Teachers Association files objection to biometric workforce management in Karnataka

The Karnataka Government College Doctorate Teachers’ Association has filed an objection to the Department of Collegiate Education’s (DCE) move to introduce biometric workforce management systems, calling it a “travesty.”

First reported in the New Indian Express, H Prakash, the president of the teachers’ association, thinks if attendance is an issue, school administrators should be the ones to enforce the policy, not machines.

“It is the principal who is responsible for ensuring that teachers com on time,” Prakash said. “Why should we have principals when devices can do their job?”

According to the New Indian Express report, the DCE gave approximately US $400,000 (Rs 2.29 crore) to government degree colleges to purchase biometric workforce management systems. This amounted to approximately US $1800 (Rs 64,000) for each of the 359 colleges.

Many schools in various regions of the world are looking to install biometric attendance systems or have done so recently. These systems are typically for teacher attendance, student attendance or student payment systems. In some cases deployments are successful, but in others they are met with resistance, as this system has been in Karnataka.

Reported previously in BiometricUpdate.com, teachers in government schools in Andhra Pradesh have threatened to strike against a proposed biometric attendance system.

Similarly, faculty members at Florida Gulf Coast University have twice voted to reject biometric fingerprinting for the school’s 1,000 employees.

Article Topics

education  |  fingerprint  |  fingerprint biometrics  |  government  |  government purchasing  |  time and attendance  |  workforce management