New Delhi: Over three crore students of Bihar’s government school students will have to mark their attendance through facial recognition to curb attendance “fudging” and “corruption” in mid-day meal schemes beginning in January.
While making the announcement Saturday, Bihar education department’s Additional Chief Secretary S Siddharth said a trial run had already been completed. “We are also providing tablets to schools for marking attendance by using the e-Shikshakosh app,” he said.
Launched by the Bihar government, e-Shikshakosh is a platform to provide training and resources to teachers to improve teaching quality and methods and enhance learning outcomes.
Notably, Bihar has 75,000 government schools. At present, students’ attendance is registered using the conventional roll call, although these are later recorded on the app. Delhi and Karnataka governments are also considering introducing facial recognition for recording students’ attendance.
According to an education department official, using technology for attendance recording will be a major achievement in terms of education reforms. “This would broadly address three things. First, there would be no fudged attendance or cases of ghost admissions. Till a year ago, we had detected about 25 lakh ghost attendance in which students were enrolled in private schools but had been availing government’s benefits,” he was quoted as saying by The Indian Express.
The move will also prevent school officials from tampering with attendance records and siphon off funds, he said further, adding that “parents and guardians would no longer be able to put pressure on school principals to record 75 percent attendance for their wards to avail of facilities such as scholarships, free uniform and school textbooks.”
The Bihar government gives annual scholarships of Rs 400 to students of Class I-III, Rs 500 for Classes IV and V, Rs 1,200 to Classes XI-VIII and Rs 2,500 for Classes IX-XII to students with 75 per cent attendance. Students of Classes I-VIII also get free school textbooks and Classes IX get bicycles if they meet the attendance requirement.
School teachers have welcomed the government’s decision.The only challenge is internet connectivity issues in some areas,” a government teacher told The Indian Express.
