Mstar app-based real-time attendance system marred by glitches in Punjab
Allows teachers to ‘clock in’ or ‘clock out’ while in respective schools
The recently launched real-time attendance system, “mStar app”, is prone to technical glitches that allows government schoolteachers to mark their and students’ attendance even from outside the school premises.
The location-based app is meant to allow teachers to “clock in” or “clock out” while in respective school premises.
Teachers complained that the app frequently fails, creates high server load and sometimes records them as absent despite being present.
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Mahinder Kaudianwali, a teacher at Government Middle School, Abdul Khalil, Fazilka, said as the app logs out frequently, they have to mark their attendance in the register.
A senior official said the app was rolled out on a pilot basis and claimed that the issues were being monitored and sorted promptly.
Punjab Education Minister Harjot Bains said “It’s a new app. As attendance of around 27 lakh students and 1.25 lakh teachers is marked online, it will take time to fix glitches. Teachers also need time to adapt to the new system.”
The app, rolled out under Mission Samrath 4.0, aims to bring transparency by sending daily SMS alerts to parents regarding their children’s school attendance. There are near 27 lakh students enrolled in 19,000 government schools across the state.
The department had projected it as a major reform to curb absenteeism and improve learning outcomes.
Democratic Teachers Front head Vikramdev Singh said marking attendance within a fixed time through the mobile app had become a challenge for teachers.
“The server often gets busy and attendance is not recorded. Teachers are forced to mark their presence manually. If teachers ‘clock in’, the system sometimes automatically clocks them out. In villages, Internet speed is very slow and teachers are unable to record attendance,” he said.
