Karnataka government to keep a watch on colleges

Bangalore: To bring transparency in government colleges, the state government has introduced several programmes, including the Educational Management Information System (EMIS), a web-based online system that will a­ll­ow monitoring of most of th­e activities, from enrollment to daily attendance, in th­e­s­e colleges.

The government has also made the biometric attendan­ce monitoring system mandatory to bring in efficiency in degree colleges and government-run polytechnics.

Higher Education Min­ist­er R.V. Deshpande to­ld re­porters on Saturday th­at the EMIS collects and in­teg­rates information from all government colleges. “W­ork is underway to develop modules for student ad­missions, results and faculty,” he said.

The biometric attendance system will ensure transparency and accountability of faculty members in first-grade colleges and government polytechnics, he said.

“We will adopt the direct recruitment policy for college teachers. Once we amend the Cadre and Recruitment Rules, we will fill up all the 913 vacancies. In aided colleges, the government recently transferred over 500 lecturers who had no work load,” he said.

The state government has reconstituted the Ka­rn­ata­ka Knowledge Commission and Dr K. Kasturirangan, who was heading it during the BJP government, has agreed to continue in the post, Deshpande said.