Attendance is one of the important tasks conducted by the school administration in order to maintain the track record of the student. It is a crucial task but consumes too much time.
Maintaining attendance is supposed to benefit the progress of student but in reality, it is not contributing much to the progress of the student. The duration of the interaction of student and teacher gets minimized as the teacher has to mark the attendance of the whole class manually. Hence, the crucial time gets misallocated and, ultimately, hampers the pace of progress of the students.
In order to counter this inefficiency, the automated attendance management system can play an important role. IT will save this crucial time for the students and teachers. Automated attendance systems employ user-friendly interface which can provide accurate statistics of a student’s track record such as present days, absent days and half-days.
Types of Automated Attendance Management System
In this era of technology, the various automated attendance management system is available, such as:
- Biometric system – In this method, the fingerprint of the student is saved in the biometric system. Students just need to place their finger on the device and their attendance will be marked. The biometric system is further connected to ERP and hence the data can be accessed by the school authorities at any time. Under this mechanism, there is very less chance of false attendance, which makes it more reliable.
- Radio Frequency Identification – Radio frequency identification method is the latest addition in the list of the automated attendance management system. Here, students are provided a smart card with a unique identification number. This system is capable of marking the attendance of several students at a time without any error. The data is then fetched by the ERP system and can be managed by the concerned authorities of the school.
- Attendance Management Software – Attendance management software is a better way to manage the attendance of the students in a school. It is directly connected to ERP so that attendance can be marked in real-time without any hassle. The software can reduce the efforts of the teacher and it can also act as a channel of communication between the parents and teachers. It is more reliable and accurate than manual records.
Advantages of Automated Attendance System
Following are the advantages of an automated attendance system over manual management of attendance:
- Excludes the use of paper and human labor
- User-friendly interface
- More systematic
- More accurate
- Fewer chances of false attendance or proxies
- Easy to find the defaulters in the class
- Management of large database at a single location
- Acts as a communication channel between parents and teachers.
How Attendance Management Software Helps Achieve All Benefits of Automated Management System?
Attendance management software is a one-stop solution for the management of attendance with some additional advantages as compared to other ways of attendance management.
- Accuracy and Accessibility
Managing attendance via such software has its own perks and of them is accuracy. They are far more accurate than a human when it comes to the management of student records. Also, they are user-friendly, which makes it easy for the teachers and the parents to evaluate the data of the students.
- Security
The software is fully secured from false attendance and proxies as the data is being shared in real-time. There is less chance of any kind of manipulation in the records. As compared to RFID and biometric system, such software is a better option because of its lower vulnerability to any kind of malfunction. Unlike RFID and Biometric, this software doesn’t use any card or device which is prone to getting defective.
- Mode of Communication
This feature separates the attendance management software from other mechanisms of managing attendance. It can act as a channel of communication between teachers and guardians where they can discuss the track record of the student. Guardians can share the leave or medical issues of their children so that teachers can evaluate and mark the reason for student absence.
- Analysis
To boost the performance of a student in the academic arena, teachers, and parents needs to analyze the records. The functionality of such software is not limited to attendance, but it can be integrated with ERP to provide BI tools in the form of a dashboard. In ERP, guardians can keep an eye on various other aspects other than attendance such as marks, co-curricular activities, assignments, etc. and take action accordingly.
- Time Management
In schools and colleges, available time is limited and teachers are supposed to complete syllabus on time. It takes approximately 10 crucial minutes to manually mark the attendance of 40 students. By using such software, teachers can utilize this crucial time in clearing the doubts of students or use it for other such student benefits.
- No Paperwork
There is no requirement of maintaining any attendance register or any other document related to attendance. Therefore, the software can save many paper sheets and registers, which can be utilized for a better purpose. Imagine the number of trees that will not face the axe if your school uses such software. Almost 3 attendance registers are required for a single session of a single class. If there are 12 classes with minimum 3 sections, then, the number of registers required will be 108.
Conclusion
Software for management of attendance is genuinely superior, even better than biometrics and radio frequency identification. It is simple to use and provides a wide range of benefits over other conventional and technical methods of attendance management. It is not only accepted by international schools but also by multinational companies for the attendance management of their employees.
Initial deployment of the software requires some investment but it will be beneficial over the long term. Students and teachers will get more time for interaction, which will improve the academic result and school will earn the confidence of the parents. Deploying automated software in schools will be a smart move in this fast-moving world.
