From as early as I can remember, attendance has always been taken the same way i.e. either by calling the names or Roll number. This approach though simple has some downsides like it is time consuming, is slow & the repetition of the same thing class after class makes it tiresome. So is there a better way? Yes there is.

In today’s IT driven world, continuous innovations are changing the very way we live our lives & this very drive can be used to provide a solution to the above mentioned problem where a concept called CIRCULAR DOUBLE LINKED LIST from the world of computer science can be used. Consider the following diagram.

Circular double linked list

A, B & C are three data items or entities connected to each other by links. Here A knows about the presence of B & C, B knows about the presence of A & C and C knows about the presence of A & B. First entity always knows about the presence last entity.

The above logic can be used for taking attendance. Consider a class with 10 students, (staring from roll number 1 to 10) diagrammatically represented below.

Each number represents a roll number

Here each student represented by numbers from 1 to 10 has two responsibilities, one is to check if the student just before him/her on the roll is present & the other is to check for the same with respect to the student just after him/her. In the above diagram student with roll number 1 check’s if student’s with roll number 2 & 10 (one before him/her and one after him/her) are present or not. Similarly the student with roll number 2 check’s for 1 & 3 (one before him/her and one after him/her), 3 checks for 2 & 4 and so on until the end where 10 checks for students with roll numbers 1 & 9. Each absentee is reported which can be cross-checked by the teacher by tallying the total number of students marked as present with the head count.

Advantages

(a) It is faster as the student’s can check & keep the information ready as to who is absent before the class starts or during the class (will take less then 1 minute). So time is saved.

(b) Each absentee is reported twice i.e. if student with roll number 2 is absent then it is reported by both i.e. roll number 1 & 3. So gives a double confirmation.

(c) The students are occupied leaving them no time to talk or have fun.

(d) There is no scope for proxies, a big plus.

Disadvantages

(a) If more than three students on consecutive rolls are absent then it cannot be used in the above form. But that won’t be a problem in colleges where the nightmare of maintaining 75-85% attendance continuously hovers over the students head.

(b) It is difficult to implement it in primary classes.

(c) It is not possible to implement this if the students are irresponsible or are not trustworthy. But we are all responsible and trustworthy people. Aren’t we?