MILIND TORAWANE

A village school and no teachers in sight. If that's the script for a story called 'education in rural India', the backward, tribal-dominated Narmada district in Gujarat is fast re-writing this, to their advantage.

The local tribals call it the “angutha” (thumb) solution to the problems of the “anguthachhap” (the illiterate) – a fingerprint biometric attendance system introduced in the district and taluka offices, including schools. Though teachers chose to stay away from village schools and literacy rates dipped, those in power hardly took note. But not Milind Torawane, 34, an IAS officer and the Narmada district development officer (DDO). He is the architect of the ‘biometric’ revolution that is bringing about a drastic change in the education system in the district, which has a low literacy rate and fmale literacy is worse.

While the system will be implemented in all the 680 schools of the district by February, officials admit it holds enough promise to bring about sweeping changes in the education system in Gujarat. “Over Rs 20 crore is spent on teachers’ salaries annually in Narmada district alone. If I succeed in reducing absenteeism by 10 per cent, we will save Rs 2 crore,” says Torawane.


Torawane has worked out the economics. “Each machine costs about Rs 25,000. This is not a high cost for the government, considering the benefits,” he says.

A total of 2,508 teachers and 76,994 students of class one to seven will record their attendance by this system when all the primary schools are covered by the end of the year.

The news of the fingerprint attendance machine being installed has caused a flutter in the district.

“Teachers are in the habit of marking their presence on registers and staying away from schools or leaving early,” says VK Joshi, assistant district education officer, who blames absenteeism amongst teachers as the main reason for a high dropout rate in the district.

“The machine will pin responsibility on teachers who come to school only to sign the register. It will also prompt parents to send their children to school regularly,” said Sanabhai Prajapati, primary school teacher at Alampura village, who was at the Tilakwada taluka panchayat office to learn the functioning of the biometric attendance machine. Torawane also plans to use the biometric system for proper implementation of the mid-day meal scheme in schools by preventing pilferage of food, another problem plaguing government schools.


“Over the next three years, we plan to put up the biometric machines in all the 40-odd backward talukas of Gujarat. It would be done after studying the Narmada experiment,” a senior education department official said.