Now, look smart with campus card

Ashu Kumar in New Delhi

Increasing number of students and ever-expanding lists of courses being offered by education institutions have made the routine administration job a Herculean task.

Although computers and software applications have helped the education industry in automating their libraries and accounting systems to an extent, managing student access to several facilities as well as keeping track of critical activities like enrolment, attendance, examination, are still waiting for an effective solution.

Smart card technology seems to have the answer. Smart cards for students and faculty are being used by major educational institutions and universities in the US. And now the technology is attracting the attention of Indian institutions as well.

Realising the usage of smart cards for student administration, the Scindia School of Gwalior has decided to adopt the smart card technology and DOEACC Society (an autonomous body of ministry of information technology), which has around 3 lakh students enrolled under it from across the country, is also considering the option of introducing smart cards for its students.

According to a consultant working with a Delhi-based SHTR Consulting, Vineet Agrawal, Scindia School will distribute smart cards (dubbed Campus Cards) to all of its 600 students. The cards will be valid for multiple purposes such as photo identity, library card, report card, attendance card, health card, parking lot pass, canteen card, etc. These can also be used for accessing Internet centres, marking attendance and payment of fees. SHTR is one of the companies pitching for Scindia School’s smart card project.

DOEACC conducts examination twice a year, in which 70,000 students appear. ‘‘Smart cards can help save enormous efforts in sending examination admit cards to so many students,’’ said DOEACC executive director P N Gupta.

A smart card is a card with a microchip embedded in it. It is similar in shape and size to a credit card. There are two types of smart cards: contact cards that require a reader and contactless cards which use radio frequency signals to operate.