Following incidents of elementary schools inflating head count of students, the Tamil Nadu Elementary Education Department has directed district education officials to conduct inspections and ensure that attendance records match the student data entered in the Educational Management Information System (EMIS).
The move aims to address cases where headmasters and teachers reported inflated student numbers to retain high staff strength in government and government-aided schools, and also to prevent the practice of marking potential dropouts as present, stated a report by The New Indian Express.
In September, the Elementary Education Directorate suspended the headmistress of a school at Villivakkam in Tiruvallur, and the concerned block education officer after discovering that the student count entered in the EMIS portal was nearly double than the actual numbers.
Officials noted that such manipulation not only caused financial loss to the government, but also disrupted proper resource allocation.
"We are taking strict action against headmasters who intentionally inflate student numbers significantly. However, minor discrepancies often occur in areas with high migrant labour populations, where enrolled students may not attend school regularly," said a senior official from the Elementary Education Department.
As per the current practice, a student absent for 15 days in a row is considered a potential dropout and must be moved to a common pool for tracking and re-enrolment. However, some schools mark these students as present intermittently to avoid scrutiny.
"We have instructed district officials to issue strict warnings against this practice and ensure that such students are shifted to the common pool if they are continuously absent," the official added.
According to a circular issued by the education department, the number of students should be verified at the level of cluster resource centres. Ensuring accuracy in this data will also facilitate the proper distribution of government welfare measures.
The School Education Department had earlier mandated schools to verify the phone numbers of students' parents on EMIS using a one-time password (OTP), which led to the discovery of several ghost entries earlier this year.
