articles ---SCHOOLS AND omr tEChNOLOGY

Using Remark Office For Schools in India

India is a country with vast population and in past, education may not
be as primary goal but now things have changed . Schools , Universities
and Educational Societies are spread in  entire nation . Statistics
suggest that there are over thousands of schools (public and private)
have come up for primary education at a district level . With such a
volume Schools quickly  need more and more of IT into there schools for
managing the data.

I was sitting with the principal of famous school in Delhi (they have a
large chain of schools in India and World).  She discussed "Our
school has come up with education web sites , school has message board
, online tutorials. Online Fees and attendance management , online
results , etc".  She paused and continued ... "We have it all ?"

I said " ALL" . She said " Yes.. we have our IT department and
they have mesmerized everybody with online things" . Readers might be
wondering, why am I discussing IT , you will come to know all in this
discussion .

"Ma'm everything is fine , you have Online Results , email results
.. but who gives you the result .. I mean DATA ? , you have online
attendance record , again who gives you the DATA  ( Updated) , you do
surveys who gives you the DATA ? ."

She seems to have understand on the first blow itself , " Hmm.. our
Invigilators gives for examination and Accounts for Fees , Class
Teachers for attendance .."   "and to whom" I asked . "To our
IT department to put it online ."  " But from Paper to Digital
.." I wanted her to reach to some point herself " Yes .. I think
they have some data entry guys who day night jobs is to do this"

"Now , if we make these data entry guys more skill able will it help
?" I questioned " She said "Why not" " Ok the we need to
transfer the data from the invigilator to the digital . accounts to
Digital and Attendance to digital" Before I could have completed
anything she asked " You are asking teacher to go online and do data
entry .." I said "  No we are asking simply change some format ,
USE OMR Technology and ask your teachers to understand how to shade"
She was excited and wanted to implement all . But we do not want to
increase to much of our cost , we do not want to use those costly OMR
Sheets . I said " Do no worry!"

I suggested them the scanner and worked on forms which were simple ,
like attendance Weekly form , which consisted of the Class and Section
Barcode , and students name /id and barcode followed by a bubble , all
teacher need to shade if he/she  is present. They implemented in a week
and now she had a data of the students on a click, she could know
weekly attendance of every student . She could immediately track lower
attendance of students . " How was that" I asked " Simply
wonderful. we could never have the data this way . Using some Filters
many permutation she was able to see. She asked if we can combine some
monthly reports as well and put it online . I said yes , we can
transfer the same data into some sort of excel or database where our
programmers can integrate on your existing system.

We had another task coming up , that is result of the students . In
India Subjective Tests are more in system than objective . "What
about this?" She knew I had an answer for this as well . " Well a
little work from both students and teacher can help them knowing their
results fast and accurate. We put one slip on the subjective answer
booklet , where student marked its Roll No and other details . " Do
you want it to be neutral" I asked her " The teacher will not come
to know whose copy she is examining" I continued "Use Barcode" We
designed the whole sheet and used remarks database connectivity feature
.

Examiner all need to shade the total marks of the students and I was
waiting to hear a second wow from her . " How was that" , "Simply
Fantabulous" To her credit she worked with me as she was convinced
that things would be so beneficial to her teachers /students and was a
value addition . Some statistics to conclude this discussions. This
school had approx 5000 students,  every week they had a test for approx
10 subjects . One Major Exam every 3 months. Attendance for 5000
students daily The data entry guys were not enjoying their jobs ( why
should they have enjoyed ) Weekly results data entry was tiring and
often caused to have more than 10 data entry guys at times of pressure
. Attendance was never entered in correctly . We scanned 5000 sheets
every Sunday for a week ( Took 7 hours for a small 25ppm Scanner)
Weekly scan of 50,000 sheets for result and attendance , they decided
to purchase 3 Such Scanner and three User Licenses of Remark Office
OMR.

While I was leaving after working for approx one week of constant
working with them
one data entry guy asked me " Will it kill our Job?" I said "Na,
Technology always wants to make our people more skill full , simply
start working on Remark Office OMR , as more schools are on the way to
follow the same trend" "Moreover your job becomes more skill full
and enjoyable ." He was excited and said "I think this would also
give me a better feeling in doing job" The principal came she said
"I think our Web and IT department will now become better and useful
as now they have the updated data to work on, rather than just banal
presentations of flash and static pages" I simply smiled and slipped
into my car.

Rohit Gupta - OMR Consultant

rohit@indiaoutsources.com