A.I with Anganwadi and Rural Schools

This document aims to cover the available material on Rural Education, Midday Meal Schemes, and controversies surrounding these programs. This is will be simple yet critical document covering incidents, news, and institutional reports.

Rural Schools of India - Stats:

India has been on a course of ascendancy ever since the liberalisation after the early nineties. #RuralSchool and Government-run school take up nearly half of the total number of schools in ever state. The agricultural backbone of the Indian economy has been consistently developing with more than 131 Million students enrolled in these schools.

But the lack of amenities, infrastructure, and teaching professionals has been a huge detractor to this progression. We have a made a list of important factors of ascent and decline in the current education scenario:

* States such as Bihar, Jharkhand, and West Bengal have schools that lack classrooms to accommodate the students and most of Indian states only have two classrooms to accommodate the students.?

* There has also been a drain and decline of teachers who are employable and versatile at teaching. A 1.95% of decrease is very troubling especially since nearly 10% of this reduction was from Government and Rural Schools.?

* But there has been an consistent increase in the integration of modern computing and communication technologies. A 20% boost in computer and internet access is an important metric for gauging the development of Indian Education with Maharastra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Rajasthan, and West Bengal leading the charge.?

This proves the presence of an existence infrastructure for integrating technological measures to increase the induction of students and teachers alike.

Pupils and Teachers - Stats and Issues:

Students to succeed in life need guidance and discipline as much as technical knowledge, and without teachers this would be impossible. Teachers impart the students with technical and practical knowledge and education would never be an unified development of humanity without their pedagogy. It is even more important in developing the quality and quantity of teachers among rural schools since they need a specialised pedagogy for their social & economic development.

But the avaliablity and the interests of teachers serving in rural schools is very minimal. Their hirings are plagued by major organizational, social mismanagement, and myriads of other factors. Some factors pertaining to this situation are listed below:

1. Pupils-to-teachers ratio in Indian schools have been drastically reducing due to improvements in selection and hiring of teachers. There are now nearly one teacher per 20 students from the primary level to the higher secondary. But it has to be speculated that the number is far lesser in rural areas where sufficient data isn’t available.?

2. One may assume that the lack of proper pay and financial support is the reason for this rift, but Rural Teachers are incredibly paid well than their Urban counterparts. The marginal pay for an average secondary school teacher is INR 29,000 and for a secondary school teacher INR 100,000.?

3. The lack of comfortable incentives and logistics is another reason why one finds rural schools untenable.?

4. The lack of basic amenities, transportation services, and funds also makes it impossible to hire skilled teachers.?

5. There is also an aura of prejudice among the teachers who don’t think the rural pupils to be as important as their urban counterparts.?

6. Lack of support, organisation, and a dutiful direction leads to many teachers deserting their jobs during crucial periods of an academic year.?

The Indian Government, both state and central, have been attempting to resolve these problems via various initiatives such as Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan, Shiksha Karmi project and etc. But regardless of the government support, a radical change from the schools themselves will produce wondrous results.

Pupils and Teachers - Improvements and Ideas:

One of the major problems faced by rural schools is the absence of teachers and students alike. There are many factors ranging from lack of transportation to neglect, but the need to regularise and increase the influx of students and teachers is very important. Hence, we have formulated an automated attendance and face-recognition solution for resolving the organisational problems faced by these schools. The key features of this application: - Lightweight set-up and simple app-based usage, our attendance application can be used by anyone, anywhere at the lowest cost. - Location and facial data based attendance checking and tracking. - Quick and easy alerts and reviews.?

Providing the administration with such a tool will promise the improvement of teacher and student availability in classes, a steady education, and also accustoms the students to an academic environment fruitfully. This is what we at Luein Analytics are trying to address with our latest artificial intelligence powered geo-location and face recognition based attendance system.

Anganwadi Scheme - Overview:?

The #AnganwadiScheme is a government-run health and nutrition program in India that provides basic education, primary health care, nutrition and other services to children under the age of 6 and their mothers. It is part of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) program, which was started in 1975. The Anganwadi Scheme is operated by the Ministry of Women and Child Development and is implemented at the state level.?

The goal of the Anganwadi Scheme is to improve the nutritional status of children by providing them with fortified foods and supplements as well as access to sanitation facilities. Other services provided include immunisation, pre-school education, health check-ups, growth monitoring and referral for medical treatment. The scheme also provides counselling for pregnant women on antenatal care and postnatal care. Additionally, the scheme promotes community participation in activities such as health camps, awareness programs and village level meetings.?

The success of the Anganwadi Scheme depends on its ability to reach remote areas where access to other forms of health care is limited or nonexistent. Unfortunately, many rural areas lack adequate infrastructure or resources necessary for successful implementation of this program. Nevertheless, it has been successful in improving nutrition levels among children in India.

Food Security in India - Status:?

The status of food security in India, even though the country is deeply agricultural, is very weak. Placed 68th in the global food security ranking, we can observe that abundance of food production is not declarative of consumption. This lack of food security can be seen evidently within rural areas, where the lack of food is an epidemic. Sanitary conditions aside the availability of food is marginal and barely nutritive in these areas. Anganwadi schemes are a major part of alleviating these problems in a quick and responsive manner.

Anganwadi Scheme - Problems and Issues:

Anganwadi Schemes, even though they have been much helpful in providing a safe space and support for many students, have also been the centre of controversies. Various scams have come to light, from false attendances of students at mid-day meals to the downright disruptions of benefits. These scams not only are a loss of revenue for the government but also decreases the reliability and support for this helpful scheme. A corrupt structure indubitably corrupts anything virtuous and worthwhile.

Anganwadi Scam - Solutions and Ideas:

At Luein Analytics we have developed an artificial intelligence powered geolocation and face recognition based attendance system, that can be used to accurately track the users and beneficiaries of these mid-day meals by offering easy cataloguing of student and volunteer data. Digitisation leads to a low margin of error and reduction of fraud which is very important for these schemes. Attendances are verified and the absence of the students are alerted to both them and the respective state authorities.