It was business as usual for Bhuvaneshwari Mageshkumar -- preparing food for her son and sending him off to school in an autorickshaw. But she had no means to find out whether her child had reached safely.
“This is where the School Information System (SIS) works,” says Sivam Ramamoorthy, Managing Director, MeiNigar Reality Solutions. “There is no insight into the movement of students from the time they leave home for school to the time they return. The aspect of child’s security can jeopardise the credibility of the school,” he says.
The SIS works on radio frequency. A radio frequency chip is fixed to the student’s identity card and a sensor is fixed at the school entrance gate. When a student enters the school, the sensor picks up the signal from the I-card and sends an SMS alert, “Daddy/Mummy, I am in school now,” to the parent.
“The sensor is sensitive enough to pick up signals even if a group of students walk in together,” he says, adding that the I-card is also tamper proof.
Similarly,If the student is absent, the parent receives a similar SMS alert. “It is a user-friendly plug and play system,” says Sivam. What you need is electricity supply to power the apparatus. “We can also provide web based interface so that one can monitor from anywhere in the world,” he says.
There are other packages too such as school bus and hostel monitoring, time tracking, updates on exam results, fee payment, time table and remarks.
The programme has so far been launched in two Madurai schools – Mahavidyalam, Anaiyur, and Maha Matriculation School, Thathaneri. A trial run is scheduled at MKVK Matriculation School, Theni, this academic session.
