2 months on, FeeBank app in disuse; DEO oblivious to issue

Gurvinder Singh

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Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, July 29

FeeBank app launched with much fanfare by the district administration and the Education Department two months ago is yet to be put to any use, thanks to some “confusion” on the part of schoolteachers.

The mobile app was launched to make information such as attendance, report cards, health check-ups, etc, of children available to their parents through the app, besides teachers’ remarks about students. The app was launched at Government Model Senior Secondary School, PAU, on a pilot basis before it was to be launched in government schools across the district. But teachers are yet to start using the app.

Certain teachers said they were not yet using the mobile app because it was not possible to access the data of the entire school or the class through the mobile app for sending remarks about children’s performance. “The app is not working,” one of them said. “When we open the app, we can see information about only one child, not the whole class. There is some glitch,” one of the teachers said. “Though it was possible to open the app through the dummy interface, it doesn’t open the interface for teachers,” he said.

But the IT firm that developed the app said the teachers are confused about its use. Teacher interface is supposed to be accessible only through a computer and not through app. “Teachers are not supposed to access the interface through the mobile app, as they in any case are not supposed to carry mobile phones during the school hours. But if they are requesting as such, we can create one for them,” said Raghav Jain, CEO, Techmutant.

Though the app was to be launched across the district after the pilot launch at Government Model Senior Secondary School, PAU, ironically, officials in the Education Department were not even aware of its disuse even two months after its launch. When asked why the app was not being used at the PAU school, District Education Officer Paramjit Kaur Chahal said the matter was not brought to her attention and she would ask the officials concerned why it was not being used.

A large number of schools yet to upload data 

A majority of government schools are yet to upload data regarding students’ attendance, results, etc. Raghav Jain, CEO, Techmutant, said the data of only around 65 government schools had been uploaded on the website whereas the data of more than 400 schools is yet to be uploaded. “We have conveyed it to the DEO who has further asked the schools to upload all data,” he said. 

Need for awareness sessions

The app will become truly useful after parents start using the app. Schools will have to conduct sessions to teach parents how to use it, Raghav Jain, CEO, Techmutant, said.