Mangalore University flying squad to check students' attendance

Students in colleges affiliated to Mangalore University will have to take their attendance seriously from the next semester, as a flying squad of the university will visit colleges randomly and check the attendance statements every month.

Vice Chancellor Prof K Byrappa said at the academic council meeting on Wednesday that 7% attendance is compulsory for a student to write the examinations. There are complaints of colleges charging exorbitant fees to ‘give’ attendance to the students to write the examinations. The squad will visit the colleges randomly and even take photographs of the attendance statements.

Uniform timetable

Noting that internal assessment examinations in colleges are hampering the students from taking part in inter-college sports and cultural programmes, Director of Physical Education Mangalore University Dr Kishore Kumar C K said that uniform timetable for the internal examination should be announced by the university.

Prof K Byrappa said that a uniform timetable will be announced by the university from next semester. To bring in parity in the internal assessment marks of the students in autonomous and affiliated colleges, the university will mull over random checking of the valuation of answer scripts too in autonomous colleges, he added.

Dr Kishore Kumar said that physical education should be introduced as an optional paper in undergraduate courses of the University. At present only Alva’s College, Moodbidri, has such an option. The VC directed Dr Kishore Kumar to conduct a workshop to work out the modalities for introducing physical education as a core subject in UG courses and submit a detailed report at the next academic council meeting.

Virtual lab

Dr Byrappa directed Dr Sripad K S of Department of Zoology to prepare a proposal for the setting up of a virtual lab. As dissections are banned in classrooms for PG and UG courses, the students are using a software to learn the dissection. A virtual lab will provide a hands-on experience to the students, he added.

The Academic Council approved the institution of two gold medals for top scorers in MBA and BCom examinations in the name of Dr H V Shankar Narayana and another gold medal for the top scorer in PG in Hindi in the name of Shri Narayana Rao Malkhed.