In many of the State’s 1,619 schools for tribal children, teachers bunking classes is a more serious problem than students remaining absent. To check this trend, the SC & ST Development Department has decided to keep a round-the-clock check on the attendance of teachers.
The department would soon put biometric attendance systems in these schools, which impart education to about 2.5 lakh tribal students.
On a pilot basis, biometric attendance systems will be put in place in 100 schools managed by the department in Kandhamal, followed by another 100 in Rayagada and 50 in Malkangiri. The system will also be installed in residential tribal schools and tribal hostels in these three districts.
The list of schools and hostels to be covered under this project will be finalised by the respective project administrators of the ITDA, based on the site specific requirement.
“The system, based on fingerprint recognition, will be introduced in all these schools in phases and on success of the pilot project, it will be extended to tribal schools in other parts of the State,” said Director of the Department S K Popli.
The attendance will be taken twice a day. “The first attendance will be at the time of morning class hours (between 11 am and 12 noon) and second in evening hours (between 6 and 7).This will help in tracking the attendance of students and also the number of day scholars and boarders being covered under mid-day meal (MDM) and the mess facilities. The attendance information shall be transmitted to district headquarters at periodic intervals,” Popli said.
While the system will help improve retention rate and thus check the drop-out ratio in schools, it will control unauthorised absenteeism of teachers, which will improve the education quality, the official said. It will help cut down expenditure on salary that teachers often claim even for their unreported and unauthorised absenteeism. The biometric attendance system will also help the proper implementation of other incentive schemes. For instance, it will help check pilferage, often done by inflating the attendance, in the implementation of the MDM scheme in schools. Similar is the case for free textbooks and school uniform distribution.
“The tenders for the project were floated in July and it will be finalised this month after which, work on putting up the biometric systems in the schools would begin,” the Director further said.
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