Andhra Pradesh, like any states in the country was faced with several challenges in school education. Apart from scale, fragmented approach to delivering public education, frequent change of leadership, changing programme directives and reduction of funding resulted in inconsistent and poor focus on quality aspects. Low learning levels among students, many government schools with poor student strength, growing enrolment in inadequately regulated English medium private schools, mushrooming of poor quality private teacher training colleges, lack of integrated quality school/student data, lack of transparent and accountable administrative systems, large number of legal cases, etc. were some of the other challenges.
An officer from Indian Postal Service, K Sandhya Rani came to occupy the post of Commissioner, School Education in Andhra Pradesh in January 2015. She demonstrated that school education could be transformed. Displaying commendable leadership qualities, she made efforts to address some of the challenges that beset school education in the state. The focus was on improving student learning outcomes, facilitating teachers’ professional development, consolidation of government schools, and improving governance by putting in place transparent and accountable administrative processes. Technology was leveraged effectively and pilots conducted and scaled up for greater impact.
A School Information Management System (SIMS) was put in place by mapping and integrating Aadhaar seeded Childinfo data and Unified – District Information on School Education (U-DISE) data. This integrated data was cross validated with other data sets and followed by verification at school and household level. The whole exercise led to 98.86% of students’ data mapped to Aadhaar, both in Government and Private schools. SIMS helped developing Aadhaar seeded database of over 180,000 Government teachers.
Under Vidya Vikasam, student learning outcomes improvement program, Assessment Cell was set up in the State Council for Education Research & Training (SCERT) in partnership with Center for Science of Student Learning (CSSL), Centre Square Foundation (CSF) and Samagra. Its objective was to drive pedagogical and assessment reforms in government and private schools. An analytical portal was created to track student wise performance covering Summative Assessments from Grade VI onwards.
After extensive stakeholder consultations, an edTech policy and action plan was developed and implemented with an objective to leverage technology use for impacting 3 key areas in school education – to enhance student engagement in their learning process, to support teachers’ knowledge and skills building, to improve governance through transparent and accountable systems.
To support teachers’ professional development through technology integrated pedagogy, improved in-service teacher training, a portal (ApeKX) with Subject/School/Mandal/ District/State wise dashboards to understand and address student learning gaps, online awareness, knowledge and skill building opportunities was set up. This finally morphed into National DIKSHA portal that was considered a path breaking initiative to support teachers develop, curate contribute and access digital content, exchange lesson plans, online modules and training, etc. Digital/Virtual class rooms were set up in thousands of Government schools.
With the objective of improving governance, supporting planning, ensuring transparent and accountable administration, initiatives like developing an Integrated Data Management Systems (SIMS), eHazar – real time, Aadhaar based daily-twice Teacher Attendance System, Performance based Online transparent Teacher Transfer System, Computer Based Teacher Eligibility and Teacher Recruitment Tests, tracking teacher training and professional development, online system to track and expedite Private Schools registration and recognition, integration with A.P High Court for monitoring Legal Cases, were taken up.
Several projects were implemented at scale in Government Schools in partnership mode. These included Ananda Lahari Abhyasana (ALA) in partnership with Rishi Valley Institute for Educational Resources (RiVER – TiDE) for implementing the Multi-Grade-Multi-Level (MGML) Teaching-Learning program in 1342 double teacher primary schools.
Evidence based systematic school rationalisation/ consolidation exercise was taken up during 2015-16, 2017-18 resulting in merging/closing of over 6000 unviable schools.
AP School Education Department entered into partnerships with 14 NGOs, especially focussed on improving student learning outcomes, building skills and capacities of teachers, project management, supporting technology innovations in data design and management, improving teaching-learning processes, developing strategic framework for long term reforms and systemic transformation, etc.
School (education) Transformation Framework – Badi Parivartana -was developed in partnership with Tata Trusts. It is a long-term strategic vision and action plan to deliver an over-all child centric education by stitching together some of the reform initiatives already underway and designing new interventions for gap areas.
A combination of long-term planning, focus on key areas prioritised with extensive stakeholders’ consultations, leveraging technology, building capacities of the team, partnerships, etc. saw the impact on several fronts.
The Aadhaar seeded SIMS database of students and teachers increased visibility of all education related metrics for effective decision making, a one stop shop for all stakeholders with far reaching impact. It helped improve governance, school consolidation exercise, in planning and budgeting, monitoring, procurement, indenting and supply for Mid-Day Meals, school uniforms and text books, private schools’ recognition/opening additional sections, rationalisation of aided schools, inter-departmental data mapping and convergent program implementation, etc. During 2015-16 and 2016-17 the SIMS helped remove about 600,000 duplicate or double enrolments of students (found both in Private and Government Schools) after appropriate field verification, resulting in savings of Rs.132.86 crores in SE Budget under MDM, Text Books printing and supply. The Teacher database helped in implementing e-Hazar – Aadhaar authenticated teacher attendance system, online performance-based teacher transfers, in-service teacher training, issue of No Objection Certificates (NOC), Medical Reimbursement.
After studying the A.P State SIMS, the National Institute for Education Planning & Administration (NIEPA), MHRD modified the U-DISE application to U-DISE+ and enabled other States to build similar integrated database. SIMS project earned many rewards including the South Asia MANTHAN Award in 2016-17. AP showed significant improvement in National Assessment Survey (NAS) moving from 17th Rank to 3rd Rank in Grade III at Primary Level; from 22nd to 5th position in Upper Primary grades and ranked 2nd position in Class 10 performance. The student performance analytics followed by dissemination of key findings sensitized teachers to improve in-classroom practices.
There was a net shift of over 2.30 Lakh students’ enrolment from Private Schools to Government Schools in AP during 2018-19 and 2019-2020. Initial apprehension and reluctance among teachers’ community gave way to appreciation and adapting of the new technology solutions. There has been significant improvement in governance due to transparent and accountable systems in place, effectively handled teacher grievances and reduction in court cases (especially post-teacher transfer or conduct of Teacher Recruitment Tests). The Commissionerate of Andhra Pradesh received the “Impact Catalyst 2019 Award at the Catalysing Social Impact Forum, Bangalore in August 2019 in recognition of the systemic approach taken for developing the Badi Parivartana Framework. Officers like K Sandhya Rani demonstrate that it-can-happen in the Government. It requires vision, commitment, meticulous planning, a road map and capability to inspire the entire team.
Anil Swarup has served as the head of the Project Monitoring Group, which is currently under the Prime Minister’s Offic. He has also served as Secretary, Ministry of Coal and Secretary, Ministry of School Education.