Patna: The Patna City-based Arora International School has launched biometric attendance system for its students from Montessori to Class X a few days back. The school has also introduced the system for its teachers and other staff.

According to sources, while some city schools have launched the biometric attendance system for teachers and staff member, they are yet to introduce it for the students.

Principal of Arora International School, Ravikant, said the initiative was taken after a few parents of students of higher classes reported to the school administration that some students were bunking their classes but giving an impression that they were regularly attending school.

"We got reports from a few parents that they had caught their wards skipping school. The parents said their children would leave for school in the morning but instead of school they would go somewhere else. Absenteeism of students was one of the major concerns and the new facility would address this," said Ravikant, adding that his school was probably the first among any city school to have launched the biometric attendance system for students.

Ravikant said while students were making their attendance by punching their cards, teachers and staff had to mark their attendance through their fingerprints.

"One of the benefits of the system is that not only is the attendance marked once they punch their cards but later an SMS is also send on all parents' mobile phones confirming whether their ward has arrived at school or not. The morning assembly in school takes place at 7.20am while parents get the message regarding their ward's arrival by 8.30am," added Ravikant. He said the school administration didn't impose any charge on the parents for the introduction of the new facility.

Parents of the Arora International School students hailed the initiative. "The biometric attendance system would definitely help keep a track on students. All the other schools should also introduce this system," said Sujeet Verma, father of a student of Arora International School.

Some other city schools are planning to launch the biometric attendance system in their institutions for teachers but not for students as of now.

Farhat Hasan, director of International School, said their institution was mulling launching the system for teachers. "Right now, we are planning to introduce the system for teachers. Three years ago, we had introduced this system for students but it was not very successful as confusion prevailed among students regarding punching of the card on several occasions. So, we had to revoke the biometric attendance system for students."

Abha Choudhary, senior teacher, Notre Dame Academy, said the biometric attendance system was in place for teachers since the past five years. However, plans for introducing the same for students has not been approved yet due to some teachers' disagreement. "Some of the teachers, including myself, have been opposing the introduction of biometric system attendance for students. The reason is by calling names from attendance register, in a way we memorise the names of students. So this builds a type of connect between teachers and students. This will not be there if the biometric attendance system is introduced for students. This is why we are against it."