Online attendance clicks with teachers: Gujarat government

AHMEDABAD: Gujarat government’s plans of launching an online face-recognition system for recording attendance of primary teachers are back on track. Issues with disgruntled teachers were sorted out on Thursday, said a senior government official.
Earlier this month, the government had announced its plan to launch the online application on September 5 (Teacher’s Day) to keep track of about 2.5 lakh government teachers.
The government aims to extend the initiative to secondary and higher secondary school level schools too, covering about 4.5 lakh teachers in all, an official said.
Many teachers had earlier refused to download the application, citing security concerns.
The deadlock between primary schoolteachers and the Gujarat government ended after a four-hour meeting in Gandhinagar on Thursday attended by representatives of various teachers’ organizations and senior government officials. State education minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama also attended the meeting and assured teachers of resolving all issues raised by them.
The online attendance system uses an app with geo-tagging to mark the teachers’ attendance. The state government has also launched a campaign for acceptance of this technology. The education department recently directed all teachers to download an app on their mobile phones.
Gujarat State Primary Teachers’ Association president Digvijaysinh Jadeja said they will soon give written submissions to the government highlighting their concerns.
Besides issues of connectivity in remote areas, the main concern of teachers was privacy. About 60% of primary teachers are women and uploading photos for attendance could lead to their misuse, said Jadeja.
The government has assured teachers of the system being foolproof and that there was no scope of manipulation, said government sources.