Punjab’s education system is getting a tighter grip on student attendance with the government rolling out a new system to track every child’s presence in school and keep parents directly informed and the announcement was made today as the Punjab government launched the next phase of its education reform program ‘Mission Samarth 4.0’ led by Education Minister Harjot Singh Bains.
The biggest highlight of this new phase is a state-wide online attendance system now active in around 18,000 government schools across Punjab and now under this system:
Parents will receive an SMS every time their child is absent from school
If a student remains absent for more than three days, the school will directly call the parents
If the absence continues district-level officials will step in after 15 days to follow up with the family
The government says this step is meant to ensure that children attend school regularly and do not drop out silently.
According to the minister the system will cover nearly 30 lakh students studying in government schools and along with improving attendance it is also expected to increase student safety as parents will immediately know if their child has missed school.
The attendance system has been introduced as part of ‘Mission Samarth 4.0’ which focuses on improving basic learning levels in early classes and the government claims Punjab students are already performing 18% better in Class 3 and around 26–28% better in Class 6 compared to the national average and the aim is to push this closer to 100%.