A framework to validate analyze and assess data for the national program UDISE initiated by Government of India

Abstract

U-DISE project is a National project in which huge amount of data is collected for all the registered and unregistered primary and secondary schools of India. This initiative of Government of India is supposed to cover all 664 districts in India1 . This management information system is used to monitor the programs of government like Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan and Rastiriya Madhyamic Abhiyaan. It is developed by HRD Ministry, Government of India, National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA), and UNICEF2 . This had school as the point of data collection and district as the point of data dissemination. Department of management education system, with support from HRD and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) maintains 1. District Information System for Education (DISE) 2. Secondary Education Management Information System (SEMIS) The aim of the two programs is to maintain and strengthen the database on elementary education in India. DISE: The program was started to capture information on primary education which now covers nearly 1.4 million schools3 . The data collected consists of many variables like age, gender, number of teachers, infrastructure facilities in schools etc. SEMIS: This program was independently initiated to collect data on secondary education. The data captured was very similar to the DISE program3. U-DISE: An expert panel recommended that the above two programs, DISE and SEMIS, be merged into a single integrated program. This was done with the objective of creation of unified system of school education statistics. U-DISE acts a source of information which can be used to assess the current programs of Government and the state of education in the country. The unit of data collection in U-DISE is the school and the unit of data dissemination is the district. Currently, the data is captured but potential of this data in policy making and reforms is yet to be leveraged. Insufficient means of validating the data and checking for consistency poses a challenge. This project aims to interpret and diagnose the data, suggesting a framework that can be used to gain insights which then can be used to drive reforms in education sector in India.