Tamil Nadu School edu dept to tie up with WhatsApp to send bulk messages to parents, staff, teachers

CHENNAI: In a step to ensure information dissemination at a large scale, the state School Education Department is set to tie up with messaging application WhatsApp to send messages to different stakeholders within the department and also between parents and teachers.

A memorandum of understanding will be signed soon and School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi will launch the tie-up after the Model Code of C0onduct is lifted from the state, sources said.

The messaging system will enable sending bulk messages, such as government orders, data analysis, exam results, and more instantly to 1.16 crore parents and guardians of children studying in government, aided, private, and matriculation schools in the state.

Ahead of rolling out the facility, teachers have been deployed to authenticate the contact numbers of stakeholders before May 25.

"We already have a WhatsApp channel, Department of School Education, through the Tamil Nadu e-Governance Agency (TNeGA). The testing of the handle has been completed recently," said a senior official.

"The bulk messages can be shared through this channel. For instance, in 10 seconds, we can share the information with about two lakh teachers. In the testing stage, we have noted that up to 10,000 messages can be sent to the contacts daily. In the next one week, we will reach a stage where we can send messages to at least one crore numbers at one go," added the official.

The official explained that the contact numbers will be authenticated by entering a one-time password (OTP) sent as a text to the parent’s number. "We will call and verify the number before entering it in the Education Management Information System (EMIS)," he said.

Currently, the logins have been given to state officials. Soon, it will be given to department directors, and subsequently district Chief Education Officers, District Education Officers, and school heads.