A pilot project of the Department of School Education which envisages providing smart cards to students and teachers of all schools, regardless of whether they belong to the government, private, Corporation, aided or Municipality, is nearing completion at the Sulthanpet Union here.
A database containing information on all the students, teachers and schools is being created across the State.
While the data collection was underway across the Coimbatore district, sources in the Education Department told The Hindu on Friday that a pilot project to test the software for this initiative would be completed in another ten days at Sulthanpet Union.
The union was expected to be the first in the district to get smart cards issued for teachers and students.
The project was being implemented in collaboration with Anna University, Chennai.
Its Data Centre would be used to process the information collected and it would also issue the smart cards.
Once issued to a student, an official said, the smart card would become like a permanent identity card and it would not have to be changed even if the student shifts to another school.
However, the data in the smart card would be constantly updated to reflect the changes in the students’ life.
The card would also be provided to all teachers with the Head Masters/ Principals of schools expected to feed data such as attendance and results of their institutions to a dedicated website almost on a daily basis.
This would enable the School Education Department to monitor the performance of schools on a ‘real-time’ basis and question them on issues such as teachers’ absenteeism and high student drop-out rates.
Duplication
This database would also prevent duplication of student’s records among the school.
According to officials, the smart card would contain basic information such as student’s name, details of their parents including their address and income besides other information such as caste, blood group and other enrolment particulars.
