Yorkshire school adds biometric lunches
A Yorkshire school has shown the foresight and tech-awareness to hook up a £28,000 biometric identification system to dish out their school dinners.
Seen in only a few educational establishments in Britain, the biometric fingerprint machine identifies the student and assigns them a number which is used to pay for their turkey twizzlers healthy school meals.
Headteacher Martin Shevill told the YEP: “There’s been quite a bit of excitement among the kids this lunchtime, but I’m sure that will die down in no time and it’ll become the norm.
“The technology is being trialed at several schools around the country and the school meal contractors, Kingswood, asked us if we’d like to be the pioneers in Wakefield.
He added: “There are several benefits to the system – instead of scrabbling around for loose change every morning, parents can send in a cheque which can be credited to their child’s account. It also means there’s less cash in school and no difference for children getting free school meals.”
But the system’s chief benefit will be for eagle-eyed parents hoping to catch out youngsters who might not be telling the whole truth about what they’ve had for lunch. Mr Shevill said: “If we or their parents suspect a pupil might not be eating right, we can print out exactly what they’ve been eating from the canteen. “So if they’re going home telling their parents they’ve had a nice salad for lunch, the printout will tell the real story.”
I wonder how often the canteen staff will clean the fingerprint sensor? If it’s any less than daily, then I’d instruct my kids to run for the front of the queue. Kids are filthy. Source is here.