Dubai: Skip queues for books, uniforms, track child's attendance with new apps

These student-developed mobile applications can help alleviate parental concerns

Nandini Sircar

Published: Wed 6 Mar 2024, 6:00 AM

Last updated: Wed 6 Mar 2024, 9:54 PM

A Dubai school student has developed an application designed to alleviate parental concerns, ensuring they can track whether their children have entered the school premises or chosen to skip school.

The app also promotes punctuality, and student safety while at school, enhances operational efficiency, allows parental involvement, and simplifies administrative processes.

Developed by Saad Muhammad Safeer, a senior school student of DPS Dubai, this app aims to facilitate transparent communication between the school and the parent community by providing real-time updates on student attendance.

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Speaking to Khaleej Times, Saad said: “The app revolves around the seamless integration of the school database and the school’s existing RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) system.”

Saad Muhammad Safeer.

Explaining the process the Grade XI student added: “Many instances have been reported where parents express concern about whether their child has arrived or left school for the day. This is particularly true for parents of kindergarten-age children.”

He added: “There are seven RFID terminals (scanners) across three gates for students’ entry/exit. Every time the student enters the school, he/she, including kindergarteners, is made to scan their RFIDs in the scanner machines. Therefore, every time our students scan the RFID, our school maintains a database which is essentially like a table telling us which student punched at which terminal and at what time.”

Saad highlighted: “Based on this data, I decided to link it with an SMS service. When a student enters or exits the school premises, notifID which is my app accesses the database, retrieves student details using Python, and sends a notification to their parents.”

He stressed what makes notifID innovative is its commitment to addressing real-world problems faced by the school and parents. “NotifID prioritises data security, adhering to strict privacy standards to ensure the secure exchange of sensitive student and parent information,” added Saad.

Skip queues for books, uniforms

Similarly, another student of DPS, Dubai has developed a desktop application designed to streamline book and uniform purchases from the school store.

The app that was developed by Kinjal Chakraborty and Parth Kohli was the result of countless personal experiences and a general frustration that they tried redressing.

Kinjal Chakraborty (left) and Parth Kohli.

“Students had to forgo their lunch breaks and miss out on other productive activities due to the extended queues, which proved to be both tedious and inconvenient. Some even occasionally missed classes while waiting in line for their turn. This experience has been the catalyst for the development of this app”, said Kinjal, when asked about his inspiration to develop the app.

The app facilitates browsing as well as ordering books and uniforms through a user-friendly interface with articles being delivered to classrooms. Developed over six months with rigorous testing, BookVerse automates administrative tasks like order tracking, stock management, pricing, and receipt organisation.

“We discussed this with the IT department of our school and deliberated on how to integrate it into our systems. Then we installed it on some of our classmates’ devices for testing purposes and the response has been good. We’ve handed over the project to our juniors and they are working on developing further prototypes and bettering it. I am given to believe that in this year’s upcoming school book sales, the app will be used extensively by students,” added the outgoing Grade XII student.

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