Tele-Monitoring of Schools started in Koraput

            After the enactment of Right to Education it has become the obligation of all stake holders to see that all school going aged children attend the schools and all concern become sensitive enough to respond to this imminent need. In order to prepare itself the administration has taken few steps to have effective monitoring and supervision of all schools in the district. Apart form the Rapid Monitoring System, each CRCC and BRCC is suppose to visit minimum 10 schools each every month. Following new initiaves are added to the already focused monitoring.

• Tele-monitoring of schools is started whereby a database of mobile numbers of all the teachers is prepared and teachers in around 20 schools are being called everyday in order to assess his/her whereabouts. Questions are being asked about number of teachers present in the school, class wise students attendance, MDM etc. After the conversation with the teachers the mobile is asked to hand over to a student and the facts narrated by teacher are being verified from the student. Other questions pertaining to use to toilet, drinking water facility and hand washing are also being asked to the students.

With all its drawback this monitoring is likely to have some impact. The calls are generally made around 10:30 am , around 1:30 pm and 4 pm.

• one small step in the direction to create awareness about the responsibility of parents towards education of their children on pilot basis a decision is being taken that BPL rice of the family will be withheld if they do not send their children to the school. This pilot initiative is being started from today i.e. 9^th December taking all PRI members into confidence and with adequate awareness in Suku GP of Koraput Block.

Social Audit for ICDS services in Koraput

There is no second opinion that ICDS services assumes very important role in the welfare of women and children with respect to reducing malnourishment and overall improvement in the health related indicators. In order to strengthen these services the Koraput district administration has started Social Audit in ICDS on pilot basis in 14 Panchayats of the District.

Methodology adopted for Social Audit

• One Panchayat is selected randomly for the social audit covering all AWCs in the selected GP.
• The initiative is being implemented through SHGs and their federations.
• In every block two vocal, educated federation members are selected who can communicate to the rural womenfolk in their own language. A team is thus formed at Block level comprising two Federation members, one Community organizer and a Supervisor.
• Apart from this team a nodal SHG is identified in the village where AWC is located.
• All the Block level teams are being trained at District level and all nodal SHGs are being given orientation at block level.
• The methodology used was very simple and assessment of the function of the ICDS center was done using pictorial method to make it more interesting and reduce all type of biases. Each service delivery was divided into three part i.e. good , average and poor. Accordingly every women present was suppose to stick a bindi in front of the services in the color box which represented good , average and poor performance.
• In the beginning of every Social Audit all the womenfolk were briefed about the ICDS services which are being given through AWC in their locality . simultaneously, all their doubts and questions were answered by the team. After this exercise they were asked to access the performance of their center and stick a bindi as per their assessment of the service.

The whole process generated lot of enthusiasm. The audit is complete for all the 14 GPs and the data is being analyzed. After accessing the performance the same will be replicated with some modifications notices during the process.