UGC wants compulsory biometric tracking of students

The University Grants Commission (UGC) has asked higher educational institutions (HEIs) in the country to instal biometric devices on their campus and hostels to keep an eye on the “movement and whereabouts” of students.

This is one of the measures suggested by the higher education regulator in a set of guidelines issued recently for ensuring safety of students within and outside university and college campuses.

“Biometrically marking student attendance, both in HEIs as well as hostels, can be an effective way of overcoming proxy. Such digital mechanism can enable higher educational institutes to keep an eye on a student’s movement and whereabouts,” the UGC has said.

Students and staff should also be provided with “easily identifiable” and authentic identity cards.
Wearing such cards on the institutional premises must be made compulsory by the administration, it added.

The UGC has also advised universities and colleges to organise parent-teacher meetings in every quarter, so “grievances and gaps in the system can be addressed and resolved”. The commission has also urged the HEIs to roll out an online complaint registration system so issues are addressed “before they slip out of the hands of the authorities”.

It has also asked institutes to “mandatorily” put in place a broad-based system to counsel students for effective management of problems and challenges they face.

“It should be a unique, interactive and target-oriented system, involving students, teachers and parents, resolved to address common student concerns ranging from anxiety, stress, fear of change and failure to homesickness and a slew of academic worries,” said the commission.

The counselling system should bridge formal as well as communicative gaps between students and the institution, it said. Teachers to be deployed as counsellors should be trained to take care of students as their guardians at the institute. Each counsellor should be given charge of at least 25 students, said the UGC.

“They should cater to the emotional and intellectual needs of students and convey their growth report and feedback on attendance and examination results to their parents at regular intervals,” the commission has advised.