Sindh schools put teachers under facial-recognition watch

KARACHI:

Teachers and non-teaching staff at Sindh's government schools are set to come under facial-recognition scrutiny from August 17, as the provincial education department launches a pilot attendance system aimed at ensuring that teachers are where they are supposed to be - in classrooms when students need them.

The Facial Recognition Attendance Monitoring and Evaluation System (FRAMES) will initially monitor 49,565 teaching and non-teaching employees across six districts - Karachi East, Hyderabad, Naushehro Feroze, Jacobabad, Ghotki and Umerkot - with one district selected from each division of the province.

Provincial Education Minister Syed Sardar Ali Shah said FRAMES would initially be tested in the six districts before being expanded across Sindh on the basis of the pilot's results and experience. He said the system was not merely an attendance mechanism but a tool to ensure students had teachers available at school.

Under FRAMES, attendance will be recorded through facial recognition technology, with both arrival and departure entries mandatory. Teachers will not need their own smartphones and can mark attendance through a headmaster's or colleague's phone.

The system will also work offline, allowing attendance to be recorded without an internet connection and automatically updating the record once connectivity is restored.

Teachers will be able to view and download their monthly attendance records through the application and submit leave applications from home for online approval.

The education department said training of administrative officers, school heads and teachers had been completed, while a mechanism had been established to identify and resolve technical problems. School heads have also received special training to guide and assist teachers in using the application.

Teachers and other staff who have not yet registered can contact the Director General Monitoring and Evaluation Office to update their attendance records.

The FRAMES application is available on both Apple and Android platforms.