Inspired by Planning Commission’s idea of having smartcards in toilets, many schools and colleges in India are considering adopting the same technology to better plan and manage campus activities. While Planning Commission had thought of smartcards to provide security, educational institutes are installing them to find out culprits who draw offensive sketches and write rude messages on the walls of the toilets. “Earlier we used to have common toilets for teachers and students but we decided to have separate toilets for teachers after we found our caricatures drawn on the walls,” a part-time lecturer in one of the Delhi University colleges told Faking News on conditions of anonymity. This slogan in one of the colleges was suspected to be written by a Science or Commerce student “There was no way to find out who the culprit was. We couldn’t have installed CCTV cameras inside the toilets,” Harish Singh, the principal of the college said, “We thought of inviting handwriting experts but we dropped the idea, and instead decided to have separate toilets.” “But sketches and slogans continued even there!” Harish said, “This time someone had put my mobile number and written – need ego massage, call urgently – must be that Maths teacher!” Many other educational institutes confirmed that the management was concerned with such activities, mostly suspected of being carried out by the students. To stop such embarrassing and obscene activities, these institutes have decided to implement the smartcard-in-toilet idea, which will help school and college management find out who visited toilet at what time. “Once an offensive sketch of slogan is found written on the wall by our janitors, we will look into the data to find out who all visited the toilets in the preceding period, and pin down our investigations on those suspects,” the principal explained the benefits of smartcards. The idea has been largely opposed by the students as they see it as a violation of privacy, insult to art, and attack on free speech. “They are more concerned about similar smartcard enabled entry to places like institute’s gym, library, canteen, auditorium, classroom, etc.” Harish Singh argued, “We would have data on how much time these guys spend on eating and exercising than studying. They fear such report cards being sent to their parents.”
Posted on: Fri, 06 Sep 2013 03:10:15 +0000