Yogi government suspends digital attendance of teachers for two months

Lucknow, July 16 (IANS): The Uttar Pradesh government has decided to suspend the implementation of a digital attendance system for two months following massive protests by public school teachers across the state.

MK Shanmuga Sundaram, principal secretary (basic education), said on Tuesday that an expert committee would be formed during these two months to look into the problems of teachers.

Hundreds of thousands of teachers and “Shiksha Mitras” (assistant teachers) in public schools have been protesting against the decision since July 8, the first day of its implementation.

On July 8, only 2 percent of the 609,000 teachers recorded their attendance digitally. And on July 10, even fewer did so. The protest grew louder and teachers took to the streets across the state.

“But now it has been postponed for two months and teachers’ concerns are being examined,” the school secretary said by phone.

Earlier, the chairman of the Primary School Teachers’ Association, Dinesh Chandra Sharma, and other leading representatives of the teaching profession met with the chief secretary Manoj Kumar Singh.

“The teachers’ view was presented in the meeting with the chief secretary. After hearing our view, the chief secretary decided to postpone the digital presence and form a committee to look into the issues raised by the teachers,” Sharma claimed in a post on X, sharing photos of his meeting with the chief secretary.

On July 12, the government softened its stance and announced that teachers can use the digitized class register app throughout the school year.

“Until the process of recording teacher attendance is fully established, the digital register app will be available throughout the school term,” said Director General of School Education Kanchan Verma.

On July 12, the Department of Basic Education lifted the 8:30 am restriction on uploading attendance records, a day after Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath intervened to resolve the impasse between government school teachers and the Department of Basic Education over digitisation of attendance records.

The following day, district-level field workers visited various schools between 7:30 am and 10:30 am to assist the teachers and encourage them to use the Prerna app to upload relevant information regarding midday meal, student attendance, etc. without putting any pressure on the teachers. It was found that the app needed updating.

The teachers stated that they were not against the online attendance system, but demanded that some of their demands be met.

“We are not against the online attendance reminder. But we have other demands that need to be met before the online attendance reminder system can be introduced,” said Vipin Kumar Bihari, chairman of the teachers’ association.

“There is no provision for paid leave (EL) or special leave (CL) for teachers. So teachers must be granted 30 days of EL and 14 days of half special leave. The government can abolish the June holiday,” said another teacher.

Vipin Kumar Bihari said there was a misconception among the public that “teachers are against online participation in classes”.

He said no teacher in Uttar Pradesh was against online classes. He added that teachers only wanted an infrastructure to be developed before introducing online classes where legitimate practical problems could be resolved.

Opposition leaders and BJP MPs and their leaders also wrote to the Prime Minister demanding the withdrawal of the digital attendance system.