Govt’s EMIS push brings OTP challenges

Chennai: Collecting the mandatory one-time passwords (OTPs) from parents for the Educational Information Management System (EMIS) portal remains a challenge for govt school teachers in Tamil Nadu as many parents refuse to share them fearing cyber scams. The govt, however, reports that more than 25 lakh numbers have already been added and that the entire work will be completed this week.
The EMIS portal, which holds relevant information about students and teachers in govt, aided, and private schools across the state, is set for an upgrade.The upgrade requires contact details of parents so that the govt can directly share information about uniforms, notebooks, and educational material given to the children and inform them about holidays, exams, and results.
Teachers must contact parents for OTPs sent to their mobile phones to add them to the EMIS portal. However, without school landlines, teachers use personal phones, raising suspicions about potential scams.
An audio clip of a conversation between a teacher and a parent in Chennai, shared among teachers recently, shows the reluctance of parents to trust the process, citing RBI and police warnings against sharing OTPs over phone calls. Besides, frequent technical issues with the portal, requiring repeated OTP requests, have worsened delays, say teachers' unions.
A senior school education department official said that the govt is trying to create a communication channel as nearly 70% of the parents’ mobile numbers in the current database are incorrect, making it impossible for any govt department to function effectively.
While the official admitted that some teachers face hardship, he also claimed it is not that difficult to convince parents and accused some unions of being lazy and unwilling to work during the summer holidays.
Teachers’ unions suggest that the best approach is to collect parents’ phone numbers during Parent-Teacher (PT) meetings after schools reopen or have students verify the calls’ legitimacy.
“During the summer holidays, it’s hard to reach students, and parents are reluctant to come to school because they have work commitments,” said G Arul, a teacher from Coimbatore. The school education department is reportedly trying to outsource this data entry work.
Educators and lab assistants in 14,500 middle, high, and higher secondary schools across the state will enter and update student and teacher details in the EMIS portal starting next academic year.