Patna, Dec. 21: Teachers of Patna University (PU) are in no mood to accept the new biometric attendance system that the government is mulling to introduce in all varsities and colleges of the state. They believe that instead of helping regularise the attendance process, it would make things difficult.

Randhir Kumar Singh, general secretary, Patna University Teachers’ Association, told The Telegraph that it was not feasible to introduce the biometric attendance system in PU as all the colleges under the university were not on the same campus. Teachers who need to travel between different campuses would find it inconvenient and time consuming.

He said: “Colleges under PU are scattered. Teachers have to move from department to department and one campus to another to take classes because many posts are vacant. For instance, if a teacher takes an undergraduate class at BN College and a postgraduate class at Darbhanga House, he has to cover a distance of 1km. Biometric attendance system will cause teachers a lot of inconvenience.

“Instead of planning to introduce biometric attendance system, the government should think of filling up the vacant posts.”

The vice-chancellor of the university, Shambhu Nath Singh, however, claimed that the biometric attendance system would not affect the academic activities but inculcate discipline among teachers and other employees.

The system will keep a record of the time each teacher spends in a college. According to University Grants Commission norms, a teacher has to spend a minimum of six hours in the institute concerned.

Senior PU teachers, however, feel that the new system would be an insult to their dignity. Some of them claimed that it would force senior academics to adhere to norms more suited for schoolchildren.

N.K. Choudhary, a senior teacher at the varsity, said: “The government should first introduce the biometric attendance system at the chief minister’s secretariat, ministers’ officers, and the chambers of the vice-chancellors and college principals.”

Despite the objections of the teachers, however, the state education department is going ahead with its plan to introduce the system.

Department secretary S. Shiv Kumar said: “We have floated tenders to purchase biometric attendance machines. Once the tender process is completed, the machines would be installed in all universities and colleges by March next year.”

He added: “As teachers are role models, they should have no complaint with introduction of biometric attendance system.”