While the Department of Public Instruction is striving hard to send back school dropouts to school in the district, a government school at Hirekogalur of Channagiri taluk has installed a biometric system for students for the first time in Davanagere district and arguably the second school in Karnataka.
This move has been taken to bring discipline and punctuality. STJ GJC (High School) has installed a biometric system for its high school students. The villagers and parents voluntarily donated money for the installation of biometric and the installation has cost around Rs 50,000. Around 276 students are studying in school. The headmaster of the school M B Prabhakar told several news organisation that in order to bring discipline and punctuality among the students this measure has been initiated. When the school approached the villagers and parents they agreed and suggested that the move could be the best solution for attaining cent per cent attendance from students.
"Parents happily agreed and voluntarily donated the money for installing the biometric. We have installed the biometric system from July 1st of this year. Each month we take consolidated attendance from the biometric and we are getting a considerable result from this system. Attendance of many students who used to have an average now came to 95 per cent and 98 per cent. This will avoid correction of attendance manually. Students can't bunk afternoon classes as they have to punch biometric in the evening too. Students who used to bunk classes carelessly have now become serious about the attendance and there is no chance of escape for such students because of biometric," he said.
Veeresh S C, a gram panchayat member and parent, said that students think twice before bunking school for a day after the biometric machine was installed. "We used to see many children bunking classes afternoon and roam around the village. Teachers were helpless in this matter even after warning such students. Now the problem has been solved and such students have become responsible," he said. Block Education Officer (BEO) Manjula R said that this is the first time that a government school has installed the biometric by collecting funds from donors.
"This will improvise the attendance of the students. It gives a chance for transparency in school administration and not possible to document any false statistics regarding the number of students. This is very helpful for midday meal scheme too," she opined.
