Japanese university giving pupils iPhones

[sajiv]

Japanese university giving pupils iPhones

Hundreds of students of a top Japanese university are getting sat-nav iPhones, so that it's easier to track them down in case they skip classes.

Usually, students fake attendance by getting friends to answer proxy roll-call or hand in signed attendance cards.

But now, Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo has found a solution to reel in students back into classes-they are giving Apple's iPhone 3G to 550 students in its School of Social Informatics, which studies the use of internet and computer technology in society.

Not only the hi-tech gadget will work as a tool for studies, but the GPS (a satellite navigation system) present in the phone can check on its whereabouts automatically.

And thus, it could act as a convenient way to prove attendance, reports The Daily Express.

However, there is one glitch-truants could still fake attendance by giving their iPhone to a friend who goes to classes.

But the university has claimed that youngsters are unlikely to lend the hi-tech mobile phones, which are packed with personal information and email. (ANI)