GIS introduced for school mapping
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, July 31 2011: For the first time in India, Manipur has introduced Geographic Information System (GIS) for mapping schools located in remote areas of the State.

With the introduction of GIS, effective monitoring can now be done whether or not funds sanctioned for development of school infrastructure have been properly utilised which are otherwise physically inaccessible due to bad transport infrastructure or because of security reasons.

The GIS was launched by the State with technical support from Delhi based Mission of Geo-Spatial Application which is an agency of the Central Government.

Using the GIS, State Mission Authority of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan scheme has undertaken a mapping exercise of 4640 Primary and Upper Primary schools located in different parts of the State.

This GIS was used for school mapping for the first time in the world by France in 1963 .

Since the implementation of the Right to Education Act in India which lays down that schools should be located within a specific distance from human settlement areas, the need for using GIS for mapping schools located in far off places was felt all the more, said an official source.

The mapping of all the Government and aided Primary and Upper Primary schools was enabled after collecting the longitudes and latitudes of the schools through GPS.

After Manipur, similar exercises of mapping schools have been undertaken in Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal.

The successful mapping of schools in Manipur has been acknowledged by the Ministry of Human Resource Development and the State has been invited to make presentations and share its expertise at the National level twice.

In addition to mapping 4640 schools, the same exercise has identified 1093 different places where there is no school and in need of schools.

It is reported that these places need 535 Primary Schools and 558 Upper Primary Schools.

For Bishnupur district, there is a need to establish 52 Primary schools and 25 Upper Primary Schools.

The respective figures for other districts are 43 and 50 in Chandel, 54 and 97 in Churachandpur, 64 and 40 in Imphal East, 18 and 8 in Imphal West, 58 an 10 in Thoubal, 111 and 157 in Senapati, 99 and 123 in Tamenglong, and 26 Primary schools and 37 Upper Primary schools in Ukhrul district.

Following the successful mapping of schools in Manipur, the Union Human Resource Development Minister has given consent to establish 335 Primary schools and 158 Upper Primary Schools, upgrading 200 EGS (Educational Guarantee Schools) to Primary Schools as well as recruitment of 2708 teachers.

For this, an amount of Rs 295 crores has been sanctioned during the current fiscal year, conveyed the official.

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