Education secy earns SHC's ire for not digitising enrolment record.

KARACHI -- The Sindh High Court (SHC) has expressed surprise over the provincial education authorities for not computerising the enrolment record of the public sector schools of Sindh and directed the education secretary to produce relevant record on Feb 3.

A two-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Ahmed Ali M. Shaikh and Justice Yousuf Ali Sayeed said that such basic information must be available at the click of a button in this era and the failure to ensure availability of an updated centralised record needed to be remedied as it was a prerequisite for the implementation of biometric attendance system.

It also put the National Information Technology Board (NITB) on notice for Feb 3 in order to seek its input regarding digitisation of such record.

The SHC also directed the secretary of the social welfare department to take measures about registration of eight children shelter homes being run without registration by private persons/organisations, and ensure that the needful was done in accordance with law.

Earlier, the education authorities had claimed before the SHC that around 300,000 fresh students had recently been enrolled in schools across the province during an ongoing campaign launched to boost enrolment.

When the bench took up a set of petitions, mainly seeking implementation of the Sindh Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2013 for hearing, the secretary of the school education and literacy department and the director general of Sindh Child Protection Authority filed statements in the light of the previous order.

They contended in the statements that an attendance App was going to be launched in seven districts from Jan 16, while another one for student's attendance monitoring was under development.

The meetings had been held with the NITB and Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) and latter had shared a plan for the development...