asked to update a message on WhatsApp, Apps and portals. “The filing reports, online training, uploading documents and 24-hour WhatsApp messages affecting classroom teaching,” he added.

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Some of the demands of the teachers' unions are as follows;

--Merge all existing Apps into a single “Unified Education App.

--Limit the number of online reports and forms to a fixed monthly quota.

--Appoint Digital Data Entry Assistants in schools to reduce teachers’ workload.