CHENNAI: With teachers across the state lamenting that they were being overburdened with duties to upload students’ attendance and details on the Educational Management Information System (EMIS), the school education department has now released a new mobile application for marking attendance for teachers and students in government and aided schools.
The new system will come into force next month and officials said the application ‘TN SED Attendance’ was upgraded following complaints raised by teachers. “It will provide a cleaner interface with minimal clicks. The attendance option in the old TNSED schools’ application will be disabled from January 1. In the new app, the office of the Chief Educational Officer will post updates about holidays declared for respective district, while headmasters can mark local or school-specific holidays,” they added.
However, many teachers have expressed apprehension about the new application too, as it requires them to take attendance both in the morning and afternoon. “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 told TNIE.
While the lack of proper internet coverage in rural areas was cited as one of the reasons for teachers not regularly updating attendance online, the new system allows them to update details anytime even without 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.