What is Shala Darpan?
Plain-English explanation of Rajasthan's school education portal — what it does, who uses it, and how it affects students, parents, and teachers.
Written by Gautami Bandopadhyay, founder of Shala Darpan Guide.
The short answer
Shala Darpan is Rajasthan's online system for managing school education data. It tracks students, teachers, schools, results, and staff transfers across government and aided schools in the state. The portal is the digital backbone of the School Education Department, Rajasthan.
History and background
The Rajasthan government launched Shala Darpan on 5 June 2015. The National Informatics Centre (NIC), part of the Government of India, developed the system. The goal was simple: replace paper records with a single online database covering every government school in the state.
The portal now covers over 65,000 government schools, including those under the School Education Department, Sanskrit Education, Social Justice, Madarsa Education, and TADA administrations. It holds records for more than 80 lakh students and 4.6 lakh teachers and staff. The system runs on ASP.NET/C# with SQL Server 2019 and MongoDB for document storage.
Twenty other Indian states have visited Rajasthan to study how the system works. Shala Darpan won the CSI SIG e-Governance Award in 2019, the State e-Governance Award in 2018, and the SKOCH Order-of-Merit Certificate in 2018.
What it does
- Student records: enrollment, daily attendance, results, transfer certificates, NSO (Not on Rolls) status, re-admission, and character certificates. Every student in a government school has a record here.
- Teacher and staff records: NIC-SD IDs, posting history, transfers, service records, leave submissions, annual performance reports (APAR), and pay fixation. Every employee accesses the system to update their profile and track their career.
- Board exam automation: Class 5th and 8th board exam management, from form filling to result publication. This includes exam centre setup, roll number allotment, admit cards, result preparation, and mark sheet printing through all 33 DIET (District Institute of Education and Training) centres.
- Teacher transfers and posting: teachers apply for transfers through the portal. The education department processes them using an online counselling system. Posting, promotion, deputation, and retirement are all handled here.
- Scholarships and beneficiary schemes: the portal manages 11 types of pre-matric scholarships, transport vouchers, free textbook and workbook distribution, cycle and laptop distribution, NMMS (Merit Cum Means), and the Gargi and Balika Protshahan awards. Scholarship amounts go directly to the student's bank account linked through Jan Aadhaar.
- Shala Samvad: a student-facing portal where students and parents can view report cards, exam results, class and subject teacher details, and the status of applied schemes. It also provides access to NCERT textbooks, e-content, video lectures, and question banks. Students can ask academic doubts, and subject teachers reply online.
- School infrastructure and facilities: the portal tracks school buildings, classrooms, toilets, drinking water, electricity, libraries, playgrounds, and computer labs. It also monitors civil works and construction progress.
- School star rating and ranking: every government school gets a star rating based on 8th, 10th, and 12th board results. Monthly block and district rankings are generated using 42 parameters from portal data.
- Staff selection and recruitment: new teacher recruitment is managed through the portal, including candidate registration, merit lists, and district allotment based on state reservation policy.
- Open APIs: the portal provides APIs to other government departments, including the Diksha portal, DOIT (Department of Information Technology and Communication), Jan Soochana portal, Rajasthan Board, and the Labour Department.
- Links to Jan Aadhaar: students and parents can link their Jan Aadhaar for unified access to all services.
Who uses it
| User | What they do on it |
|---|---|
| Students and parents | Check results, view report cards, track scholarships, access study material and e-content |
| Teachers and staff | Manage profile, apply for transfers, view NIC-SD ID, submit APAR, apply for leave, track career progression |
| School heads | Manage student records, handle staff transfers, generate reports, update school infrastructure data, manage attendance |
| Block and district officers | Oversee schools, process transfers, manage data, monitor school star ratings and rankings, handle staff joining and relieving |
| Citizens | Search for schools, check results, look up UDISE codes, donate to school development projects through the portal |
How it affects you
If your child is in a Rajasthan government school, their records live on Shala Darpan. Their results appear here. Their report card is here. If you apply for a scholarship, the application goes through this portal. And if you need to fix a mistake in your child's name or date of birth, the school head does it on Shala Darpan.
The portal also tracks daily attendance, which schools submit every day. If your child is absent, the record shows it. Teachers mark test and exam marks here too, so you can see progress through Shala Samvad.
For teachers, the portal is even more central. Your NIC-SD ID is your professional identity. Your transfer application goes through here. Your service record lives here. You submit your annual performance report (APAR) through the system. When you join a new school or leave one, the portal processes your relieving and joining. The system determines where you work, what you earn, and how your career is tracked.
For school heads, the portal is a daily tool. You enter student admissions, update attendance, manage staff, generate report cards, and handle transfer requests for your staff. The portal also holds your school's infrastructure data, SMC and SDMC details, and fund receipts and expenditure.
What it does not do
- It does not manage private school data. That is RajPSP. See Shala Darpan vs RajPSP.
- It does not handle university admissions or college records.
- It does not manage mid-day meal schemes or school construction directly, though school infrastructure status is tracked on the portal.
- It does not replace the district education office for in-person services like obtaining original certificates or filing legal complaints.
- It does not provide NCERT books directly. Shala Samvad links to NCERT resources, but the portal itself is not a content platform.
- It does not handle private school teacher recruitment or transfers. Those processes stay with school management committees and state-level private education boards.
Official portal
The official URL is rajshaladarpan.rajasthan.gov.in. Our site (shaladarpanguide.pp.ua) explains how the portal works. We are not the official portal. For official data, always use the government site.
The portal provides an open API at sdapi.rajasthan.gov.in for developers and other government departments that need to access school, staff, and student data through proper channels.