No More Missing Students As Schools Adapt Advanced Technology To Track Students’ Attendance

One common thing about “Missing child Kenya ” pictures is the school uniforms. Yes, most reported cases of lost children involve students. But who takes our children out of school? why do abductors target school going children?

Well, since this has been a painful thorn in our schools, Kenyan schools are doing everything possible to ensure that the safety of students is given top priority. In some cases, we have seen CCTV cameras failing to provide 100% security to our students.

To curb cases of insecurity among students, schools have started using the Biometric technology, typical fingerprints system to address the issue.

Basically, this technology has been utilized for managing the workforce, but now the schools can greatly benefit from biometrics technology to achieve accuracy and security in tracking students attendance.

Basically, when a student goes missing it takes parents and students very Long time to detect, however, with biometrics any missing link can be identified quickly.

Following many cases of missing students from various primary and secondary school; Both boarding and day schools in Kenya, Over hundred schools have now turned into Biometrics to track down students truancy. Among the schools that are using this technology is State Girls High School.

How does Biometrics work

For boarding schools, students sign in to school using the biometrics system. When a student places a finger on the biometric reader, an alert is sent to the parent and the school to confirm that the student has arrived in the school.  The student also is supposed to sign out when leaving for home after closing schools.

For Day-scholars, students are expected to sign in every day when they get in school and sign out every day as they walk out of school. With such a strategy, parents and the school can detect any abnormality immediately.

Apart from attendance only, Biometrics can be used in monitoring National examinations to eliminate cases of impersonation. They could also be used in dining halls to ensure that bullies do not take advantage of other students when it comes to meals time.

On June 3rd we had a case of a journalist stoned and his car burnt while he was following up a story of a missing student in Machakos.