The School Education Department in Telangana is planning to replace the manual attendance system in government schools with an Artificial Intelligence-based facial recognition system. An android app will be used to capture attendance in the classroom, eliminating the need for paper registers. The new system is expected to be launched by the end of September and will benefit 26 lakh students in 26,000 schools.
The AI algorithm used in the system will generate a secured binary template based on 72 points in the face, rather than capturing photos of the students. A small thumbnail image of each student, less than 5KB in size, will be used to match the student against their name. All the facial templates will be securely encrypted and stored within the department-provided infrastructure.
The captured facial templates will only be used for academic purposes by the designated authorities in the Education Department. The data will not be used for any other purposes.
Once the application is launched, students’ facial details will be taken and stored in the app. To take attendance, teachers will need to capture a photograph of the entire classroom, and the facial details of the students will automatically synchronize with the details saved in the application. This system will be implemented for 26 lakh students in various types of schools, including government and local body schools, Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas, Model Schools, and Telangana Residential Educational Institutions.
Initially, the facial recognition system will be implemented for students, and later it will be extended to teachers. Currently, biometric attendance is already in use for teachers in 15 districts. The implementation of this new system aims to address the needs and challenges of the current attendance processes in schools. The School Education Department has engaged M/s RNIT Solutions and Services Limited for the implementation of this Facial Recognition attendance management system.
