Jammu and Kashmir launches GPS-based teachers' attendance app, to seek student feedback on their performance

JAMMU: Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday became the first Indian region to introduce GPS-based attendance for teachers and take online feedback from students about their educators' performance, officials said on Tuesday. The project was rolled out with the launch of two applications by Chief Secretary Arun Kumar Mehta.

"Jammu and Kashmir became the first (region) in the country to take online monthly feedback from students of Class 6 and above about the performance of their teachers and carry out GPS-based attendance on a daily basis," a government spokesperson said. Mehta said these applications would ensure authentic grassroots-level feedback from the ones directly involved in the learning process.

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Teachers in the government sector are the best in terms of qualification and training and they just need to focus more on academic activity to ensure improved results, Mehta added. The system -- SAMIKSHA -- will reflect the true performance of teachers with respect to their classroom inputs and leave no space for subjectivity. Mehta advised the Education Department to make the feedback a benchmark while analysing the teachers' annual performance.

The other app -- JK Attendance-SED -- will give a peek into the daily attendance of teachers. The application will capture their live location and even allow time-specific tracking. The attendance system will reduce paperwork and save time. It will also eliminate duplicate data entries and improve attendance management in schools, Mehta said.