Pay attention at the back: Chinese school installs facial recognition cameras to keep an eye on pupils
Pupil tells reporters he doesn’t dare let his mind wander after technology is installed in classroom to see who is paying attention
A school in eastern China has installed cameras to monitor pupils’ facial expressions and attentiveness in class, an online news portal has reported.
A series of photos published on the Sina News website on Wednesday show three cameras installed on top of the blackboard at the 11th middle school in Hangzhou, capital of the eastern province of Zhejiang, to capture their behaviour.
The cameras, which the report described as “teaching assistants”, are part of the school’s “Smart Classroom Behaviour Management System” to give teachers real-time information on their students.
The school said it could use the cameras to analyse pupils’ facial expressions to determine whether they were enjoying lessons and whether they were paying attention.
“Using this system we can see which classmates are concentrating in class and whose mind is wandering,” the school’s head teacher, Ni Ziyuan, was quoted as saying.