Many Vellore schools yet to get biometric attendance for teachers

Officials said that the biometric machines would be handed over to schools while the user name and password to access the machine would be communicated through the District Education Officers (DEO). “We are expecting to complete this work in 10 days after which all the teachers will upload their attendance on these machines,” a senior official said.

Regarding the non-functioning of machines in those schools which have already received them, officials defended that the malfunction was due to initial glitches and that was why teachers were forced to use the mobile app.

The administration has asked the teachers in the schools that were yet to receive the machine, to upload their attendance in an app that was designed for the benefit of the students.  “The students’ mobile app was designed to inform the parents on the everyday attendance status of their ward. As of now parents are aware of when their wards absent themselves, it has resulted in unnecessary absenteeism coming down drastically in the district,” the official added. 

Though the number of elementary schools are high in the Vellore district, the strength of the staff is considerably less when compared to high and higher secondary schools. A senior official said, “Schools with a higher number of staff will get more than one machine while schools with lesser strength can manage with one.” 

So far Tiruvannamalai revenue district seems to be faring better in the implementation of the biometric attendance, as enquiries reveal that “even a higher secondary school in rural Cheyyar taluk was using the biometric mode to mark the attendance of the teachers for over a week now.” “We have not faced any glitch,” the school headmaster said. The biometric mode has successfully been implemented only in the DEOs and BEOs offices, officials said.