The Odisha government on Friday launched a digital application-based system called ‘e-Upasthan’ to track the attendance of students and teachers in both online and offline mode. The app will help map digital learning status in the state and take corrective measures to check drop-out rates, said officials of the School and Mass Education department. 

The move comes after difficulties were encountered in registering class attendance of students and teachers in a transparent manner amid the pandemic. Besides, there was around a 38 per cent drop in YouTube classes while the offline attendance of Class X students remains at around 60 per cent. 

Launching the app, School and Mass Education Minister Samir Ranjan Dash said it is meant to capture the attendance of students and teachers for both online and offline classes and maintain a record of digital accessibility of students across Odisha. The digital attendance system will help in improving the reporting mechanism at the field level and also ascertain the exact number of students having access to e-learning through digital devices. 

“Through the app we will also find out the number of students attending classes in offline and online mode. It will also help us know what kind of devices students are using for e-learning. We can ascertain the number of students who are unable to attend classes in any of these two modes and take corrective measures to ensure that they don’t drop out of schools,” the Minister said.

He said school headmasters will ensure uploading of attendance of students and teachers during online and offline classes on the system every day. The app will also provide information on the number of classes conducted on a day. The attendance will be analysed over a period and necessary measures are taken if it is low, officials said. 

Three teachers from each district will be trained as master trainers who will later train the teachers at the district-level on the use of the application. The entire training programme will be completed within a month. The app is meant for Class I to X. However, initially it will be used for Class X students whose classes are continuing in both online and offline mode.