A mobile application to facilitate daily maintenance of government schools in Delhi was launched on Monday at the Thyagaraj Stadium here by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia.
The mobile app will be used by school estate managers to file complaints and inspection reports on the day-to-day maintenance of school infrastructure.
"The app will be available with each estate manager who will conduct school inspection daily before 9 a.m. and report problems, if any, to the person concerned. They will then file the Action Taken Report via the mobile app to the directorate of education and the education minister by 11 a.m. everyday," Atishi Marlena, advisor to the education minister, said.
She said the app will be made available to the public after three months to enable them keep track of schools on real-time basis.
The estate managers are appointed by school principals for the upkeep of the school infrastructure like buildings, sanitation, safety and security.
The Delhi government cleared the proposal to hire estate managers after the principals complained that they were not able to focus on educational matters due to duties of school maintenance as well.
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"A school principal is supposed to provide academic leadership but he was pre-occupied with other works. Therefore, the government felt that the principals needed to be freed of daily upkeep and maintenance work and gave them the powers to hire estate managers on their own," Sisodia, who also holds the education portfolio, said.
He clarified that the principals would be finally responsible for the maintenance of school infrastructure.
Estate managers have been appointed in 650 schools so far and whereas the remaining schools will be covered in the next two to three months.
Some estate managers were using the app for the last five weeks on a trial basis, during which 7,320 complaints ranging from sanitation to daily maintenance were resolved.
The mobile app has been developed for free by a Bangalore-based IT company, Mindtree.
Meanwhile, Arvind Kejriwal reiterated his government's commitment to bring government schools on par with private ones.
--IANS
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