Lucknow, March 2 : The Uttar Pradesh government is planning to introduce an online attendance system for the students to check absenteeism. The biometric attendance for teachers and staff in the government schools in already in place. The move comes in the wake of declining number of students attending schools. "Through an online dashboard, schools will be able to monitor attendance daily and take steps to mitigate gaps in case of frequent absenteeism. The dashboard will also help curb dropout rates in the government schools," said an official. Secondary education minister Gulab Devi had mentioned about the online attendance system for students in government schools while responding to a question in the state Assembly. Earlier, the department had linked the attendance of staff (teaching and non-teaching) as recorded by biometric scanners with their salary payment. As per Unified District Information System for Education 2021-22 data, secondary schools in UP have a dropout rate of 9. 7 per cent. Drop-out rate refers to the proportion of pupil enrolled in a given level at a given school year who are no longer enrolled at any grade in the following school year. Transition rate from secondary to higher secondary schools in UP is 80.4 per cent. /IANS