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News in-depth: Indian schools bring in smart cards to measure attendance
9 Dec 2011

A number of schools in India are using modern technology to help deal with the issue of truancy.

The New Delhi Municipal Council has brought in contactless smart cards for some of the institutions within its jurisdiction that will mark the attendance of both pupils and teachers, the Indian Express reports.

It is part of the Right to Education Act and the government's plans to increase e-governance in schools to replace paper records.

NDMC officials have said the cards will make it easier to record and analyse data, as well as making it more accurate than was the case with manual inputting.

"There are 77 schools with us and 43 are yet to be put on the intranet system," a spokesperson said.

All the information collected via the contactless smart cards will be forwarded to authorities in order for them to better decide what to do about areas where truancy is a problem.

It could be a good idea for schools and local authorities in this country to use similar technology to monitor attendance, as recent statistics suggest that truancy is a growing problem in the UK.

A recent survey of persistent truants carried out by the Rathbone Society found that 46 per cent had been encouraged to skip school by friends, while 22 per cent had been stopped by the police while absent from lessons without a good reason.

Some 29 per cent admitted they had been bullied so much they were afraid to attend school.

Meanwhile, Department of Education figures published by the Guardian in October showed that 23,244 primary school pupils skipped lessons each day between September 2010 and April 2011.

Contactless smart cards could be used to monitor high absence rates and then try to find out why excessive truancy is occurring. For example, if the problem is bullying, new measures to fight it may be necessary.

Furthermore, since many schools already have smart cards for cashless catering, an attendance monitoring function could be added to them to make data collection easier.