The Gongthong Middle Secondary School in Trashigang is embracing technology to take attendance and to keep other records.
Cheki Phuntsho, the officiating vice principal of the school is the one who initiated to go paperless. He was into it since 2012, after he struggled in keeping records of students while serving as a warden.
“It is convenient now. We do not have to carry the register. We can use our phones and take attendance. Even if we forget our phones, we can log in from another mobile by using our email id,” he said.
Teachers now go to the class with just the necessary teaching documents and do not carry attendance register like in the past. They just take the attendance from the mobile phone through the app, which has been handy. The records are sent automatically to the administrator managed by Cheki Phuntsho.
“From last year our school stopped procuring the register book. Everything has been done online. From that, we are able to save money. With this system, all the teachers can be aware of the number of absentees in a short period of time. Before, only the class teacher is aware of the students who are absent,” he added.
“One benefit is that before it takes months to get a total number of students, male and female, boarding and day scholars and so on. With this new system, we can get all the information at once,” Yonten Dorji, a teacher, said.
The school could also invest the budget, which was used for procurement of registers and other papers in other important events and procurement.
Besides daily and periodical attendance going online, the school also started lesson observation, plan submission and evaluations online.
So far Cheki Phuntsho has introduced the online system which is paperless initiative in three other schools in Trashigang and Trashi Yangtse.
