REOPENING of schools remains a hotly debated topic all over the world. How do you ensure the safety of students and teachers if and when schools reopen?
Standard operating procedure specific to schools has been created in some countries and will work to some extent. But loopholes remain.
For example, if the SOP states that only a certain number of students is allowed into schools at any one point, how will that process be efficiently managed manually, considering the need for social distancing?
The mere task of taking temperature manually has already been red flagged as risky proximity, what more when it involves a few people getting close to hundreds of students every day.
Schools will also have the issue of managing third party service providers who will be hired to conduct the sanitisation of classrooms or to put up social distancing plastic barriers in the premises.
This is where technology solutions using biometrics, artificial intelligence, thermal scanners and communication tools, among others, can easily plug these loopholes. Green Packet Bhd
’s solution called KipleLive has this complete package.
KipleLive CEO Ti Lian Seng pointed out that the KipleLive solution has already been deployed at several schools such as Rafflesia International and Private Schools, as well as a number of secondary schools in the Klang Valley.
He said Green Packet’s aim is to play a role in helping all the 10,000 government primary and secondary schools in their eventual opening.
Just last week, Green Packet partnered with Chinese educationist group Dong Zong to deploy its KipleLive thermal scanners across 63 independent Chinese secondary schools.
Over the next two weeks, KipleLive will be fully installed in the 63 schools including in Sabah and Sarawak. These schools overseen by Dong Zong (United Chinese School Committees Association of Malaysia) have more than 81,500 students and 4,500 teachers.
According to Ti, the opening of schools is important to ensure that education is not jeopardised.
There are limitations to online learning, not to mention the waning attention span of students after long hours of screen time. Furthermore, underprivileged students who do not have access to online tools will be at a disadvantage, he said.
“The current situation creates an urgency for schools to put in place technologically advanced protection systems that can continue to function even if Covid-19 goes away as there may be other outbreaks such as influenza and hand, foot and mouth disease, that continue to pose threats to the safety of schoolchildren.
“The investment is not just for now, but for the longer term safety and security of these institutions, ” he added.
Ti said that a proper framework for outbreak prevention in schools would need to be in place to ensure accurate contact tracing.
“Our KipleLive platform is built to isolate high risk individuals from entering the school by facial identification and user verification.”
He said that many schools are currently actively looking to deploy contactless solutions such as AI-powered temperature scanning tools to ensure that risky individuals found to have high temperature are immediately isolated.
“The data will be viewable to the staff and linked to the parents’ accounts. All temperature scan records and attendance of individuals are digitally recorded. This will support easier and quicker contact tracing, ” he said.
Ti pointed out that merely placing cameras in schools would not be sufficient.
“The deployment of these cameras would require extensive experience in the optimisation of back-end configurations on both hardware and software to ensure accurate reading and data capturing.”
He added that in a typical deployment for school attendance, it is recommended that two face recognition cameras be installed at the hallway near the entry gates which students walk past when they arrive at the school, especially to cater for the difference in height of students.
Floors will be marked with yellow tape to guide students to walk past the “attendance zone” which is the most optimal camera view for facial detection.
“Since the faces of children are typically harder to track in terms of face recognition, only companies who are experienced in face recognition would be able to conduct optimisation of student profiles.
“This experience has helped us and our partners to optimise the algorithm for more accurate facial recognition for young children, ” said Ti.
Schools need to go cashlessOne other basic technological improvement that schools need to have is electronic payment, according to Ti.
Firstly, Covid-19 has raised concerns about the handling of cash, as the virus is said to be able to remain on notes and coins. Bullying and extortion in schools also thrives when students carry cash, he said.
Using electronic payment systems in schools makes it difficult for such untoward incidents. It also gives parents a clear record of their children’s purchases.
Green Packet Bhd has pioneered digital initiatives in the education sector for some time. It’s KipleUNI programme is currently fulfilling the needs of students, universities and merchant partners via digital platforms at multiple public universities.
Early this year, Green Packet together with Bank Islam Malaysia launched the KipleUNl programme, with 70% of students at Universiti Utara Malaysia using the system.
Green Packet’s plan is to roll it out to three other universities – Universiti Teknologi Mara, Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM) and Universiti Putra Malaysia – by June.
KipleUNI is meant to fulfil the needs of students, universities and merchant partners via seamless electronic payment transactions on a digital platform. Green Packet expects the take-up rate of KipleUNI to reach more than 175,000 university users by end-2020.
Adapting to the new normal need not compromise the quality of learning and development of students. What happens beyond this point will not be a temporary measure but a blueprint for healthier and safer schools.
For further inquiries, please visit kiplelive.com, where the experts will be able to assist you.
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