VIJAYAWADA: Asserting that the YSRC government is employees-friendly, Education Minister Botcha Satyanarayan said talks with the teachers’ union held on Thursday were a success and teachers agreed to download the face recognition app.
Speaking to media persons at the secretariat, the minister said the face recognition app was introduced two weeks ago and at that time teachers had sought 15 days for downloading the app and today they sought another 15 days.
“We asked, why 15 days are needed and they said they need to resolve some technical glitches. I told them to download the app and use it and if there are any glitches or issues, they will be sorted out soon. They finally agreed,” the minister explained.
As part of reforms in the education system, the School Education department has rolled out an app to record the attendance of teachers, students and other employees in the schools and other offices under the School Education Department. If the teachers fail to mark their facial attendance before 9 am (students by 10 am), they will be treated as absentees.
Some teachers have raised objections stating that due to a lack of mobile signals, they were unable to register their attendance. The mobile app is linked to the Unified District Information System for Education (U-DISE) and records the longitude and latitude of the place where the teacher is present.
The minister expressed confidence that technical glitches will not be a hindrance and they will be sorted out in the due course. The other issue discussed during the meeting was the appointment of a Mandal Education Officer.
He said the Chief Minister, for administrative convenience, wanted 670 MEO posts to be filled immediately and the pending 248 posts are being filled with government school teachers on a seniority basis, which is a temporary arrangement.