Government school teachers in Kumaon, Uttarakhand, have been asked to take selfies with students and post them on Whatsapp groups. Strangely, this order came not to ensure the attendance of students or boost their communication with teachers, but to check the absenteeism of teachers!

The Whatsapp group on which the selfies will need to be posted will consist of education officials who will be monitoring the teachers' attendance.

Announcement by newly appointed Kumaon commissioner

The orders given to teachers from the 7,845 government schools in six districts of Kumaon came from the newly appointed Kumaon commissioner Rajiv Rautela on Saturday, reports TOI.

District magistrates and the education department have been asked to take measures to improve education facilities in the division. This is just the first step in this direction. We hope this will curb absenteeism among teachers. - Rajiv Rautela told TOI.

"We will make sure that teachers post their selfies on WhatsApp groups," said Kumaon division's assistant director of education, Mukul Sati, while speaking on the complaints from schools about teacher absenteeism.

Main problems that can arise with the order to share selfies

India is not a fully developed country and many areas do not have proper internet connection.

Apart from this, the fact that all teachers do not possess smartphones will be another hurdle in the recent directive to take selfies with students.

Special app, biometric attendance machines among previous efforts to curb teacher absenteeism

The state education department had announced an app last year called Ujwal Seva Uttarakhand which was supposed to work in a similar manner by allowing teachers to mark their attendance by uploading selfies with students on the app.

However, the project didn't take off.

Read: Teachers take selfie with students to mark attendance in UP schools

The problem with the attendance of teachers is such a big issue for the Uttarakhand state government that in 2015, the state high court had asked schools to ensure that biometric attendance machines were installed in all government schools.

However, very few schools have these machines.

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