The State government has introduced Smart Cards containing data on students. It will benefit over 91 lakh students in government and aided schools.
As a pilot project, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa presented the cards to students of five government higher secondary schools in Tiruchi district on Saturday. The Smart Cards will have data such as the names of students, parents, their address, annual income, date of birth, admission details, pass percentage and so on.
Whenever the students migrate, the details of the smart cards could be used for admission in the new schools. It will also pave the way for clearly arriving at the statistics of dropouts in the State and enable identification of student beneficiaries of government schemes, such as distribution of laptops.
Information about students stored in health cards will be integrated with details in smart cards and this scheme will be gradually implemented in all the government and aided schools. Already, the government has launched Educational Management Information System (EMIS) that has interlinked the four websites of the School Education department. In this, the website www.admin.tnschools.gov.in has secured information on teachers and students.
Special assistance
The government also launched the scheme to provide special financial assistance to 4.60 lakh students who had cleared Plus Two exams in 2011-12. Likewise, the government has allotted Rs. 353 crore as corpus fund for special incentive scheme to benefit 21.52 lakh students at the SSLC and Higher Secondary level.
The amount will be invested in Tamil Nadu Power Finance Corporation and students will be granted the sum when they clear school finals.
This scheme has been introduced to eliminate dropout in high and higher secondary education.
The Chief Minister also presented fixed deposit certificates to the tune of Rs. 3.60 crore to students whose salary earning parent had died or permanently disabled.
The government deposits Rs 50,000 each for such students as educational and maintenance funds to pursue education.
