MahaStudent app ‘launched’, but not available

 

 

 

School Education and Sports Department of Maharashtra Government has recently not only developed but also ‘launched’ MahaStudent software application to record attendance of students and teachers. However, contrary to the department’s claim, the said application is not available on Google Playstore. On November 3, School Education and Sports Department of Maharashtra Government issued a circular to all Divisional Deputy Directors (Education), all Education Officers, and Administrative officers of all municipal corporations and councils. The circular stated that the department had developed and ‘made available’ the MahaStudent application on Google Playstore. The application has been developed to record attendance of student and teachers both. Using the said application, the teachers can digitally record the attendance of students. However, sources said, when the officers passed on the information to various schools, the teachers tried finding the application, but could not locate it on Google Playstore.

 

There were several other applications developed by private entities and even the applications of Balbharti, and those developed by the Central Government. However, the ‘MahaStudent’ application could not be found. Also, many wondered, when the schools had started offline for classes from Std VIII, and the offline classes for Std I to VII are scheduled to start from December 1, isn’t it too late for floating the application. The application has been developed keeping in mind the Performance Grading Index developed by Central Government, under which there is score for recording the attendance of students as well as teachers digitally. As per the School Education and Sports Department’s circular, using the MahaStudent application teachers can record the absence of students at a click.

 

The idea behind developing the application is to do away with the need for maintaining attendance register for students separately. Besides, the application will provide for digitally recording information of student-beneficiaries of Mid-Day Meals Scheme. As a result, attendance of students and teachers will be available at centre, tehsil, district, and State level. As far as Performance Grading Index (PGI) developed by the Central Government is concerned, it is aimed at catalysing transformational change in the field of school education. The PGI aims at shifting the focus from access to quality of education after registering improvement due to various schemes initiated by the Central Department of School Education and Literacy along with the implementation of Right of Education Act. The purpose of PGI is to help the States and UTs to pinpoint the gaps and accordingly prioritise areas for intervention, and also act as a good source of information for best practices followed by States and UTs that can be shared.