Keeping tabs: Haryana upgrades e-learning devices to prevent misuse by govt school students
The ₹620-crore flagship e-Adhigam programme, under which e-tablets were distributed among over five lakh students of Classes 10 and 12 of Haryana’s government schools in 2022, had come under cloud last year as the clamour for withdrawal of the tablets grew across Haryana.
The Haryana education department has upgraded 65% e-tablets allotted to Class 10 and 12 students of government-run schools with the latest operating system (OS) following disturbing reports about students breaching the security codes of the tablets and accessing objectionable websites, it is learnt.
The ₹620-crore flagship e-Adhigam programme, under which e-tablets were distributed among over five lakh students of Classes 10 and 12 of Haryana’s government schools in 2022, had come under cloud last year as the clamour for withdrawal of the tablets grew across the state.
Over 30,000 teachers of 3,300 schools had also received these devices.
After it was found that a large number of students were using the tablets for non-academic purposes, not only the parents but also the village panchayats urged the government to withdraw the tablets, saying that these gadgets were hampering studies of students instead of helping them.
Teachers had too informed the state education directorate that some students had bypassed the security feature, mobile device management (MDM). The teachers found the glitch when the tablets were returned by Class 12 students, who had passed out.
“We have taken necessary measures to deal with issues concerning e-tablets and breach of the firewall of the device,” said Sudhir Rajpal, additional chief secretary, school education department.
According to information technology (IT) wing officials of the education department, these tablets were pre-loaded with personalised and adaptive learning (PAL) software, learning content and internet connectivity by way of SIM cards.
When the hot-button matter was taken up with the seven vendors, they started passing the buck over the firewall breach. The department didn’t have specific data on the number of students who had breached the MDM security walls, said sources.
“It has been established that MDM was breached via USB by using a software,” a senior official, refusing to be identified, said, adding that after a series of meetings with the vendors it was decided that the OS of the tablets should be first updated and tested on a small batch.
The top version (OS 13) was installed and it was replicated on all tablets of the students’ profile through device maintenance option on tablets. “Later, much to our surprise, it was found that the MDM breach is being done via device maintenance option also,” said another official of the education department.
After this the vendor was instructed to remove the option of device maintenance from the tablets having OS 13, further reducing the possibility of MDM breach.
“Currently, OS 13 has been updated on almost 65% tablets and the same number of tablets don’t have device maintenance. Thus, there is no case of MDM breach on these tablets as all the loopholes have been plugged after a cumbersome process,” said IT wing officials of the education department.
Sources say as this exercise of upgrading the systems is time-consuming and tedious, the devices of plus two students were not upgraded in view of their pre-board examinations. The students have to return the tablets after passing out.
The exercise to upgrade the e-tablets to be returned by the plus two students will start in April when final-year students of Haryana-based government technical colleges pursuing computer or electronic courses will also inspect the tablets to ascertain if the gadgets security codes have been breached again.
On August 4, 2023, chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar held a review meeting in which in-principle decision was taken to involve final-year students of Haryana-based government technical colleges pursuing computer or electronic courses to inspect the tablets.
“Due to certain reasons, including examinations etc, we could not go ahead with our plan of deputing students of the technical colleges to inspect the tablets. This exercise to check the tablets to ascertain breakage, if any, of the MDM will start from April now,” said an official.
The tech students will visit their nearest schools on voluntary basis on Saturdays and inspect the devices. They will have to submit a report on their findings within three days of the inspection.
As per the plan, around 2,500 students will be roped in for the task and each of them will receive ₹500 honorarium for every visit after they upload the report.