KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) has expressed surprise over the provincial education authorities for not computerising the enrolment record of the public sector schools of Sindh and directed the education secretary to produce relevant record on Feb 3.

A two-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Ahmed Ali M. Shaikh and Justice Yousuf Ali Sayeed said that such basic information must be available at the click of a button in this era and the failure to ensure availability of an updated centralised record needed to be remedied as it was a prerequisite for the implementation of biometric attendance system.

It also put the National Information Technology Board (NITB) on notice for Feb 3 in order to seek its input regarding digitisation of such record.

The SHC also directed the secretary of the social welfare department to take measures about registration of eight children shelter homes being run without registration by private persons/organisations, and ensure that the needful was done in accordance with law.

Earlier, the education authorities had claimed before the SHC that around 300,000 fresh students had recently been enrolled in schools across the province during an ongoing campaign launched to boost enrolment.

When the bench took up a set of petitions, mainly seeking implementation of the Sindh Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2013 for hearing, the secretary of the school education & literacy department and the director general of Sindh Child Protection Authority filed statements in the light of the previous order.

They contended in the statements that an attendance App was going to be launched in seven districts from Jan 16, while another one for student’s attendance monitoring was under development.

The meetings had been held with the NITB and Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) and latter had shared a plan for the development of application which included students’ registration and attendance module while the entry of students’ data would start at the school level by teachers themselves, they maintained.

The reports also asserted that so far 4,430 schools had been reopened and 500 closed schools were under the process of reopening in Tharparkar & Umerkot and the process would be completed within two weeks.

A disciplinary action against 793 absconding teachers and non-teaching staff had been finalised and 574 of them had been awarded major penalties and 219 minor ones while 24 ‘journalist teachers’ had also been given major punishment, they added.

Asked about the relevant particulars of the students who were said to have been freshly enrolled in schools, education secretary Ghulam Akbar Leghari submitted that such information was not readily available and sought further time for compilation.

He conceded that the enrolment record had not been computerised and was maintained manually in registers.

“Be that as it may, the secretary is directed to file the relevant information of the fresh enrolments on the next date. Needless to say, such a revelation is quite startling as such basic information ought to be available at the click of a button in this day and age, and the failure to ensure availability of an updated centralised record in electronic form is a matter that needs to be remedied, being a sine qua non for implementation of biometric attendance system,” the bench in its order noted.

Published in Dawn, January 17th, 2023