SMS e acompanhamento escolar

Text messages to keep tabs on Croatian schoolchildren

Croatian children will find it more difficult to mess up in school and keep
it secret this year as information about their performance will be available
to parents at the touch of a mobile phone button, an official said.

Thanks to a programme financed by the education ministry, parents can opt to
receive reports about their children's school achievements and attendance
via SMS text messages, Drazen Vikic Topic of the education ministry said.

"Parents will receive general information on school events, activities as
well as on children's behavior and marks," he said.
Text messages to keep tabs on Croatian schoolchildren

"They will also be informed about children's absence and homework
assignments."

To use the programme called "SMS school information" parents will have to
pay 30 kunas (four euros, five dollars) per month.

A total of 115 primary and secondary schools will introduce the programme as
of this school year.

The pilot project was introduced last year in a Zagreb high school.

"The results were excellent. This proved to be a great new way to quickly
and easily access all information," Nada Maric, the school headmaster told
the Vjesnik daily.

"If a child does not appear in school the parent will know within ten
minutes."

It is a unique Croatian product, said Ante Caric, an official of the
Kate-Kom company, which developed the software.

The programme has already been sold to Russia while negotiations are ongoing
to sell it in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Czech Republic, Iran, Slovakia and
Slovenia, he added.

C 2005 AFP
http://www.physorg.com/news6205.html