In a bid to improve the condition of government schools in the city, the Aam Aadmi Party has launched an android app to conduct volunteer surveys and get feedback from 1.47 lakh students who passed out of city government schools in 2014.
By Shikha Kumar
A brainchild of Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, the survey is being seen by the party as an “experiment” to create a common platform for citizens to participate in matters of governance.
“When it comes to schools, we have seen that most surveys include feedback and views from principals, teachers and academicians. We thought of directly connecting with the students — the main stakeholders in the whole process — to not just figure out what they do after school, but also get feedback from them,” Rashmi Srivastava, whose 10-member team is co-ordinating the project, said.
Users wishing to volunteer for the survey are required to fill a volunteer registration form on the party’s website. Once the registration is confirmed, they are sent a key through which they can log on to the app that patches the volunteer to students.
“Through this survey, we want to know about government schools from students. We want to know what students are up to after passing out from these schools, where they are studying or if they have dropped out.
We are asking them questions about various facilities in their schools with respect to sports and co-curricular activities, the infrastructure, their teachers, discipline in the school etc. We have asked them to even rate their principals and give us three suggestions on what more they want,” Srivastava said.
All the feedback will be collated and a database created. “We plan on finishing the activity by April 30. Based on the findings, we will then chart out a way forward,” Gopal Krishna, another member of the 10-member team, told Newsline.
Operational since 10 days, the app has already got 1,000 volunteers making calls to students.
In his last tenure, Sisodia had similarly roped in citizens to survey infrastructure facilities in around 990 government schools in the capital. “People want to participate in the process of governance and government can use the help of people. The project is an experiment to create a common platform for such initiatives. If successful, it will be implemented across many sectors,” Srivastava said.