2/1/10

Asian schools track attendance with biometrics and smart cards

"Roll-call has now become an automated process at schools in Hong Kong, Japan, India and Singapore, with the use of biometrics and smart cards, according to FutureGov.

The days of manually taking attendance are over, leaving teachers with more time spent teaching. No more calling parents to inform them about kids missing school. These systems can also automatically alert parents via text message or email, informing them if their kids make it to school late, or do not show up at all.

Students of Fung Kai Innovative School are greeted every day with face scanners, which scan an image of the student’s face - relaying it back to the school’s database for confirmation. At the beginning of the day, teachers can access this information in real-time via their laptops.

To accommodate mass student population, schools in Singapore have taken a different approach, installing fingerprint readers linked to an electronic attendance system - one school quoted to have 1,500 students attending.

Instead of biometrics, almost half of the urban schools in India are using smart cards. Students scan their student ID card using readers installed at school gates, which is transmitted in real-time to the school’s intranet, allowing faculty and even parents to visit. Using a unique user ID and password, parents can access their kid’s attendance records."...Source