*Why these teachers need to climb trees in school every day* · The Times of India (New Delhi edition)
· 8 Oct 2018 · [image: https://cdn3-img.pressreader.com/pressdisplay/docserver/getimage.aspx?regionKey=sUAsWkqHz%2bvKBoJGawYcsg%3d%3d] Daltonganj: Every morning, the six teachers at Upgraded Plus Two School in Sohri Khas village, 41km from here in Jharkhand’s Palamu district gather at the courtyard. In their hands is a tablet connected to a biometric reader on which they have to record their thumbprints for attendance. The problem is the internet connection is frequently absent. This forces two or three of the teachers to climb a palash tree in the school campus while the students watch. On a good day, they get a weak connection high on the tree’s branches. “There is no internet connectivity on our campus at all. We can access a very weak 2G network if we climb up the tree and wait, but even that is quite unreliable,” says Arpan Kumar Gupta, a teacher. Not all of the teachers can climb the tree, certainly not every day. The rest have to fall back on conventional methods. “When the tablet does not connect to the internet, we mark our attendance on the register. There has to be some record,” Gupta adds. They are not alone in this predicament. Across northwestern Jharkhand, teachers at several schools have been unable to record their attendance online, as part of a new state government initiative, because the infrastructure in the rural parts of the state is just not up to the task of handling the demands of digital connectivity. Under the Gyanodaya scheme launched by CM Raghubar Das in 2017, the state government began distributing tablets to schools. The devices were pre-in- stalled with the e-Vidya Vahini app, which records biometric attendance of teachers and also monitors the admission and drop-out rates and other parameters. Periodically, progress reports on teachers and students, academic performances and inspections (which are filled by the respective cluster or block resource person) are also to be filed through the app. The school at Sohri Khas, which has 800 students, got the tablet on September 25. The palash tree has been their saviour ever since. Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in Disclaimer: 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of the person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity; 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails sent through this mailing list..
