Shimla: To keep a tab on teacher absenteeism and enforce discipline in complying with the time schedule in the government educational institutes, Himachal Pradesh education department has decided to install biometric machines for recording of teachers’ attendance electronically.
Disclosing about deploying the new technology, Dinkar Burathoki, director higher education said “the state government has approved our proposal of installing bio-metric machines in schools and colleges, and we soon intend to invite tenders for installing the machines.
By the help of these machines we would be able to check attendance and punctuality in the institutions, he added.
The daily attendance data would be made available at all deputy directors office’s as well as state headquarters through online system, said Burathoki.
The education department is the largest employer in the government sector and has more than 80000 teachers on the rolls. The network of schools consists is over 15,000 with about 10000 of them in rural areas.
The number of complaints regarding teachers remaining absent reaching the Education Department, especially in the rural areas’ schools is continuously swelling. The bio-metric attendance system is supposed to improve the quality of education by forcing the teachers to remain present in their schools.
The Education Department has planned to install bio-metric attendance system in all schools in a phased manner.
The state government has already introduced bio-metric attendance system in various departments which includes Education Directorate; State Secretariat, Public Works Department’s state headquarters and many others.
Preneeta Sharma, a budding journalist with a strong flair for picking out the unusual from the usual.
Preneeta lives in Shimla and is a contributor reporter with Hill Post.
