HGP Nightly News – Education Minister Sonia Parag has moved to quell growing disquiet over the rollout of biometric attendance systems in schools, insisting that no pressure is being applied to Parent-Teacher Associations or school administrators to fund the devices themselves.
In a statement accompanying the initiative’s launch, the Minister confirmed that some schools have already acquired the fingerprint-based systems using their existing grants, but stressed this was done without any directive or compulsion from the Ministry of Education. Schools, she maintains, are entirely free to decide whether to purchase the equipment, and where grants have already been exhausted, the Ministry will step in to assist.
“There is no force or pressure on teachers or PTAs to divert school funds to buy the equipment,” Parag asserted.
But that reassurance has done little to calm nerves in some quarters. Several schools have reported being told they must source funding to acquire the biometric devices, describing the requirement as both unfair and burdensome. The dissonance between the Ministry’s official position and the accounts emerging from school communities threatens to undermine the initiative before it fully takes root.
The controversy traces back to a recent school visit by the Minister early in the academic term, during which she found several teachers absent, a discovery she says underscores the urgent need for stronger accountability mechanisms. Consistent instruction, she argues, requires consistent presence.
The biometric system, which requires teachers to clock in and out using fingerprint verification, is expected to be introduced across more schools in the coming months. The Ministry insists the measure is not punitive, but rather a tool designed to strengthen attendance monitoring and, ultimately, improve classroom delivery.
Whether schools come to see it as assistance or imposition may depend on how loudly the Ministry continues to insist that the choice is theirs. For now, the fingerprints of controversy remain all over the rollout.
