Smart tablets in, attendance registers out

Now, the ubiquitous attendance register is to gradually disappear from government schools in the state. The registry books will be replaced by smart tablets or ‘TABs’ soon.

Adding momentum to its digitisation project, the state department of public instructions has decided to upgrade the school attendance system for both teachers and students, switching over to tablets from the existing manual system.

In the first phase, as many as 9,000 government higher primary schools will get tablets for the 2019-20 academic year.

The department recently called a tender for procuring tablets. “Of the 34 educational districts, the aim of the project is to provide tablets to 9,000 selected government higher primary schools,” a department official said.

The tablet will be an authentication device for external biometric devices which will soon be installed at government schools to track teachers’ attendance. This is clearly mentioned in the tender document, recently floated by the department.

The tender reads: “There should be the capability to attach UIDAI approved external bio-metric authentication device. Bio-metric reader in the tablet itself is not needed. The proposed SATS mobile application shall be factory installed along with mandatory applications in the ‘TABs’.”

Dr T M Reju, commissioner for the department of public instructions said: “TABs are basically used for data collection including attendance and in the first phase these will be available at cluster centres.”

TABs objectives

♦ Provide an opportunity for the teacher to enrich technological knowledge

♦ Build teachers’ capacity for their role in monitoring the school and students’ attendance

♦ To improve the quality of administration as well as quality in school development

♦ To monitor teachers’ attendance

♦ To monitor students’ attendance

"Teachers will perform multiple tasks using TABs which include attendance monitoring system along with other management tools."
— S R Umashankar, principal secretary, primary & secondary education