Andhra Pradesh: 72 per cent schools mark attendance via app, teachers raise protest

VIJAYAWADA: A total of 43,016 out of the total  59,175 schools in the State started the face recognition attendance system on Tuesday. Out of 1,79,026 government teachers, just 22,905 marked attendance under the system, though 91,538 teachers downloaded the mobile app. Attendance of 42,14,258 students was marked in the 43,016 schools. The attendance of 6,01,725 students was not marked under the system.

As a part of reforms in the Education system, the School Education department on Tuesday launched a face recognition system to record the attendance of teachers, students and other employees in the schools and other offices under the School Education Department through a mobile application.   

If the teachers fail to mark their facial attendance before 9 am (Student by 10 am ), they will be treated as absentees. According to the officials, it was a great success across the state and 72.69 per cent of schools marked their attendance successfully.  

However, several teachers said they were unable to mark their attendance in time due to a lack of mobile network even though they reached school by 8 am. Several pictures of teachers searching for a mobile network in front of their schools and a few teachers questioning the new system went viral on social media platforms. Meanwhile, FAPTO urged the teachers not to download the APP. 

Meeting inconclusive
With protests of teachers against the new system mounting, the department held a meeting with the Teachers’ associations on Tuesday under the auspices of the Commissioner. Later, addressing the media, FAPTO State  General Secretary  Chennupati Manjula said that their discussions with CSE failed as he just directed the teachers to implement the policy of the government.