NEW DELHI: The evaluation report of more than 4,041 Delhi schools has not been yet published in the public domain even after five years of its announcement, finds this newspaper. According to a senior official, the report will not have any practical significance now as the evaluated school’s situation will drastically change now after five years. However, the report can be used for academic purposes.
The Commission had announced comprehensive evaluation of all city schools in the year 2018. Later in 2019, Deputy Chief Minister and Education Minister Manish Sisodia told media that the evaluation process has been completed and called this evaluation a fresh wave of accountability in the field of education. For this evaluation, the Delhi government granted a budget of around Rs 15 crore through the education department. In the assessment, the commission selected the Quality Council of India as a System integrator (SI).
While announcing this step, the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR) issued a circular stating that a comprehensive evaluation of city schools will be done on the basis of majorly three themes — safety and security, teaching and learning, community participation and social integration. On the basis of this evaluation, the commission will form a School Development Index (SDI).
Talking to this newspaper, a former official of DCPCR said that apart from Delhi government schools, the commission has also done the evaluation of New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) and Municipal Corporation of Delhi Schools.As multiple government bodies are associated with this project, therefore there might be delays from their sides. Adding to this, the pandemic also affected the pace of the evaluation process.
Talking about the significance of his report, Paras Tyagi, co-founder of the Centre for Youth Culture Law and Environment (CYCLE) said, “Schools lack various basic infra, this report was to put forth comprehensive data on each school, but despite such large scale effort and transparency from the govt, they just vanished the report in thin air.”In this regard, this reporter tried to contact the current DCPCR Chairperson Anurag Kundu, but he did not respond to the calls and messages.