Technologically upgraded ways to manage attendance in a school

In current times when technology is opening doors of many fold opportunities, there are many possible ways a school administrator can take, manage, and track attendance of teachers, students, and other staff.

Most of the ways are also applicable to other industries also, but we would like to limit our discussion with respect to schools and other education institutes only.

ERP software

A standard or customized school management system would have a functionality to manage and track attendance. However, if attendance is taken on paper and required to be uploaded in the ERP software then it’s not a good way to manage attendance as it requires manual efforts that loses the purpose of using technology. Thus, we would come to the second option –

ERP software with mobile app

School use a mobile application to mark teachers/students as present or absent. Also, if this mobile app updates the school management system in real-time OR the app itself is part of the school management system, then it would be the better method because it saves manual efforts to update data across systems. In such a system, almost all updates happen real-time i.e. attendance is marked, and as soon as it is submitted, it updates the master record. In such a system, the school management system can provide enough flexibility to generate different reports related to attendance.

RFID based attendance system

In this attendance system, Low-Frequency Card Readers are mounted in each classroom or shared or at common entrances. Students/Teachers/other staff show their LF ID card to LF Reader to mark his arrival & departure.

• Students, teachers and other staffs are given RFID ID cards
• RFID device are installed at various locations and connected with the RFID Attendance Server housed in the campus
• Students, teachers and other staffs shows RFID ID cards to the Reader as per decided intervals (every lecture, twice a day or once a day)
• The Attendance record is updated on the Attendance web server. Parent & student can log-in and view attendance or apply on-line for leave so that campus is aware of leave in advance.

Biometric-based attendance system

Biometric time and attendance systems have become popular in the business world today when it comes to tracking employees and their attendance. Biometric systems are easy to use, easy to install, and track data regarding employees for management to analyze.

The biggest advantage of these systems is that they prevent employees from clocking in for one another. These systems create more of an honor system for employees to follow, reducing employee time theft.

Biometric time and attendance systems use the fingerprints of employees to verify who is actually clocking in and clocking out of work each day. The system scans the finger of the employee, coordinates are determined and then the system maps the endpoints and intersections of the fingerprint.

Schools, especially government schools are appropriate users of this system as an upper-body wants to ensure the physical presence of teachers especially.

GPS based attendance system

GPS Attendance system, a mobile-based solution, has instantly established itself as one of the most prominent technologies for identifying employees in a quick, fast, and reliable way using GPS (Global Positioning System) location.

Today, various government departments are using this high-end module for regular marking their attendance. Moreover, the system has made it easy for higher authorities and senior officers to track and manage the workings hours of all the employees at the base and remote locations or job sites.

Considered as the best solution than swipe cards, biometrics, and other attendance tracking systems, the GPS attendance module works a lot easier.

This can be easily used by schools as it uses GPS tracking using a GPS device. The same GPS device can be used for the safety of children as well.

Face Recognition based attendance system

In a face recognition based attendance system, a user’s face is scanned by a device (mostly a mobile app). The mobile app than map the user’s face with the geo-codes of the users (exact location) and send it to the server with scanning time. This confirms the user’s presence at a particular place at a particular time.

If a school management system consists of this functionality, attendance can be taken in a self-service mode like GPS or RFID or Biometric based attendance system. However, this does not require any additional hardware if managed by the school management system’s mobile app.

A more advanced system could have a camera with face recognition capabilities.

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