For Bihar’s govt school students, facial recognition to curb attendance fudging

“We are also providing tablets to schools for marking attendance by using e-Shikshakosh app,” he said.

Launched by the Bihar government, the e-Shikshakosh is a platform to provide training and resources to teachers to improve teaching quality and methods and enhance learning outcomes.

Bihar has 75,000 government schools. At present, students’ attendance is registered using the conventional roll call, although these are later recorded on the app.

The announcement comes at a time when the governments in Delhi and Karnataka are also considering introducing facial recognition for recording students’ attendance.

According to an education department official, the use of the technology for attendance recording will be a major achievement in terms of education reforms.

“This would broadly address three things. First, there would be no fudged attendance or cases of ghost admissions. Till a year ago, we had detected about 25 lakh ghost attendance in which students were enrolled in private schools but had been availing government’s benefits,” he said.

The move would also prevent school officials from tampering with attendance records and siphon off funds, he said.

“Third, parents and guardians would no longer be able to put pressure on school principals to record 75 percent attendance for their wards to avail of facilities such as scholarships, free uniform and school textbooks,” he said.

The Bihar government gives annual scholarships of Rs 400 for students of Class 1-3, Rs 500 for Classes 4 and 5, Rs 1,200 to Classes 6-8 and Rs 2,500 for Classes 9-12 to students with 75 percent attendance. Students of Classes 1-8 also get free school textbooks and Classes 9 get bicycles if they meet the attendance requirement.

School teachers have welcomed the government’s decision.

“The only challenge is internet connectivity issues in some areas,” a government teacher told The Indian Express.