Government-run residential schools for tribal children will use an Aadhaar-based biometric system to record teacher and staff attendance following complaints of “forgery” in the manual marking of attendance.
The National Education Society for Tribal Students (Nests), a central government agency that runs 400 Ekalavya Model Residential Schools across the country, has directed that these schools must procure biometric machines by mid-November.
The directive comes following complaints of “irregularities in the maintenance of (manual) attendance registers” in some of the schools, including “instances of alleged forgery and manipulation by school staff”.
The Aadhaar-based “system will serve as the sole and authentic mode for capturing the daily attendance of all employees, both teaching and non-teaching”, a September 18 Nests notification said.
It said the biometric system of marking attendance must be fully installed within 60 days of the notice. The manual registers, if maintained, will only serve as supplementary records.
Two staff members from two Ekalavya schools said their teachers don’t follow strict timetables since they have to discharge many responsibilities, including that of Master on Duty who has to supervise every hostel meal, from breakfast to lunch and dinner.
The teachers can also be appointed housemasters, and have to be on call round the clock to attend to children who need medical care. They often have to take the children to far-off schools for inter-school activities.
“Such an order is difficult to implement because the teachers do not work to specific timetables. They end up working longer hours than teachers of day schools on any given day,” a teacher said.
Himachal honour
The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has honoured Himachal Pradesh for being the first in the country to implement Aadhaar-based face authentication in ration delivery under the Public Distribution System.