JNTU-Hyderabad faculty in soup over attendance

HYDERABAD: JNTU-Hyderabad has sent e-mails to Ph.D. professors working in its affiliated engineering and pharmacy colleges, wanting a written explanation from each of them for attendance record of less than 75 per cent in the month of March. Nearly 1,200-1,500 professors have received this communication from the university. The university had directed  engineering colleges to install biometric devices to monitor attendance and that is how it found the attendance of the professors to be irregular — less than 75 per cent from March 1 to March 27.

“With the above low percentage of biometric attendance of yours we would like to know whether you are facing any problem with the biometric system at your institute or you left the institute and joined elsewhere without any information to the varsity. Please give the correct information otherwise it will be viewed very seriously,” the email said. JNTU registrar Dr N. Yadaiah confirmed that such an email had been sent and responses have been received which are being looked into. Private engineering colleges are unhappy that the varsity did not involve them in this exercise. Colleges that are paying salaries to the professors are not being kept in the loop, said the chairman of a college.

Sunil Reddy, general secretary, Telangana Private Engineering and Professional College Managements Association appreciated JNTU’s steps to improve education standards, but appealed to it not to link it with affiliations, and to monitor the biometric data from the forthcoming academic year. “JNTU authorities came for inspections to grant affiliation for the 2017-18 academic year, rom August. To fulfil faculty requirements, all colleges recruited new faculty members. We appeal to the varsity to monitor the data from August, when the new academic year begins. Also, faculty members are yet to switch to this attendance system,” he said.