The Delhi government has begun a citywide digital profiling exercise of its schools to identify infrastructure gaps and assess issues related to student safety, education department officials said on Wednesday.
The initiative, rolled out on Monday, involves comprehensive digital documentation of school assets at both classroom and building levels. There are 1,086 government schools operating from 799 buildings. Officials said the department has 12 education districts and 28 zones, and the number of schools under each district varies.
“We have hired a third-party agency for the exercise. The department has been working on this for the past one year,” said an official, requesting anonymity.
The agency will carry out on-ground assessments covering parameters such as cleanliness, availability of drinking water, security systems, furniture, digital facilities, kitchens and laboratories.
Using 360-degree imaging, every room within school premises will be digitised. The agency will also deploy drones to conduct surveys and generate high-resolution ortho-mosaic images, along with GIS-based visualisation tools to aid future planning, budgeting and monitoring of development works.
Structural safety is central to the project, the official said. “Specialised teams will undertake visual inspections and non-destructive testing, including ultrasonic pulse velocity and rebound hammer tests. Based on scientific assessments, buildings will be categorised for retention, repair, retrofitting or demolition to ensure the safety of students and staff,” the official said.
All information collected through the exercise will be stored on a secure web, based application connected to the Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) that will enable automated error detection and real, time monitoring. Senior officials will have the ability to follow the progress and to get a detailed analysis of the data at any level from state to individual classrooms, helped by pictorial evidence.
The profiling will benchmark facilities against standards prescribed by bodies such as the Central Board of Secondary Education and the National Disaster Management Authority. Buildings flagged as structurally weak will have their reports reviewed by reputed institutions, including the Indian Institutes of Technology and the National Institutes of Technology, officials said.
Advocate Ashok Agarwal, president of the All India Parents’ Association, however, said principals of government schools regularly write to the education department about issues affecting them but receive no redressal.
“The government is conducting such exercises despite knowing what the issues are. There is a school in Ashok Nagar that has been operating from a tin shed for nearly 40 years. Nothing has been done for students there. Instead of publicity-driven exercises, the government should address issues on the ground,” he said.
