Bunking school could become tougher for government teachers in some States, with the Centre set to launch a new programme under which their attendance would be tracked by a GPS-enabled tablet device.
Ready for launch in four States in August, the plan will also help create a national real-time education database. The data points that it will cover include school-level infrastructure and quality of teaching and learning.
Teacher absenteeism is 25% on an average in government schools and a key reason for poor learning outcomes, said Anil Swarup, Secretary (School Education and Literacy), Human Resources Development Ministry. While the initial plan was to roll out the tablet trackers across Chhattisgarh in August, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan have also decided to join the effort without seeking Central funds. Rajasthan will use smartphones, not tablets.
“We will start with four States and after studying the performance for three months, consider rolling it out nationally,” Mr. Swarup told The Hindu. States believe the investment will pay for itself as teachers will not be paid during unauthorised absence.
The tablet devices will monitor parameters such as dropout rates and aspects like availability of drinking water, toilets and laboratories. Eventually, they could deliver training content.
Another official said the teacher attendance module would need biometric details that can be stored locally instead of using Aadhaar-based authentication as 3G connectivity could be weak.
Geotags for checks
“We will geotag the tablet devices so that teachers cannot mark their attendance from external locations, and a biometric check linked to a State-level teacher database can be done,” the official said.
