TAKING attendance by roll call, a traditional method used in local schools, may lose its popularity when the Queen Maud Middle School sets up a computerised bar code system in the next school year for the job. Students will be given a card encoded with their names and classes. They only have to lay their cards on a reading machine at the entrance of the school and their attendance will be recorded. The school wants to install the bar code system to help both teachers and students in attendance taking and book borrowing. It will be the first school in the territory to have such a hi-tech installation. Principal Mr Paul Yau Yat-heem expects the system to be completed this September when the school moves from Rennie's Mill to Junk Bay because of the clearance project. He said the reading machines would be similar to those used in supermarkets while the student identity cards, like the food in the supermarket, will be printed with bars encoded with information. Students can also use the cards to borrow books when the library installs a computer network. ''By that time, teachers will not have to waste their time calling out a list of names every lesson. Students will have more time to study and teachers will have better control of the class. ''We can also save manpower because we only need one person to stand behind the machine to check if the students are using their own cards,'' Mr Yau said. He added that even attendance taking might seem simple and trivial, it was actually very important and time-consuming. ''The purpose of attendance taking is to make sure that the students have arrived at the school. We have the responsibility to take care of them. We call the parents if their children are absent. Sometimes, it takes us the whole morning just to make these calls. ''A computerised network can speed up our work and save manpower. We only need to call the file and print out the data to check who's in and who's not.'' Portable machines could be used for outdoor activities, like sports day and swimming gala so that students can be controlled, Mr Yau added. The principal estimates the entire system to cost tens of thousands of dollars, depending on the number and the quality of machines. He said bar code systems would be more durable and would cost less to maintain. ''We hope to set up a system which is affordable by most secondary schools,'' he said. Mr Yau, who is also the convenor of a working group on computerisation for schools under the Subsidised Secondary School Council, is a technology enthusiast. He strongly believes that schools should be taking advantage of the technology in this computer era. ''Many people still hold the perception that technology can be used only in industry and commerce. They are not aware that technology can be used in schools, to replace the paperwork, speed up management and save manpower.'' According to the principal, the school plans to install other modern equipments like televisions, projectors and telephones in the classrooms in the future.
