New Delhi, Sept. 18: Secondary schools across India may soon have unique 11-digit identity codes that will allow officials at the human resource development ministry to track their key performance parameters from their desktops.

The Centre is set to launch an online database of secondary schools that will be regularly updated to help track parameters such as attendance and teacher strength, top government officials told The Telegraph.

The database will cover both government and private schools.

The database — it will be password-protected, available only to central and state government officials — will be constructed using a software developed by the National University for Educational Planning and Administration, sources said.

Each school board — such as the Central Board of Secondary Education — keeps a database of affiliated schools. But these are updated only annually at present. There is also no consolidated database of secondary schools across boards.

The HRD ministry is keen to introduce the online database before the launch of the UPA’s programme to universalise secondary education, the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA), the sources said.

“The database is crucial to helping us track the funding that we provide under the RMSA,” a school education official at the HRD ministry said.

Updated records of performance indicators will also help the Centre plan state-wise allocation of funds. The online database will help Delhi analyse how funds disbursed earlier have been used.

The Centre has allocated Rs 35,567 crore for secondary education under the 11th Five Year Plan (2007-2012).

The 11-digit identity code will read, from left to right, as state, district, block, village and school.

The HRD ministry has already started training governments of states and Union territories in the use of the software, the sources said. The first training workshop was held last week in Bangalore. Representatives from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Goa, Orissa, Daman and Diu, Pondicherry and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands attended it.

The training involves a questionnaire that state and district officials have to fill for each school, on a regular basis. The questionnaire will have a slot where the school can list the problems it faces. The listed problems will also be updated on the school’s online report card.

“The plan is for the online database software to be interactive. Schools should be able to tell us about the problems they face too. That, we believe, will encourage them to participate voluntarily in the database,” an official said.