HYDERABAD: After introducing the facial recognition system (FRS) to record student attendance in government schools, the Telangana school education department has now extended it to cover all government school staff.
However, a majority of teachers have raised objections, citing technical glitches and time-consuming procedures. They are urging the department to install biometric systems instead.
The facial recognition system was initially rolled out for students two years ago. On August 1, it was extended to teaching and non-teaching staff across all government schools in the state. Though intended to ease the burden of manual attendance, teachers claim the system is causing greater disruption.
Many report that the application frequently crashes, takes too long to upload data, and wastes valuable class time up to 25 minutes of the first period. Now, with the additional task of marking their own attendance through FRS, the pressure has increased. “Sometimes, when I scan my face, the app displays a different teacher’s picture, or the system takes too long, showing incorrect attendance percentages,” said Ramesh, a government school teacher.
“We are already losing time managing student attendance. Now we must also mark our own, further affecting academics,” added Ravi, a teacher at a government school in Secunderabad.
M Ravinder, in-charge headmaster of a government high school in Nallakunta, said, “The system is giving trouble. On the first day, the actual attendance was 88%, but it showed only 44%. A similar issue occurred on the second day. Installing centralised FRS devices near school gates would help address network and software issues.”