Visakhapatnam: Now,
parents who send their children to GVMC-run schools can heave a sigh of
relief as they would get prompt messages regarding their presence in
school and academic activities.

Whenever a student enters
the school the biometric attendance system would send an immediate
message to the parents and vice versa in the evening at the time of
leaving.

The GVMC is implementing this novel programme on a pilot
basis in two municipal schools in the city, and would shortly be
extending it to another 15 schools after verifying its efficacy. The
KDPM School at Peda Waltair and NMCH in Seethammadhara have been
selected for the pilot programme.

The GVMC has deployed software developed by Fast Forward Technologies to make the project a reality.

“The
pilot programme, Campus Track, is really useful for parents who send
their children, especially girls, to city schools. We have entered the
data of children of the two schools along with the mobile numbers of
their parents. Whenever they enter and leave the school, the biometric
system would send automatic messages to the parents,” said V. Sudhir
Kumar of Fast Forward Technologies.

He said the GVMC had also
asked them to generate periodical reports regarding attendance, marks
and other school-related acti-vity/information.

This would certainly develop a close relationship between the school management and parents, he said.

Officials
who verified the efficacy of the project and the responses of parents
have decided to extend the tracking to other corporation schools in the
city. For tracking Fast Forward Technologies has prepared an exclusive
software for sending SMSes to parents integrating it with the biometric
systems installed at the schools.

Teachers also need not prepare
attendance and progress reports of students periodically. The software
prepares them automatically when teachers provide information regarding
examinations.

A senior official from the GVMC said this would be
very helpful to parents to track their children’s movements and academic
activity. Teachers were also instructed to use the biometric system
while coming and leaving the school, he added.