No more food and bed courses: Telangana varsities to launch facial recognition-based attendance

Osmania University and other Telangana universities will introduce facial recognition-based attendance this academic year, ending the decades-old “food and bed” culture. Students must secure 75% attendance for tuition fee reimbursement and exams, with the new system also covering affiliated colleges and staff.

Hyderabad: Days of enrolling in the universities, including Osmania University, for ‘food and bed’ will soon come to an end. The State Universities are gearing up to roll out the facial recognition-based attendance system, doing away with age-old practice of records attendance in the registers, from this academic year.

For the last several decades, students have been taking admissions into the university campus colleges for a subsidized accommodation facility, along with mess for a three-time meal while preparing for competitive exams often skipping regular classes.

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The campus colleges have been tolerating this practice since long due to student politics and have been liberal in giving attendance to students.

For instance, the OU’s Arts College programmes such as Psychology, Journalism, Telugu, Sociology, Linguistics, and Philosophy are termed as food and bed courses among the university academic circles as students just enrol and prepare for competitive exams. But, the new attendance system will soon change the scenario.
After rolling out the new system, attendance will be linked to the tuition fee reimbursement scheme besides examination. As per the rules, students must have a minimum of 75 percent attendance to be eligible for fee reimbursement and to take the examination.

Students failing to meet the attendance criterion will not receive tuition fee reimbursement and they will not be allowed to sit for the exams, ultimately detaining them and they lose hostel admission as well.
Along with students in the university campus, constituent and affiliated colleges, the new initiative will be implemented for teaching and non-teaching staff.

The School and Intermediate Education departments have already rolled out the facial recognition system for attendance for all schools and junior colleges under their jurisdiction.

To take forward the initiative, the Telangana Council of Higher Education has convened a meeting with Vice Chancellors of 13 universities on Friday. Also on the meeting’s agenda is best practices for integration with existing student/staff databases, APAAR, ABC and Digital Locker.