The Ministry of Education, under the National Digital Education Architecture (NDEAR), is initiating the creation of Vidya Samiksha Kendras (VSKs) throughout various states. This move is in line with the National Education Policy, 2020. At this moment, the Central Institute of Educational Technology building housed within the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) campus hosts a central VSK centre.
Introduction to Vidya Samiksha Kendras (VSKs)
VSKs aim to utilize data and technology to cause a significant rise in learning outcomes. Data from over 15 lakh schools, 96 lakh teachers, and 26 crore students will be covered. This data will be subjected to big data analysis, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and machine learning to enhance the overall monitoring of the education system, thereby improving learning results.
Objectives of VSKs
The VSKs have several goals. Notably, these include monitoring the real-time status of various projects and activities under the scope of Samagra Shiksha, tracking enrolled students (including their learning results), identifying dropouts, and determining the support required by teachers and schools. Furthermore, they intend to monitor and track academic and non-academic field level activities at the state level, empowering administrators and teachers in the field to make data-driven decisions. VSKs also plan to establish a centralized help desk for grievance redressal mechanisms for stakeholders of the school ecosystem and identify and analyze areas requiring improvement for decision-making and urgent implementation.
Significance of VSKs
The ability to efficiently gather, monitor, correlate, and analyze data will lead to the timely implementation of schemes. Integrating various data sets and breaking down silo operations will enable us to effectively use different entities towards a common goal.
About NDEAR
NDEAR is a federated, unbundled, interoperable, inclusive, accessible, and evolving system. It aims to create and deliver an array of diverse, relevant, contextual, and innovative solutions benefiting students, teachers, parents, communities, administrators. Moreover, it ensures the timely implementation of policy goals. The Ministry of Education, in collaboration with the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY), oversees NDEAR. Its objective is to enable a common set of principles and approaches for building, using, and re-using technology in education.
Vision of NDEAR
NDEAR envisions being a global pioneer in education—with a unifying national digital infrastructure meant to energize and catalyze education.
Outcomes of NDEAR
Students will have access to on-demand learning materials, such as videos, graphics, animations, virtual labs, and various assessment tools. They’ll also gain access to personalized adaptive learning (PAL) and will have their transition to higher education and skilling tracked.
Teachers, on the other hand, will have access to online support for lesson plans, use of Teaching-learning material (TLM), pedagogic transactions, online reference materials, and competency-based evaluation tools. They’ll also get access to online modules designed to enhance professional standards.
Last Modified: February 22, 2024