Facial recognition soon in all state govt offices, schools in AP

VIJAYAWADA: Andhra Pradesh Education Minister Botsa Satyanarayana on Thursday said that the facial recognition attendance system was initiated in the education department and would soon be implemented in all state government offices.

In a meeting with teachers' unions in his camp office in Vijayawada, he discussed the misunderstandings and difficulties in using the software designed for tracking student and teacher attendance in schools. Following the meeting, Minister Botsa Satyanarayana told the media that the administration was putting plans in place to make sure that everyone—from the chief secretary to the office staff—could use the facial recognition app. It was reiterated that there was no cause for concern among the teachers regarding the attendance app.

He said, "The education department will be the first to use facial recognition programme software." At a meeting with teachers' unions, Botsa stated that the problems would be overcome through practise.

According to him, there was some misinformation about the education department's app that tracked teachers' attendance, and in order to fix it, a meeting with the relevant associations was convened, and steps were taken to ease their concerns. According to the minister, the officials were told to take into account their concerns and make some adjustments.

According to the minister, out of the 1.83 lakh teachers in the state, only about 1 lakh registered for the app. It was decided to use the next 15 days as a training period to allow the remaining teachers to download the app and become accustomed to using it. Even though there were issues with the network while registering the attendance, the administrators also described how the app worked to the leaders of the teachers' unions. The minister promised that if any new issues cropped up during this 15-day training period, action would be taken to address them and make the app entirely functional.

Dispelling the misgivings, he said that the same process in vogue would continue and that the delay would not be treated as absence.

He said that no new restrictions were implemented, other than the fact that the teacher would be treated as being on half-day leave if he was late for work for the fourth time after three prior instances.

In response to queries from media representatives, he said that it was improper to view the government's adopting a policy decision and fixing issues that arose during its execution as inefficient. A people's government, according to him, could only be established when decisions were made in accordance with ideas made by the general public and elected officials.