‘Keypad phones’ to ‘data leak’: MP teachers’ bizarre excuses to skirt e-attendance

Bhopal: ‘Keypad phones’, ‘data leaks’, ‘mysterious calls from Pakistan’.These are just a few of the many bizarre excuses that govt school teachers in Madhya Pradesh came up with when asked to explain their failure to mark their attendance digitally.The state school education department recently introduced e-attendance at govt schools, in a bid to bring more transparency to the process through a digital log.However, what was imagined as digital storage through a single fingerprint impression or tap to record school attendance digitally and monitor punctuality has turned to be a comedy of errors, or, should we say, excuses.Since the mandatory e‑attendance rollout, teachers have offered a catalogue of creative excuses, some claiming they have old-school keypad phones, not modern-day smartphones, while some others alleged data leak.Not to be outdone in offering excuses, some even claimed to have received ‘mysterious calls’ from across the border in Pakistan.Officials in the Directorate of Public Instruction, however, dismissed these outlandish claims, saying the app for teachers to mark school attendance was ‘completely safe’, adding, for good measure, that attendance logged digitally hovered over 90 per cent across the state.“Only those who do not want to do it seem to be facing such problems,” KK Dwivedi, director, Directorate of Public Instruction, told TOI, adding, “If anyone has any problem marking their attendance, they should inform us.

We will find a solution. But the problems should be genuine, not fabricated.”Meanwhile, govt teachers’ associations issued a pointed statement seeking more clarity over the system’s rollout. The unions want to know the objectives behind introducing e-attendance, measurable benefits to date and how many teachers actually lack smartphones.They demanded alternative arrangements for low‑network pockets, asking whether teachers would be reimbursed for smartphones, internet connectivity and electricity costs or handed departmental devices.They also raised concerns over attendance records lost to app glitches, protection of personal data and whether teachers’ unions were consulted beforehand. They also requested data on disciplinary action taken since the e‑attendance rollout and how many of the penalties were attributed to technical faults.“We support technology in education,” said Upendra Kaushal, acting state president, Government Teachers’ Association, Madhya Pradesh, adding, “But don’t saddle teachers with extra administrative and financial burdens.”As officials and teachers’ bodies bicker over the benefits of e-attendance, the excuses seemingly continue unabated.