Bengaluru: Teachers attending SSLC and PU valuation will have to mark their attendance on a geo-tagged facial recognition system starting this year.

The department of school education and literacy is making it mandatory for all govt school and PU college teachers to use a facial recognition-based attendance system on campuses henceforth. Teachers will be asked to use Kartavya, the official attendance and payroll application, which is already in place for various govt departments. Teachers will also have to use this system while attending training programmes.

The app employs a facial recognition system through the mobile phone of the teacher or lecturer. There is a geofencing facility, and the teacher is essentially mapped using geolocation to the school or college where they are deployed for duty. Attendance has to be marked twice daily.

“So, in all our valuation camps for Class 10 and II PUC exams, daily attendance of the valuators will be marked with this system. This will increase accountability among teachers and address issues of integrity in the valuation process. Additionally, this also makes payment to teachers for valuation easier through the Aadhaar-linked direct bank transfer. Once linked to attendance, this can ensure payments happen with as little time lag as possible,” said Rashmi V Mahesh, additional chief secretary, department of school education and literacy.

“After a pilot in Gadag, we implemented the system in the schools and PU department. Many of the teaching staff are already registered under this system. This is the right time to introduce it for all teachers, as facial attendance for students is also coming up across the state from the next academic year,” she added.

It may be recalled that facial attendance for students was proposed for this academic year, which is yet to take off.

Last year, around 40,000 teachers took part in valuation of PU papers and over 70,000 for SSLC exams conducted by the Karnataka School Examination and Assessment Board. The exam valuation is conducted in over 235 centres. The SSLC exam is scheduled to begin from March 18, and II PU from Feb 28.

Through a circular on Dec 1, the commissionerate mandated this app for all staff in the department.

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