Aadhaar-linked attendance in govt schools from June

The School Education Department, which was about to introduce the new attendance system, suffered a setback after the teachers moved the court against giving Aadhaar details to the authorities.

As the court recently dismissed the plea filed by teachers, Directorate of School Education, in its first phase, have started collecting Aadhaar details from the teachers and as well as non-teaching staff in all high and higher secondary schools.

Accordingly, non-teaching staff, include assistant, typist and other administrative staff working in the government high and higher secondary schools. “For the last one week, Aadhaar database of teachers was created and all the information were stored,” a senior official from the School Education Department told DT Next.

According to the official, Aadhaar enabled biometric attendance system in government schools would not only improve better administration, but also will be a fool proof attendance system.

“Earlier there was a plan to introduce only biometric attendance system without linking Aadhaar details,” he said adding the government has decided to link Aadhaar after several complaints were received that the teachers were not attending the schools on time and leaving the institution before the class hours.

The official also claimed that certain teachers were involving in various other activities irrelevant to their teaching profession. “More than 16,000 attendance device have been procured and all of them will be installed in the third week of May so that it would be kept ready when the school reopens after summer holidays,” he added.

“At present, we are giving training to the headmasters and district educational officers concerned how to handle the attendance device,” he said.

He said, during the second phase, all the government middleschools will be having biometric attendance system. “All thegovernment schools, including primary ones, will be covered under the project,” the official added.