PUNE: Over one lakh state government schools will begin the self-evaluation programme under the Union government’s Shaala Siddhi programme from this week.
The training to school teachers for this year’s programme will be conducted by the MSCERT from Tuesday.
Experts in the field have said there has been a three-year gap on external evaluation of schools under the same scheme. The education officials said that the external evaluation would begin only when they receive approval from the Union government.
Joint director at MSCERT, Vikas Garad, said, “Self-evaluation is considered as the nucleus of the school evaluation process. It facilitates the school to evaluate its critical performance areas. Each school needs to follow the guidelines to make accurate professional judgement.”
The duration of the self-evaluation process may range from two to six months according to the context, size and need of the school. All the schools are expected to complete the self-evaluation process and upload the dashboard as and when they are ready. However, all the schools need to comply with the deadline for the self-evaluation process as decided by the state.
As part of the SSEF, a school evaluation dashboard, e-Samiksha has been developed to facilitate each school to provide a consolidated evaluation report, including areas prioritized for improvement. The dashboard is developed both in print and digitized format.
Garad said, “The dashboard obtained from each school will be consolidated at cluster, block, district, state and national level for identifying school-specific needs and common areas of intervention to improve school performance. A web-portal and cellphone app on school standards and evaluation are in the process of development.” Founder of Shikshan Hakka, Matin Mujawar, said, “The self-evaluation by the schools will have meaning only when external evaluators cross-check the facts during the second phase of this programme which has not happened for three years.”
The self-evaluation intends to empower the school to recognize its strengths and areas of improvement in a planned and guided manner. It also aims at creating a collaborative culture with participation of all stakeholders.
