“We want a fool-proof attendance system in place to ensure transparency and accountability,” said S. Suresh Kumar, Commissioner, School Education, responding to the controversy surrounding the face recognition app introduced by the department to register the attendance of teachers.
The department’s move, apparently to track absenteeism among teachers besides facilitating a digital mode that leaves no scope for mistakes and save time and efforts, has not gone down well with teachers who are opposed to the use of their personal mobile phones to register their attendance.
Referring to the teachers’ demand that that the department provide them devices to register their presence, Mr. Suresh Kumar said there were certain problems associated with the devices given to schools for enrolling attendance in the past. “We have tried all that and after studying the loopholes, we zeroed in on the face recognition app,” he asserted, adding that teachers should not worry about the initial technical glitches as they would be taken care of by the department.
“If a teacher has any problem uploading the attendance details through the app, he/she can use the device of their colleague or the headmaster,” he said.
Teachers, meanwhile, complain that the new app is being thrust on them even before eliminating the bugs that hamper smooth functioning of the software. “It takes over a minute to register attendance through this app. The department should immediately address this,” said S. Ramakrishna, State president of Municipal Teachers’ Federation.
Angered by the government’s ‘adamant’ stand on key issues, leaders of the Federation of Andhra Pradesh Teachers’ Organisations (FAPTO) have given a call to teachers to boycott the felicitations being organised for the ‘Best Teachers’ on the occasion of Teachers’ Day on September 5. But the department is not worried as “93% of the teachers have already registered in the new app,” said Mr. Suresh Kumar, informing that the department was trying to address the network connectivity issue in areas like Paderu and Manyam.
Minister greets teachers
Education Minister Botcha Satyanarayana on Sunday greeted teachers on the eve of Teachers’ Day. He said teachers had a pivotal role to play in society and said the Jagan Mohan Reddy government in the State had given top priority to development of the education sector. To raise the standards of the local students. it had introduced a slew of reforms in the education sector, he said, urging them to think beyond classroom teaching and groom the students into global citizens.
