6-Nov-2019: Minister of State for HRD Shri Sanjay Dhotre launches Shaala Darpan portal for Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti

Minister of State for Human Resource Development, Shri Sanjay Dhotre launched Shaala Darpan portal, an E-Governance school automation and management system for Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti (NVS) in New Delhi. This single integrated platform has been developed for information sharing and knowledge dissemination for the 22000 employees and over 2 lakh students across schools and offices of Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti. Commissioner of Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti Shri Bishwajit Kumar Singh and Executive Director of C-DAC Shri Vivek Khanejawere also present on this occasion.

While addressing the gathering Shri Dhotre highlighted the crucial contribution of Navodaya Vidyalayas and its teachers in educationally uplifting the rural children. He added that the teachers along with the non-teaching staff serve these rural children round the clock, in remote and even in difficult geographical locations. And because of such sustained round-the-clock involvement with the children, they are able to provide all-round development, not just scholastic achievements, to these children. Shri Dhotre further added that the comprehensive portal, Shala Darpan, will not only make different processes of Navodaya Vidyalayas very smooth, but it will also bring transparency.

Shaala Darpan is an end to end e-Governance school automation and management system. It has been implemented at Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti as the first major initiative to enable automation of all activities of the country’s largest residential schooling system through a single umbrella - 636 schools, 8 Regional Offices, 8 NLIs and Head Quarter.

The system has several pluggable components that can interact with each other. These are enlisted below:

  1. School Information and Management System for complete school automation
  2. Bilingual Content Management Portal for information dissemination
  3. Employee ERP to manage the day to day activities of all employees
  4. Budget & Finance management system
  5. Inventory & Store management system
  6. Library management system

Components of School Information and Management System:

  1. Student Management Information System
  2. Parent Guardian Information System
  3. Class & Teacher Management System
  4. Subject Management System
  5. Time Table Management System
  6. Attendance Monitoring with a mobile app
  7. Hostel & Mess management system for residential schools
  8. Student Health Card to monitor student health and vitals
  9. Assignment & Project Management System
  10. Exam & Results system
  11. Activities Management System

System Stake-holders

  1. The stake holders of the system include the following:
    1. Officers of NVS can do the following:
    2. Manage their courses better
    3. Manage the entire activities in NVS schools in an efficient manner
    4. Create an information rich content store for future reference
    5. Manage their personal records better
    6. Have easy single point access to information shared across the offices of NVS
    7. Senior management can manage the courses, funds, etc. better with the aid of analytical dashboards
  2. Students can access their own personal records, information rich content, their entire life in NVS as a single visual album, etc. with greater ease

External Audience:

  1. Citizens wishing to know about NVS and their working can now visit the single Integrated Content Management Platform
  2. Parents of students can get to know the life of their students inside JNV with a single click.

Government can study the working of NVS through up to date data.

Shaala Darpan Impact:

  • Unified, Dynamically Integrated, maintained view of NVS data
  • Increased visibility of student and institution achievements
  • Link Industry and academia by way of Alumni portal
  • Improvised & Controlled information dissemination
  • Increased outreach
  • Navigation ease for end users
  • Increased organisation collaboration
  • Collaboration beyond classrooms
  • Rich Assignment and Project store
  • Analytical Dashboards to aid real time performance audit
  • Rich learning resource store
  • Real-time alerts to safe guard missing children
  • Album of a child’s complete life in Navodaya Vidyalaya
  • Increased daily productivity
  • Connect JNV Schools and Offices

Benefits of the system:

  • More efficient processes:
    • Reduced time for information searching.
    • Timely completion of important processes like APAR.
    • All essential documents available in one click.
    • Timely information intimations like absence of students in class, movement of students outside the campus, any important notifications from management to officers.
  • Ease of stakeholders:
    • Easy interface navigation with important alerts.
    • Responsive GUI helps user to access the system on hand held devices mobile and tablets.
    • Analytical dashboards for analysis and inference by management.
    • Easy navigation and information access for citizens.
    • Information sharing on portals in two languages – English and Hindi, for sharing of information with end users.
    • Compliance to GIGW guidelines make the portals usable by differently abled users as well.
  • Increased  transparency
    • Status of actions taken in every module is available to the individual officers as well as NVS Officials at every stage of processing.
    • One-Go Dash-Board to see the information of every aspect of the project, thus aiding faster and evidence based decision making.
  • Structured and Efficient way of working
    • Manual processes now automated processing bringing in operational efficiency
    • Automated alerts and reminders for informing users of any actions that are required at their end.
    • Process transparency both for individual users and management.
    • Record store helps future references.
  • In line with the Government’s manifesto on Education
    • Link between Industry and academia by way of Alumni portal
    • Online Assignments, Improvised Projects with students from different classes, streamlined monitoring, etc. via School Information System thus reworking the work culture of teacher training institutions with a goal to prepare committed performing teachers.
    • Inspection reports and monitoring dashboards to aid real time performance audit

Online rich reference store for students to relieve them from huge bags.

31-Oct-2019: UHRD Minister Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ reviews preparations for PISA 2021

Union Human Resource Development Minister Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' interacted with the Deputy Commissioners of Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan and Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti in New Delhi.

He reviewed the preparations for the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2021 and instructed all the Deputy Commissioners to work hard to make India successful in this examination. Commissioner Shri Vishwajit Singh was also present. Shri. Nishank said that India is going to participate in the PISA  competition to be held in 2021. He said that this examination is an important platform to bring global recognition to Indian talent. There is no dearth of competence, discipline and talent among our students, but the need is that they get the right direction and guidance.

The Union Minister said that we have to take a pledge that in this examination we have to come first in the world and we will have to work very hard for this. We have to make our education system in line with global standards, only then our students will be able to ensure their better place in the global examinations. We need to pay attention to book knowledge as well as experiential learning only then we will be able to perform the best in this difficult exam.

PISA examination is not far now, so its preparation should start on war footing mode. He directed to hold a review meeting every 15 days under the chairmanship of Minister of State for Human Resource Development, Shri Sanjay Dhotre. The Minister hoped that under the leadership of Shri Dhotre, the preparation of the PISA examination will move in the right direction and the country will be able to perform its best in this difficult examination.

Addressing all the Deputy Commissioners, Shri Nishank appealed to take a pledge that we can create history in the 2021 PISA exam. He further said that time management and discipline is necessary for success and we will have to develop both these qualities in the students. He said that for success we need to develop deep thinking ability among the students.

On this occasion, Shri Dhotre said that we are once again appearing in the PISA (PISA) examination and this time we have to join it with full preparation. We have to prepare our children according to global standards so that we get better results this time. We should emphasize experience-based education rather than rote learning.

He further said that this time we will not only have to provide high-level teaching to the schools and students selected for PISA but also to schools all over the country so that our education system can be included in the best education systems around the world.

PISA is organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in which many countries of the world participate. India has decided to participate in this examination in 2021. The students of Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti and Union Territory of Chandigarh will represent India in this examination.

19-Feb-2019: Cabinet approves Agreement on Proposed Participation of India in PISA

The Union Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given ex-post facto approval to the Agreement between India and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for participating in the Programme for International Students Assessment (PISA), which will be conducted by the OECD in 2021. The Agreement was signed on 28th January 2019.

Benefits: Learnings from participation in PISA will help to introduce competency-based examination reforms in the school system and help move away from rote learning. The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) will be part of the process and activities leading to the actual test.

Salient features: PISA is a competency-based assessment which unlike content-based assessment, measures the extent to which students have acquired key competencies that are essential for full participation in modern societies. It would lead to recognition and acceptability of Indian students and prepare them for the global economy in the 21st century. The CBSE and the NCERT will be part of the process and activities leading to the actual test. Schools run by the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS), Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti (NVS) and schools in the Union Territory of Chandigarh will participate. More than 80 countries, including 44 middle-income countries including Brazil, China, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam have participated in PISA

28-Jan-2019: India and OECD sign agreement to enable India’s participation in Programme for International Students Assessment (PISA) to be held in 2021

A Signing ceremony of Agreement between India and OECD for India’s participation in Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2021, in presence of Union HRD Minister, Shri Prakash Javadekar was held in New Delhi.

The Minister said that the Government of India has decided that India will participate in the Programme for International Students Assessment (PISA) to be conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 2021. He said that the participation in PISA 2021 would indicate the health of the education system and would motivate other schools /states in the subsequent cycles. This will lead to improvement in the learning levels of the children and enhance the quality of education in the country. He also informed that OECD has agreed to ask some of the questions based on Indian context. The Minister hoped that our students will perform well and we will get a good position in the overall rankings.

Following are some of the important features of India’s participation in PISA:

  • Schools run by Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS), Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti (NVS) and schools in the UT of Chandigarh will participate.
  • Within the country (or specific geography to be covered in case of large countries), PISA covers a sample of 15-year-old students representing all forms of schooling i.e. public, private, private aided etc.
  • PISA is a competency based assessment which unlike content-based assessment, measures the extent to which students have acquired key competencies that are essential for full participation in modern societies. It would lead to recognition and acceptability of Indian students and prepare them for the global economy in the 21st century.
  • Learnings from participation in PISA will help to introduce competency based examination reforms in the school system and help move away from rote learning. The CBSE and NCERT will be part of the process and activities leading to the actual test.

More than 80 countries, including 44 middle-income countries, have participated in the assessment since the first round of testing in 2000. Next round of PISA is going to be held in 2021.  The list of registered countries includes Brazil, China (certain areas like Shanghai and Beijing) and countries from South-East Asia like Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam.

What are the key features of PISA?

PISA is a triennial international survey (every three years) which aims to evaluate the education system worldwide by testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students. Students are assessed in reading, mathematics, science and collaborative problem-solving. Participation in PISA allows benchmarking performance against a wide range of countries. PISA uses test items aligned with international benchmarks. Test items are adapted to the local context and language, pilot tested and validated before being used for the test. OECD have agreed to contextualize the questions for Indian students.

11-Sep-2019: Union Minister of State for HRD Shri Sanjay Dhotre launches Curriculum for Life Skills (Jeevan Kaushal)

Union Minister of State for Human Resource Development Shri Sanjay Dhotre, launched the Curriculum for Life Skills (Jeevan Kaushal) designed by University Grants Commission (UGC), in New Delhi.

Shri Dhotre emphasized on development of life skills in every individual, as essential part of wholesome learning. He highlighted the problem of prevalent obsession with earning marks in different examinations. Such examination-driven education encourages narrow and selective reading and rote learning, which ultimately leads to deficit in actual learning. He added that in real life, one also needs to be skilled for coping with diverse situations that one may encounter in life. Highlighting the crucial importance of this new curriculum on life skills, he added that this initiative of UGC will surely lead to improvement in the collective efficiency of country’s young population.

In India, there is an unprecedented demand for quality higher education for producing employable, exceptionally performing graduates qualified with skills, knowledge and ethics essential for leading a rewarding life and it is with this aim University Grants Commission issued Quality Mandate and its objectives. Quality Mandate of UGC has been adopted in the National Conference of Vice – Chancellors and Directors on Research & Innovation held between 26th to 28th July, 2018 and Life Skills (Jeevan Kaushal) for students is one of its verticals.

UGC constituted Expert Committee prepared a Curriculum for Life Skills (Jeevan Kaushal) for Under Graduate Programme. The curriculum is designed to impart and strengthen the knowledge, skills and dispositions believed to be the best requisites of the current Industry and thereby empower the talent inherent in each learner. Life Skills like communication skill, interpersonal skill, time management, problem solving ability, decision making capacity, leadership ability and integrity play a crucial role in boosting the employability of the students.

Life skills (Jeevan Kaushal) curriculum cover the set of human talents acquired by an individual via classroom learning or life experience that can help them to deal with problems encountered in day to day life. This includes the core skills each individual must possess internally as well as externally for the betterment of self and the society as a whole. Adoption of life skills is the key to success and quality in life.

  1. Margadarshan and Margadarshak Schemes
  2. National Educational Alliance for Technology (NEAT)
  3. Education Quality Upgradation and Inclusion Programme (EQUIP)
  4. Operation Digital Board (ODB)
  5. Railway University
  6. IMPRESS Scheme