Guwahati: The Assam education department has decided to monitor the attendance of students in schools on a daily basis.

On Tuesday, Assam education minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had said that after the three phases of Gunotsav the number of students in primary schools (from Class I to VIII) were found to be four lakh less than the number provided earlier by the schools.

Gunotsav is a school assessment programme launched by the Assam government on the lines of a similar programme in Gujarat.

Sarma said the number of students in primary schools was found to be 37 lakh during Gunotsav while the data provided by the schools earlier said the number was 41 lakh.

"The education department is going to introduce real-time monitoring of students' attendance in schools. During this process, the schools will have to send the data of attendance of students to the district education office on a daily basis through the tablets provided by the department. The data will be stored and analysed to get the real figure of students in the schools," a senior official of the state education department said. He said the attendance of teachers will also be monitored through the system.

The official said the monitoring system will be launched in two districts, Darrang and Nagaon, in April and the preparations for it, like training teachers and resource persons and buying the equipment, have already been done.

The official said earlier the number of students was based on the data provided by the schools at the beginning or at the end of the year. Factors like absentees, dropouts, data duplications, inter-state and intra-state migration of students were some of the factors which contributed to the difference in the number of students in reality and on paper. Lack of real-time monitoring system has been a problem for the education department, he added.

"Many students, especially from families where the parents work in brick kilns or construction sites, shift to other locations and take admission in some other schools. This adds to duplication of data. Besides, many students leave schools after taking admission. These are some of the factors for which the number on paper is always higher than the real number," the official said.