Education

Truancy: KWSG adopts digital clock machine to monitor teachers, students

 

By Joke Adeniyi-Jackson

As part of its monitoring and evaluation mechanism, the Kwara State Government has procured digital clock machines to be distributed to schools across the state.

The state Commissioner for Education and Human Capital Development, Hajia Bilikisu Oniyangi, dropped the hint while speaking to newsmen on the sideline of Education Stakeholders Forum, in Ilorin on Thursday.

She explained that the machines, which are cloud based, would enable the ministry to monitor class attendance by students and teachers alike in all schools in the state on daily basis.

“The monitoring system will be done through the clock- in and clock- out system. The digital clock machine has huge storage memory. It ensures that as teachers are going into the class the students are also in class during the clock in and clock out period.

“With that we will able to monitor the number of students that go into classes on daily basis. As we all know every human being has unique thumbprint, so, no one can assist the other to clock-in and clock-out.

“From my survey I found out that students resume with enthusiasm at the beginning of the term and before mid term almost half of them will be absent from school.

“This will enable us to know how many are staying in class, how many are dropping out. It will enable us to take decisions,” she further explained.

The commissioner said two machines would be made available for each school across the state, for test run, saying principals and headteachers would be held responsible for the monitoring tool.

“Two will be made available to all schools for test run and when we discover that it works seamlessly we will be looking at how to increase it,” she further said.

Meanwhile, in her address at the stakeholders’ forum, tagged ‘Revitalisation of Education Information Management (EMIS) in Kwara, the commissioner said without adequate and accurate information, set goals cannot be achieved in the sector.

She recalled that before the restructuring of EMIS in the state, previous system and method of information management in the education sector suffered deficiences.

Oniyangi enumerated the problems to include inefficient method of collating data manually; lack of unified school list; no adequate data on students, overlap of functions among others.

“Therefore in a bid to correct these disproportions and inbalance, several efforts were made and series of systemic approach have been put in place to ensure that EMIS delivers high quality service,” she further said.

Earlier in her remarks, the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Hajia Maryam Garuba, said, the forum is a manifestation of the commissioner’s commitment to take education sector to higher level in line with both National and State Education policies.

While noting the importance of information with accurate and reliable data for effective planning and implementation of educational policies, she said it became expedient to revitalise EMIS in the state.

The commissioner then pointed out the EMIS has been accorded recognition globally as a broad based frames for achievement of quality education.

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