Parents up in arms against school’s plan to electronically ‘tag’ students
Being a parent is arguably the hardest job on the planet. You constantly worry about your kid’s safety while at school and outside it. If parents could, they would be happy to know where their child is at all times.
However, the Doha Modern Indian School’s (DMIS) plan to electronically tag its students and keep them under constant surveillance has come under a lot of flak from parents, reports The Peninsula.
A number of parents of DMIS students met officials of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education to express their distress over the issue.
The parents’ concerns range from violation of human rights to infringement of privacy to health risks associated with the new surveillance system.
With acute shortage of seats in Indian schools, parents are now being forced to pay a fee of QR1,200 per child per year for the service, which has been mandatory by the school.
DMIS had made it mandatory for all students to have the Student Tracking and Ridership Solution (STRS), based on Bluetooth technology, with real time visibility at its campus.
STRS uses Bluetooth Low Energy Technology on its tags, which communicate with Bluetooth beacons hosted around the school and in buses.
“The tracking system will help monitor students right from their boarding station. The tracking system in buses will help check if the child is entering the right bus and getting off at the right stop. Within the school, the system will mark entry of each student, and detect if students are elsewhere on the campus, when classes are going on,” an official told The Peninsula.
The school management argues that the system will discourage students from cutting classes and also prevent unfortunate incidents of children being accidentally left behind on buses.
However, many parents have voiced their concerns on having a radio-wave technology based surveillance system, that too at expensive rates, jeopardising students’ privacy.
“They are trying to impose the card on each and every students. What if a student disengages the chip and keeps it elsewhere? The school should’ve checked with parents first. The card is also rather pricey and parents will have to pay for this yearly or in case of any damage or loss,” said a parent.
Some feel that the use of micro-wave frequency devices will cause health hazard for children.
“The new system is like putting our children in a low power micro-wave oven for more than six hours. This is something we haven’t heard anywhere else in the world, and is hazardous to health,” said Mohammed Riyas.
“Moves to implement similar surveillance in different countries have been dropped due to various health and privacy issues. The school says that the system will help monitor toilet frequency, which personally is a human right violation. We had contacted the ministry officials who told us that the school presentation about the project did not show any possible health risks and hence a green signal to start the new system was given,” said Mohammed, another concerned parent.
The Principal is just a pawn in this game.
It's ultimately a money making scheme hatched by Taleb Group, the local sponsor.
Consumer rights protection law needs to be invoked immediately.
FYI.... Doha Modern Indian School parents are meeting at ICC tomorrow at 8pm (09 FEB) to sign the letter to the Ministry of Education.
We have to wait and see if justice will be served to the hapless parents.
i have requested for an appointment with the principal..i would request other parents who have serious concern regarding this ..lets raise our concern...i came to know only yesterday that this id is mandatory and they were not collecting my child fee for the second term unless i pay for the card....lets unite and raise the concern to the authorities incharge...
Absolutely agreed with HBK, its just that the school shed off from being responsible, so they should bear the cost for implementing the system as part of school standard toward effective control and monitoring . Actually the school is responsible for the safety and security within the school premises, In the event of any incident they will look to escape .
HBK - Valid points . The reality is that parents are held to ransom - much like many schools in India, Pakistan
My question is parents are charged everyyear for this id....there claim will be sunce class changes for students every year...well in that case they should give one unique id to the students and that will be associated to that students for the time/years he studies in the school..will that id he can be tracked for whatever reason which the school claims...its just like normal employees have one electronic id cards in big organisations with multiple branches in qatar...if they move from one branch to another they just swipe the id at the entrance and the company databse records the location of the employeeee...such ids are given to employees till the end of his service only once...but this school system giving cards every year is just a way to earn easy money....nothing else...plus making it mandatory is another issue...i wonder how a kg1 stident knows how to carry these ids or take care of the card inorder not to get lost...its insane..i bought for my daughter but never used it for whole year since she was too small to undestand take care of it so it wont get lost....bottom line is nowadays education has become business and schools taking advantage of the fact that its very hard for patent to switch between schools(due to less number of schools in qatar compared to population) so parents have no option left but to love it or leave it
"We had contacted the ministry officials who told us that the school presentation about the project did not show any possible health risks and hence a green signal to start the new system was given." - That is the worst part of it. Responsibility comes with due diligence too.
Fingerprint scanners at points of entry so that if the student fails to enter in a given time, the system will automatically send a message to parents that his/her child/children has not entered the school.
The school always get the consent from the parents for every little things, but a consent not taken on this matter and fee of 1,200 charged without envolving parent's concent and discussion . Whether an approval has been given by SEC for such an expensive ID's . Many of the parents are not aware of this new tracking system. School Management must justify the need for such ID's .
Is DMIS the first school to implement the STRS? Truly 1,200 QR is a lot almost like hanging a cell phone around your neck ~6 hours per 5 days a week. Why not make it a Wi-Fi RFID instead.
The key here is not tagging - If it is only in and around the school premises.
Will the school ask the parents to fund the payment of the system
I welcome this step, take it positively, it has so many benefits which are good for the kid & the parents as well ............... I am happy ......................... .............