DSE tightens attendance rules: Late coming, early logout to cost leaves

The Telangana Directorate of School Education has tightened attendance rules, linking late arrival and early logout to leave deductions under the FRS system. Repeated violations will lead to casual leave cuts, with possible expansion to government school staff.

Hyderabad: Arriving late to the office or early logging out will now cost the Directorate of School Education (DSE) employees their leave. Taking a serious stance regarding attendance and punctuality, the Directorate announced that employees arriving late or leaving early from the office will face a cut in their leave entitlements.

Permitting employees to mark facial recognition system (FRS) attendance up to 10.40 am, in a recently issued circular, the DSE said marking attendance between 10.41 am and 11.30 am will be considered late and a casual leave will be deducted if an employee arrives late three times.

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Further, logging out between 4 pm and 5 pm will be considered early and three such logouts will result in one casual leave deduction.

Stating that logout time is permitted only after 5 pm, the Directorate said employees who do not mark their logout in the facial recognition system attendance will face a half-day casual leave cut.

Attendance marked outside office premises without approval of the officer concerned and prior permission will be treated as absent, it said.

In all cases, causal leaves will be deducted first. If no casual leaves are available, the earned leaves will be deducted as per the district official manual norms, it said.

The DSE directed its staff to follow instructions strictly and ensure proper in-and-out FRS attendance marking. If any deviation is noticed, action will be taken against the concerned as per the rules in force, it added.

Meanwhile, speculation is rife that the DSE might extend these in and out FRS attendance rules to the government and local body school staff. The State government has already been implementing FRS attendance for over 1 lakh teachers. However, no deductions are currently being made to their leave entitlements or salaries based on the attendance and in-and-out information.