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.