Jajpur: The government has been asking schools across the state to ensure Aadhaar enrolment of all students for the last three years. But private ME schools and private higher secondary schools in Jajpur district have been disregarding the directive.
School and Mass Education Department officials said as per Student Database Management Information System (SDMIS), while the government aided schools have managed to complete Aadhaar enrolment of 61 %, private ME schools and private higher secondary schools have managed to complete only 9.4% and 35.2% respectively.
Aadhaar enrolment of students is necessary for updating SDMIS which keeps the record of academic journey of students from Class I to XII in both government and private schools across the state.
The process of enrolment of Aadhaar cards from Class I to XII of all schools has started in the district three years ago. For this, the Odisha Primary Education Programme Authority (OPEPA) has asked all district education officers, district project coordinators and block education officers to ensure Aadhaar enrolment of students and submission of the data to the SDMIS. But due to lack of coordination by the private ME schools and private higher secondary schools has led to slow progress in Aadhaar enrolment of students.
According to reports of 2018-19 academic session, a total of 52,553 students are studying in 312 private ME schools in the district. Of them, Aadhaar numbers of only 20,733 students have been enrolled in SDMIS.
The performance of private schools in enrolling Aadhaar cards at Sukinda, Koreai, Binjharpur blocks including Jajpur and Byasanagar municipality areas are lowest. It is 1.76% in Sukinda block, 5.90% in Binjharpur block and 0.92% in Jajpur Municipality area.
In Jajpur Municipality area, 3,705 students are studying in 16 private ME schools. From them the Aadhaar numbers of only 34 students have been enrolled in SDMIS till July 14, 2019.
Similar is the case with the private higher secondary schools. A total of 83,900 students are studying in 453 private higher secondary schools in the district. Of them, the Aadhaar numbers of only 8,734 have been enrolled in SDMIS.
Poor enrolment in an educated district like Jajpur has caused concern among the educationists. The officials were also directed to instruct headmasters to enrol students at nearby enrolment centres. The headmasters should share the Aadhaar number with the block education officers for updating the SDMIS. But the slow progress of Aadhaar enrolment has increased the concern of the School and Mass Education Department.
However, the OPEPA had instructed the block education officers to cancel the licence of the private schools if they failed to submit 100% Aadhaar enrolment of their students till February, 2018. But private school authorities are not obeying the instruction of block education officers.
When the district Sarba Shikhshya Project Coordinator Bishnu Charan Sutara was asked about this, he said: “We have informed district education officer about the enrolment of Aadhaar number of students in SDMIS. The private ME schools and private higher secondary schools have assured us that they will provide us all types of technical help.”
PNN