Public schools: Parents to get access to monitoring portal

LAHORE:

A web-based school management system will soon be launched by the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) and the city district government (CDGL). This was decided at a meeting between PITB Chairman Umar Saif and DCO Muhammad Usman at the Arfa Software Technology Park.

Saif and Usman agreed to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to start work on the project immediately.

Saif said, “The system will help parents be informed about their child’s attendance, homework and progress through an SMS or a web-based central dashboard.”

He said the dashboard would include information on attendance of teachers, examinations schedule, annual calendar of events and co-curricular activities.

He said that after Lahore, the system would be implemented across the province.

The DCO said there were nearly 370,000 students enrolled at 352 public schools of Lahore.

He said due to population growth in recent years, public schools had become overburdened.

He said, “The purpose of the service is to inform parents about their children’s performance and activities through an SMS or the internet”.

He said parents would be able to send an SMS to the school management and get performance report of their children.

He said, “Modern technology is the need of the hour. We must use it to enhance education standards at public schools.” He said the system would help maintain attendance records, leave records, medical history and performance reports through an automated mechanism.

The DCO said the service would be free of cost.

He said the a pilot of the service would be launched at the Government Model Girls High School Model Town, the Comprehensive Higher Secondary School for Boys Ghoray Shah, the Comprehensive Higher Secondary School for Girls Wahdat Road and Government Boys High School and Government Girls High School Rattigan Road.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 28^th, 2015.