Concerned about the misuse of students’ private details, the state school education department has prohibited its officials from prescribing any digital learning material from private firms without government approval.
In a circular issued last week, the State Council for Educational Research and Training (SCERT) said that some officials are ‘unofficially’ compelling teachers to deploy electronic content including videos, tutorials and coaching programmes for competitive exams that are prepared by private bodies, non-governmental org.sations (NGOs) and ed-tech comp.es. The schools have been directed not to use any of these materials without permission from the state, while officials have also been asked to seek government clearance before recommending any content.
Referring to guidelines issued by the Union Education Ministry in 2021, SCERT said that the schools and officials should evaluate the age-appropriateness of the e-content. It also stressed that the privacy of the content’s users is the most fundamental of the rights.
“E-content is used by parents, students and teachers on a large scale. It appears that while doing so, they come in contact with various external websites, advertisements and persons. It results in the private information of the users such as their mobile numbers, bank account details and email being used for financial, psychological and social frauds. You should be concerned about the threats to data security in the region under your jurisdiction,” reads the circular directed to education officers and the district as well as municipal heads.
Government Intervention On Training Programmes
SCERT has also questioned various training programmes and surveys held by various entities for teachers and students without prior approval of the government. The council says that while some of these events are genuinely aimed at improving educational quality, some are commercial. These programmes, org.sed by everyone from education officials to private org.sations to NGOs to public representatives, cause inconvenience to students and teachers and cause loss of teaching-learning as teachers are forced out of classrooms, says the circular. The government has now made its approval mandatory for conducting such training.
The educationists have welcomed these interventions by the government. They claimed that private firms often offer their services to public schools free of cost for their ‘pilot’ projects to the detriment of teachers and students. Many of these programmes are marketing strategies and serve the commercial interests of the comp.es, they claim.
Education Start-ups and Data Privacy Concerns
Francis Joseph, a city-based educationist, said that there’s an intense competition among education start-ups to hawk their services to schools, as they seek to access the lucrative student data. He, however, feels that SCERT and the government is not equipped to evaluate the digital content being offered in the market. “While the private schools ensure some level of safety for their students, there’s little concern for data privacy at government schools as most of the students hail from underprivileged sections,” he said.
“Training programmes are part of the marketing strategy deployed by book publishers. At these events, while schools get some training, the comp.es get to sell their products. However, the quality, content and relevance of these trainings is a major concern. It needs to be assessed whether it leads to any improvement in teaching-learning and whether it was need-based,” said Basanti Roy, former Mumbai region secretary of the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education.
