Bhubaneswar: The Department of School Education & Literacy (DoSEL), Ministry of Education (MoE), along with the Department of School and Mass Education, government of Odisha, co-hosted a two-day workshop on the Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) in Bhubaneswar.
The workshop commenced on Friday and brought together senior officials from DoSEL, education boards across India, and key education departments and organisations to deliberate on strengthening data-driven educational governance.
Inaugurating the conference, Dheeraj Sahu, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Education, underlined the importance of reliable and timely educational data to ensure transparency and accountability.
He spoke about expanding the scope of UDISE+ to track student learning outcomes as well as school dropouts through APAAR ID. He also urged states and districts to analyse the reasons behind student dropouts from the school ecosystem.
In his welcome address, Dr. Pankaj K.P. Shreyaskar, Deputy Director General, DoSEL, highlighted the strategic role of UDISE+ in supporting national initiatives, including the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. He stressed the need for data harmonisation, quality, and security. He also emphasised integrating various portals with UDISE+ through APIs to reduce the reporting burden on schools.
During the panel discussion, representatives from Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti, Indian Air Force, Navy Educational Society, and National Institute of Open Schooling discussed the importance of the UDISE+ database.
They also shared their expectations beyond the current offerings of the platform. The School Education Departments of Odisha, Haryana, and Andhra Pradesh presented their best practices adopted to strengthen the school data ecosystem for evidence-based decision-making.
On Saturday, School Education Departments of Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Manipur, Telangana, and Maharashtra demonstrated their dashboards. They highlighted initiatives taken to ensure data accuracy and widen the coverage of UDISE+.
A separate session featured panelists from the Central Board of Secondary Education, National Institute of Open Schooling, Board of Secondary & Higher Secondary Education, Goa, and Odisha.
The discussion focused on integrating various datasets related to school education, including board data, while ensuring the sanctity of the datasets.
