Finding school is now just a tap away
The Hindu by Tanu Kulkarni, Bangalore, 29^th September 2014

The tedious task of hunting for that perfect school for your child in the neighbourhood seems to have just got easier. You can now find a school in your neighbourhood through School Finder, a mobile app, by using the six-digit area pin code. The app provides details such as address of the school student strength, qualification of teachers, infrastructure facilities, and grade the school has obtained, which is based on report cards given by the National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA).

Developed by NUEPA of the Union Human Resource Development Ministry, the Android application provides data of over 15 lakh schools in the country, including about 74,000 in Karnataka. The data on schools is obtained from the District Information System for Education (DISE), an annual report compiled by NUEPA.

Explaining the features of the app, Arun C. Mehta, Head of the Department of Educational Management Information System (EMIS) at NUEPA, said, “The app can help a person identify the kind of schools that are there in the locality. It can be useful particularly for parents who are scouting for schools for their children as well as for officials who are visiting the schools.”

Sources in the Education Department, however, were sceptical about the reliability of the data provided by some schools even though it is the department that collects the data. “For instance, some schools tend to fabricate data on the number of classrooms and teachers. Sometimes infrastructure facilities would not match with the data they provide,” a department official said.

Acknowledging that the data provided by some schools may not be accurate, Prof. Mehta said the app, which makes the data public, would ensure that school managements were more cautious while submitting the data.

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/bangalore/finding-school-is-now-just-a-tap-away/article6455266.ece