This story is from September 24, 2018

Patna colleges fail to ensure 75% attendance

Patna colleges fail to ensure 75% attendance
(Representative image)
PATNA: Although the chancellor’s secretariat has initiated several steps, including introduction of biometric attendance, for ensuring presence of teachers and supporting staff in colleges and universities of the state, nothing has so far been done to ensure the presence of students in classrooms. Even in the state capital, not more than 20% of students on roll attend their classes regularly, the provision of compulsory 75% attendance for being sent up for final examination notwithstanding.
Almost all the colleges and postgraduate departments of Patna University (PU) have already introduced biometric attendance for their teachers and non-teaching staff and started monitoring their regular presence on the campus, but regular attendance of students in classrooms remains a problem for most institutions.

“At the undergraduate stage, students do start attending their classes in large number after their admission in colleges, but very soon they start bunking their classes. Most of them can be found in private coaching institutes, preparing for medical and engineering entrance tests. Even in arts subjects not more than 50 to 55% students attend their classes regularly,” said Patna College sociology department head Randhir Kumar Singh.
However, in other local colleges affiliated to Pataliputra University, the percentage of students attending their classes regularly is much less than PU colleges. “Not more than 30% admitted science students attend their classes regularly,” said Sri Arvind Mahila College zoology teacher Prem Kumari.
Eminent litterateur and senior Hindi teacher of the college Sheo Narain Singh admitted that hardly 30% girls of the college come to the class every day. “In fact, most of them are engaged in some other pursuits as our colleges fail to attract them. Lack of basic infrastructural facilities and dearth of qualified subject teachers prove great deterrents to the day scholars. The wide network of private coaching institutes spread throughout the length and breadth of the city refrain students from coming to their colleges,” he said.

Kirti, a professor of psychology at the local College of Commerce, Arts and Science, said 20 to 25% students admitted to the college attend their classes regularly. But, at the time of examinations, they start attending their classes and all of them are finally sent up for university examination. She pointed out that the guardians neither take proper care of their wards nor do the college authorities hold parent-teacher’ meet to discuss these problems.
T P S College botany department senior teacher Ram Das Prasad presented almost similar picture of students’ attendance in his college and said hardly 20% degree students attend their classes regularly. Some visit the college only on two occasions – at the time of admission and at the time of filling up the examination form. They don’t even recognize their subject teachers.
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