BHUBANESWAR: Attendance of students in degree colleges will soon be digitally recorded by the faculty. At present, attendance in colleges is marked manually and it is considered valid for appearing examinations.At a meeting on the 5T charter pertaining to the Higher Education department held recently, it was decided digital attendance of students will be made mandatory in all government and non-government colleges.
The move is aimed at ensuring and enhancing active participation of students in the classroom learning process. The department mandates 75 per cent attendance for students to be eligible to appear for the final semester examinations and remedial classes for students with low attendance so that they can reach the minimum attendance level.
Similarly, the biometric attendance of teachers will be integrated centrally by the department’s IT team. Recently, the department received allegations from students across all higher educational institutions of many of the faculty members not spending the mandatory seven hours on campuses despite a biometric attendance system in place.
The biometric attendance for teachers was made compulsory in all colleges by the University Grants Commission in 2014 amid allegations of the former skipping classes in campuses to teach in tutorials. It has also been decided that the project monitoring unit of the department will conduct programmes to motivate faculty members of both colleges and universities to improve their performance.
Career counselling cells will also be made functional/active at universities. The meeting, which was presided over by the department Commissioner Arvind Agarwal, also decided to prepare specific guidelines for NAAC visit to the institutions. The higher educational institutions scoring good NAAC grades will be incentivised.
Foolproof plan
Digital attendance will be made mandatory in all govt and non-govt colleges
The move aims at ensuring students’ participation in classroom learning process
The biometric attendance of teachers will be integrated centrally
