Facial recognition system makes bunking tough in Telangana schools

School Education Department, which has launched the facial recognition system for recording attendance in all government and local body schools across the State, is notifying parents if their child is absent via an automated SMS to the registered mobile number

Hyderabad: Bunking the school will no longer be easy for students. With the School Education Department rolling out a new alerting system, parents are now being informed about their wards being marked absent in the classroom.

The department, which has launched the facial recognition-based system (FRS) for recording attendance in all government and local body schools across the State, is notifying parents if their child is absent via an automated SMS to the registered mobile number.

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According to officials, the initiative is aimed at curbing absenteeism and increasing transparency between schools and parents. Apart from SMS, some headmasters are calling on parents to check on the wellbeing of their students who are not turning up to schools for a long time.

“We started alerting parents if their children are not coming to the schools consecutively. On an average, the schools are recording 70 per cent attendance on a daily basis through the FRS launched this academic year. More than 95 per cent of the teachers are marking their attendance via the new system,” School Education Department Director Dr E Naveen Nicolas said.

Earlier, the system of alerting parents about their children’s absenteeism was rolled out via the FRS application by the Intermediate Education Department in its government junior colleges from this academic year. The move comes after it was observed that, on an average, 40 per cent of students skipped college during the last academic year.

Doing away with the practice of marking attendance in the registers, the department had launched the FRS application that captures photographs of students and marks their attendance. Initially, students’ credentials are registered, along with their photographs in the application.

After marking his/her attendance through a selfie photograph via the FRS application on smartphones, teachers take a long shot of the students in the classroom. The photograph captured will be validated with registered details and synchronised with geo-coordinates, thereby marking attendance.