Now schools to record attendance via SMS

After a failed effort to register attendance of school students online,  Maharashtra state education department has decided to record attendance via SMS in all primary schools.

According to the reports, only 10% of one lakh schools in the state responded to the online attendance system which prompted education department to initiate the attendance through cellphone used widely by school officials and teachers. 

Recently the department conducted a survey to find out number of school using online attendance  system by government this year. Of the 1.3 lakh primary schools in state, only 10,000 schools have adopted the SMS system. Right from the month of June, primary schools were asked to register daily attendance of both teachers and students through software.

The online attendance system is aimed  to monitor students and teachers attendance  in all primary schools. This way, authorities can take immediate action against such schools with poor attendance. According to state education rule, all students and teachers should have 80% attendance in a year. 

The department would prepare an application for cellphone for the attendance system which can be downloaded freely by teachers on their phones and send the attendance to the department on the daily basis.

State education director Mahavir Mane said, “ The online system will not be scrapped. We have installed software where each primary school has been given a login identity to register their attendance details. A report was prepared to review the system. Only 10,000 primary schools were found to have registered attendance, so far. The schools that fell short of the mandatory attendance have been warned. However, more awareness would be conducted about the system."

Source: Times of India