App-based attendance draws DU teachers’ ire

The Delhi University Teachers’ Association said it will discuss the issue during a meeting on December 21, and wrote to staff associations of at least 70 colleges, asking them to resist the move (File)

A week after four DU colleges — Lakshmibai College, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College, Aryabhatta College and Shivaji College — implemented an app-based attendance system on a pilot basis, several teacher groups wrote to DU Vice-Chancellor Yogesh Tyagi objecting the move.

According to officials, teachers are required to download the app on their phone and mark attendance of students immediately after class. Teachers said the system of marking attendance in the register on a daily basis, and uploading it on the college website at the end of each month, is simpler. The Delhi University Teachers’ Association said it will discuss the issue during a meeting on December 21, and wrote to staff associations of at least 70 colleges, asking them to resist the move.

The National Democratic Teachers’ Front also wrote to the V-C, terming the action “illogical, illegal and unacademic”. “The current DU ordinance on student’s attendance doesn’t allow for such a system to be followed,” A K Bhagi, a member of the executive council and NDTF, said.

Colleges that implemented a similar system in the past struggled with the technology, teachers claimed. Teachers at Acharya Narendra Dev College said the college purchased a software to mark attendance. “The college spent so much money, but the system does not work most of the time,” a teacher said. Miranda House teacher Abha Dev Habib said, “In a few colleges where the app was implemented, teachers still kept paper records because of fear of data loss.”