Automating processes: Govt to end physical monitoring of capital’s schools

FDE to use biometric systems, CCTV for keeping eye on teachers, students and cleanliness

ISLAMABAD: In a bid to improve the monitoring of school officials and students and to ease school staffing concerns in the capital, the government has decided to strengthen the monitoring system using biometrics and closed-circuit cameras, apart from sending physical evaluation monitors back to their parent schools.

In 2015, the then Advisor on the Prime Minister’s Education Reforms Programme (PMERP) Ali Raza had suggested appointing non-teaching staff as evaluators to monitor different conditions in schools of the federal capital.

As a result, around 22 monitoring and evaluation assistants were appointed by drawing these officials from the non-teaching staff of the capital’s schools. The move was undertaken following approval from the Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) secretary  — the department is now defunct after the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led government dissolved it.

They were then deputed to keep a check on the attendance of teachers and students, the time at which the school principals come and go and the state of cleanliness in the schools. They were responsible for keeping a manual tab on these issues and to maintain update reports online.

These monitors were also granted powers to inspect schools without any advance notice.

The 22 monitors were divided up and four were deployed to schools in each of the five sectors of the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT).

At the time, heads of the capital’s schools and colleges had objected that officials in lower grades were being appointed to keep a check on the attendance of officers who were quite senior to them. The government, at the time, had assured that these monitors would be promoted, eliminating the grade difference.

However, the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) — which oversees all matters relating to schools and colleges in Islamabad — has now decided that these monitors will be directed to return to their original posts in schools.

The monitoring and evaluation process will be automated using the biometric attendance systems for the school staff. Moreover, the closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras network will be linked to the FDE

An FDE official, with knowledge of the system but who refused to give his name since the official did not have permission to speak to the media, confirmed the decision to end the monitoring system. The official added that it is inexplicable why physical monitors and evaluation assistants had been hired when a biometric system was already in place.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 3^rd, 2018.