india

Updated: May 14, 2019 05:30 IST

Despite directives from the education department, teachers of Delhi government schools are yet to make optimum use of the tablets provided to them to record attendance of students, make lesson plans besides using them as teaching aids.

According to a recent circular, of the 13,17,510 students enrolled in Delhi government schools, attendance record of 7,51,249 students, who form 57% of the total student population, were not even marked on May 6.

Taking note of this anomaly, the Directorate of Education (DoE) has asked all district and zone deputy directors of education (DDEs) to download the app, DoE Delhi, on their mobile phones in an attempt to monitor its usage by teachers and schools under their jurisdiction. The move has been made as the DoE plans to phase out the system of recording attendance manually.

While this initiative was announced in 2016, the process of procuring tablets only began last October. Though there is no data to pinpoint the exact number of tablets distributed, DoE officials said the tablets were provided to all teachers across 1,025 government schools in the city. Under the initiative, teachers get reimbursement of up to ₹15,000 for a tablet besides the monthly reimbursement of ₹200 for internet.

In a circular issued in January, the directorate had asked schools to strictly ensure attendance of students is recorded through the attendance module available on DoE app from February 1.

Last month, in a meeting of education department officials, it was noted that teachers were barely using the tablet to prepare lesson plans. The officials had also resolved to ask officers visiting schools to check the work teachers have done on the tablets.

“Some of the teachers aren’t very tech-savvy or well versed with tablets despite being trained by the Delhi government,” Awadhesh Jha, principal of Sarvodaya Vidyalaya in Sector-8 Rohini, said. “Sometimes there is a fear of change by teachers who cannot adapt quickly,” he said, adding tablets to mark attendance and from July, they will start using them to make lesson plans.

An economics teacher of a Shalimar Bagh school said “duplication of work” is a major deterrent for them. “Teachers are asked to maintain manual registers besides recording attendance on the tablets. That is extra work. Moreover, servers and internet connections do not work all the time.”