Govt suggests Aadhaar-linked biometric attendance for faculty at technical institutes

The Centre has suggested all technical institutes to install Aadhaar-linked biometric devices for recording attendance of their "regular" faculty members online.

The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), however, has left it to institutes to avoid a direct conflict with the teaching community.

"The technical institutions may introduce online Aadhaar-linked biometric attendance for regular faculty members," the council stated in its latest notification.

Earlier, the council made it compulsory for all technical institutes to introduce an online Aadhaar-linked biometric attendance recording system.

The technical institutions "shall" introduce online Aadhar-linked biometric attendance for regular faculty members, Clause 5.7 of the AICTE's Approval Process Handbook 2018-19 stipulated.

A source told DH: "This clause has been amended to leave it to the institutions to decide... We do not want to interfere with the autonomy of the institutions."

The Economic Survey 2016-17 had suggested the introduction of biometric attendance system in "all primary schools," identifying "teacher absenteeism" as one of the main causes of the fall in learning outcome.

A "successful testing" of a biometric attendance registration project was carried out by the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry in Manipur in consultation with the state government.

An Android-based mobile tablet along with biometric finger scanner was distributed among the teachers and other staff at government schools in five districts.

The device was also built to record attendance of students as well as monitoring the financial and physical progress made on Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) funds.

"We will expand it across all the states," HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar told the Lok Sabha on July 21, while concluding a debate on the Right to Free and Compulsory Education (Amendment) Bill, 2017.