Bad news: No more ‘playing’ truant for Lankan schoolchildren
The good old days of ‘playing truant’ from school (in common parlance known as ‘cutting’ school) are over for the modern-day school kid. On Thursday, the Ministry of Education in collaboration with mobile service provider, Mobitel, introduced a clock-in scheme under an ‘iCard’ project starting with Royal College.
The scheme will be introduced in Colombo schools before moving to the provinces.
But the system doesn’t appear to be fool proof as, according to one student, a school-goer can clock in on behalf of a colleague, giving the impression that the latter has attended school. In such an event, the old system of a class register where the teacher physically checks the presence of a student ,seems a more water-tight solution.
The project was initiated at Royal College Colombo in the presence of Minister of Education, Bandula Gunawardena and Minister of Telecommunication and Information Technology, Ranjith Siyambalapitiya.
The iCard can be used as an identification card as well as a debit card. It contains information of the student such as name, school, admission number, photograph, validity period, emergency contact number and the card number.
Once the student enters the school and points the card to the Near Field Communication (NFC) card reader at the entrance it allows to tap in their attendance. If the student doesn’t clock in, a text message will be sent in 15 minutes from the cut off-time (school opening time) to the parent or guardian that he or she has not attended school. To receive text messages parents have to subscribe to this facility via a mobile company on the payment of Rs. 30 monthly for Mobitel network users and Rs. 50 monthly for other networks.
The iCard could also be used as a debit card. Students can deposit cash to the card and use it at the canteen, bookshop and for travelling in the school bus without carrying plenty of cash in their pockets.
Addressing the gathering at the launch, Minister Gunawardena said, “The government is taking an active role in introducing new initiatives for the development of the education sector in Sri Lanka. This project will not only increase school attendance but would also see a considerable improvement in the child’s security and bring ease of mind to parents. The fact that the iCard could be used as a payment system will also minimize the risk of children having excess money with them.”
Sharing his thoughts on the initiative, Minister Siyambalapitiya said, “This project shows how quickly the telecommunication landscape in Sri Lanka is evolving beyond phone calls and text messages. It is very satisfying to see organizations such as Mobitel taking the initiative to lead in new innovations in line with the government’s goals of developing the nation. Initiatives like this must be lauded for the role it plays in bringing Sri Lanka on par with other countries in the region.”
The iCard will aid the optimization of productivity of school activities in multiple ways. While tracking the student’s attendance it can be utilized to generate digital reports and create a more technologically advanced environment within the administration of the school.
comments powered by Disqus