Chennai's school education department came up with a new mobile application for marking attendance for teachers and students in government and government-aided schools. Sharing this news, the officials said that the new system will come into force next month and the application TN SED Attendance was upgraded following complaints raised by teachers, as stated in a report by The New Indian Express.
Giving more details, they said, "It will provide a cleaner interface with minimal clicks for a better user experience. The attendance option in the old TNSED schools' application will be disabled from January 1." Additionally, "In the new app, the office of the Chief Educational Officer will post updates about holidays declared for the respective district, while headmasters can mark local or school-specific holidays," they added.
Although this new application was released considering the teachers lamenting about being overburdened with duties to upload students' attendance and details on the Educational Management Information System (EMIS), even now, the concerns seem the same. In this regard, sharing their views, a teacher told The New Indian Express, "Staff attendance must also be marked twice. Most of the 36,000 primary schools in the state have only one or two teachers. The teacher has to spend at least 30 minutes in the morning and evening taking attendance, which will eat into their teaching time."
"The main reason why we raise opposition to these duties is that schools across the state are already reeling under staff shortage," a teacher stressed. Adding to this the officials said that lack of proper internet coverage in rural areas was one of the reasons for teachers not being able to update attendance online.
As a solution to this, the new system allows them to update details anytime without the internet, as long as the teacher does not log out from the application. "The teachers will be able to view any student's attendance history over the past week, month, term and year through the application. A slot for teachers to apply for leave will also be added to the application. It will also be updated only in the second and last week of every month to avoid confusion," the officials added.
